Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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Europe - The Christmas Metal Symphony 2013 European tour blazed its way through Sweden, the Czech Republic and Germany to packed houses appreciating the metallic full force of the Magnum Opus Rockestra directed by Joost Van Den Broek, a collaboration between the Metalforce 1 band and a 32 piece Hungarian symphony orchestra.

The featured vocalists for 2013 were Michael Kiske (Helloween), Joey Belladonna (Anthrax), Chuck Billy (Testament), Joacim Cans (Hammerfall), Udo Dirkscheider (ex-Accept) and Floor Jansen from ReVamp and Nightwish.

Lighting this mix of metal mayhem was Nick van Balen, who is based in The Hague, The Netherlands ... an experienced designer with a particular penchant for lighting the various genres of rock music.

He chose to light the 2013 Christmas Metal Symp

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Foundation Funding - Andrew Lloyd Webber's charitable foundation has announced six grants, totalling more than £150,000, which will support apprenticeships within professional arts organisations.

Five theatre organisations and one music festival will receive funding. Shared Experience will receive £105,000 over three years to support one trainee director and producer per year via paid six-month apprenticeships; Tangled Feet will receive £14,000 over two years to help fund its participation programme for young people; Manchester Royal Exchange's Young Company will receive £10,000; Chickenshed will receive £15,000 towards its Young Creators Programme; Icon Theatre in Medway will receive £9,000; and the Lake District International Summer Music Festival will receive £10,000.

Since the Andrew Lloyd Webber Foundation was re-launched in 2011,

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Norway - When Ibsenhuset Theatre in Skien, Norway, was about to undergo a complete refurbishment, the technical managers looked for new lighting fixtures and controls that could take the theatre well into the 21st century. They ended up specifying over 100 ETC Selador Desire LED luminaires, along with two different - but connected - ETC Unison control systems.

The installation was complicated by the existing mix of DMX and DALI systems at the theatre, according to Benjamin Reinhoff, project manager at Elektrik Solutions, who supplied the products and helped with specification. "We installed two Unison Paradigm systems to control the new Selador LED lighting in the auditorium and around the stage area, as well as in nearby rehearsal and side rooms. There's also a new Mosaic processor for controlling the 600 DALI lights in the 800 square metre foyer, which is used as a perfor

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - Former European sales manager at City Theatrical, Alex Cowan, has taken up a new post in the sales department at staging equipment, set construction and studio hire company LS-Live, in Wakefield.

He brings to the role a wealth of experience in sales and new business development, having secured big wins in previous posts for a variety of entertainment industry companies such as HSL Group, Pixelrange and City Theatrical.

Said Cowan, "I visited LS-Live to discuss business and couldn't believe this top of the range facility. I've been all over the world and there is nothing else like this out there.

"As soon as people understand that they can get everything from under one roof, from set design to final construction and rehearsals in the studio, they won't use anyone else.

"My job is to ensure that when anyone thinks about touring and live events, whether th

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France - Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris is one of the most fashionable streets in the world, and it is here that the flagship store of Hermès is located. This famous luxury department store, dating back to the 18th century, recently decided to decorate its façade and called in the established Paris-based technology specialists Lumière et Son to help fulfil the project.

Offering close cooperation, SGM's French distributor, Sonoss, delivered 360 LB-100 LED Balls (measuring 30 x 12m). The company's product and project manager, Vincent Criulanscy, explains, "They were looking for a 'soft' kind of illumination; different from that of a Christmas tree - more elegant."

It is not the first time Lumière et Son has selected SGM fixtures for their projects. Previously, the SixPack LED blinder has been used to great effect for fashion shows by Yves Saint Lauren

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ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

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Greece - The leading AV turnkey installation and theatre sound specialist in Greece, Telmaco S.A., has installed the last ever Cadac R-type console in the landmark Thessaloniki Concert Hall.

The R-type was installed by the Athens based company in the main 500 seat Amphitheatron Hall, in the Thessaloniki Concert Hall's new M2 building, as part of a major turnkey project that included sound reinforcement, projection, conference and interpretation, video and audio relay, intercom and stage management systems. "The client requirement was for a console of the highest audio quality and reliability that was quick to install. The Cadac R-type fulfilled these demands better than any other comparable console," says Telmaco sales engineer, George Regginiotis.

Telmaco previously installed a Cadac S-type console in the central control room in the M2 building when it opened in 201

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USA - Preston Hoffman provided a dynamic lightshow with a difference for the third consecutive year at the annual Warren Haynes Christmas Jam. He decided to use GLP's new compact impression X4S almost exclusively, bolstered by few other discharge or conventional tungsten effects.

The Pulse Lighting designer is no stranger to GLP's impression series (or the U.S. Cellular Center, Asheville, NC where the show takes place). Last summer he pulled 12 of GLP's larger X4 fixtures for the Red Rocks show by Slightly Stoopid in Denver, so he knew all about the strength, intensity and flexibility of the lightweight LED sources.

For the 25th edition of Christmas Jam, Dizzy Gosnell at Bandit Lites' San Francisco office - described by Preston as "one of the best in the business" - provided 56 of GLP's X4S for the special Christmas show, enabling the technician to group 36, divided

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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

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.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

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UK - Stage Electrics' popular regional exhibition, hosted by the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, heads to the city of Cardiff on Friday 21 February. The one-day event aimed at schools, colleges, theatres, the arts, broadcast and entertainment includes over 25 industry leading manufacturers exhibiting their latest products in audio, lighting, video and staging in an intimate friendly environment.

The 2014 event welcomes new exhibitors, Allen & Heath, Chroma-Q, 5 Star Cases, Doughty and Robert Juliat, alongside Prolyte, Martin Professional by Harman, ETC, Avolites & Avolites Media, Le Maitre, Rosco, Philips Entertainment brands Selecon, Strand, & Vari-Lite, EM Acoustics, DiGiCo, Lee Filters, Sennheiser, Clay Paky, MA Lighting, Yamaha, ELC, Analog Way, Chauvet, Zero 88, Roland Systems Group, Pulsar, Swisson & Magic FX.

"We are looking forward to welcoming visitors to

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Israel - Waves Audio has announced the availability of its new Dugan Automixer plugin. Developed in association with sound engineering legend Dan Dugan, the Waves Dugan Automixer is a software version of the popular Dugan Speech System Automatic Mixing Controllers used the world over. Available for every console, the Dugan Automixer is MultiRack SoundGrid- and MultiRack Native-compatible and works on 32 or 64 channels.

Using Dugan's proprietary voice-activated process, the Waves Dugan Automatic Mixing Controller plugin automatically controls the gains of multiple live microphones in real time while preventing feedback and excessive noise pickup. Maintaining the gain of one mic in the room even when multiple speakers are talking simultaneously, it makes "perfectly matched transparent cross-fades".

Dugan notes, "People have been asking for a Dugan plugin for a lon

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Austria - One of Austria's Leading recording studio complexes, Prime Studios, tucked away in Mils near Innsbruck, has added a third control room, C , and a fourth live area to house its latest addition; a classic EMI TG12345 MkIV console, built originally for Abbey Road Studios. One of only two in the world, the console's twin is owned by producer Mike Hedges. Prime Studios opened in 2008 and is favoured by such producers and engineers as Chuck Ainlay, George Massenburg, Christian Seitz and Alfons Weindorf.

Studio C is acoustically separated from the main building and features a customised 5.1 surround reference sound system by Surrountec. All the cabling and connectors for the new installation is by Van Damme, specified and ordered from VDC Trading using their new online YouSpec system, now an integral part of the VDC website.

The cabling included 24 pairs of 7m Blue EDAC90 c

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The Netherlands - Christie reports that three of its products have been declared as fiinalists in the Technology section of the EMEA InAVation Awards 2014. The winners will be announced during the ISE trade show on Wednesday 5 February at the InAVate Awards evening, which brings together industry professionals from around the world at the Amsterdam Convention Factory to recognise outstanding achievement in AV.

The three Christie award entries are:Phoenix (Category #4 - Most InAVative Video Processing or Distribution Product); D4K with TruLife (Category #5 - Most InAVative Projector), and In Control & Virtual Remote apps (Category #10 - Most InAVative Integration Tool).

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Nexo has just a few places left on its forthcoming ETC1 training seminar, to be held in London 28-29 January. The venue is the youthful and dynamic Soho Theatre in Dean Street, making this seminar a particularly interesting one for theatre sound technicians.

Nexo's ETC programme offers convenient and affordable education, training and certification in general electroacoustic principles, and real-world practical operation of Nexo line array and point-source systems in the live production environment.

The foundation module, ETC1, has been designed for sound designers, engineers and technicians working with Nexo equipment. Taught by Nexo instructors, this two-day event progresses from theoretical classes in general acoustics, line array concepts and the case for point source systems, to practical hands-on training with Geo S12 line arrays.

Technical overviews of Nexo's pro

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USA - While the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) is dubbed the 'Wizards of Winter' for their heavy-metal holiday songs, show designer Bryan Hartley wears the magician's hat as well. He made this year's The Lost Christmas Eve tour a bigger production than last year with the amazing trick of shrinking it - making three trucks and extra generators simply disappear!

His secret? Switching from some standard lighting tools to over 100 pieces of Robe's smaller-brighter-lighter Robin series fixtures - Pointes, LEDBeam 100s and LEDWash 1200s... all supplied by VER in Los Angeles.

TSO's $20m-plus production has performed for more than 7m people in over 80 U.S. cities in the short duration of this leg of the tour (under seven weeks). Because of the show's popularity during the short holiday season, they created duplicate productions to simultaneously tour the East and West coasts of

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UK - Source Distribution has announced a further expansion of its salesforce through the appointment of Tim Gray as commercial audio sales manager.

This newly created position is in direct response to Source's growing presence in the commercial audio market sector, and will have particular emphasis on the PreSonus StudioLive AI range of digital mixers and active PA loudspeakers, Genelec's AV Install series of loudspeakers, RØDE's live sound and headset microphones, Eventide digital effects processors and outboard products from Universal Audio, API and Lynx. Based in the field and covering the whole of the UK, Tim's role will be to develop and manage a growing network of live sound dealers, rental companies and AV installers.

Gray started his career in technical sales at Shuttlesound, progressed to the role of sound reinforcement manager at Arbiter (with responsibility f

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UK - Yamaha has announced new firmware and application software for its MTX Series matrix processors - a core component of the Commercial Installation Solutions (CIS) range - a key benefit of which is making the MTX-5D seamlessly compatible with the MY4-AEC echo cancelling and Dugan-MY16 auto microphone mixing interface cards.

Designed specifically for the commercial installation market, the CIS series comprises an expanding range of loudspeakers, multi-channel power amplifiers and the MTX matrix processors.

Previously available for use primarily with Yamaha's DME Series digital mixing engines, the Dugan-MY16 optimises the gain distribution of multiple faders simultaneously, allowing sound engineers to focus on their mix rather than being preoccupied with microphone levels. The MY4-AEC Echo Canceller eliminates unwanted acoustic echo caused by secondary signals of speaker outp

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USA - The Music Group has announced the appointment of Greg McLagan as AVP, Business Development Professional Division, who will be in charge of developing business strategy and action plans to grow the Pro Division's global footprint. The appointment is effective 13 January 2014.

Prior to joining Music Group, McLagan held top management positions at QSC, Renkus Heinz and Mark IV.

"I am honoured to have Greg join the Music Group team," said Shawn Watts, VP of global sales Professional Division. "We are making preparations to launch the largest and most comprehensive line of products in the history of our Pro Division. Greg's knowledge and expertise will be instrumental in the continued development of our global market presence."

Greg McLagan commented, "I am very excited to take this new responsibility to grow Music Group sales from a global perspect

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The Netherlands - Elation Professional will show a spread of new products at ISE in Amsterdam next month on Stand 11-H45.

On display will be two low wattage yet high-output moving head luminaires, the Platinum Wash 16R Pro and the Rayzor Beam 2R, both powered by Platinum lamp technology. In Elation's line of innovative LED lighting, the multi-functional Protron LED Strobe, as well as a pair of dynamic white LED luminaires, the DW Fresnel and DW Profile, will also be on display.

Platinum Wash 16R Pro: Featuring the new 1,500-hour Platinum MSD 16R lamp from Philips (330W, 16,000 lumens), this versatile moving head functions as both a beam and wash luminaire. It is loaded with features such as CMY color mixing plus fixed colors, 6.5-48° motorized zoom, beam shaper, shutter/dimmer and has an EWDMX receiver built in. Compact yet powerful, output is comparable to 1,000 watt unit

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UK - A year after the purchase of the ASP4816 for its Fulham studios, Tech Music School London has invested in another Audient console: the large format ASP8024. As with the first one, this latest 24-channel desk with integrated Dual Layer Control (DLC) was supplied by educational technology experts Academia, and according to head of production, Johan Englund, is "...a great sounding desk."

BA (Hons) Music Production degree students spend the most time learning their craft with the Audient desks; in fact the individual courses, Recording Skills and Mixing & Audio Production II were both written with the Audient consoles in mind. "The main features that make the Audient an excellent tool for education is the easy to understand signal path & routing system along with great preamps," explains Englund. "Its straightforward signal path makes it very easy to t

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Malta - Since the first terminal building was constructed back in 1956, Malta International Airport has seen continued development as air traffic has increased. One of the latest facilities is the SkyParks Business Centre, where Denon Professional audio equipment is helping to keep the Mediterranean island's executives fit and healthy.

Despite Malta's comparatively small size, frequent direct flights to many European destinations mean that customer expectations have risen in line with airport facilities on the mainland. Opened last year, the SkyParks Business Centre is a mixed office, retail and leisure development which equals anything that other European airports can offer.

The Sky Spirit Fitness Lounge is its latest facility, opened in October, featuring state of the art equipment and fitness programmes. Audiovisual equipment was installed by Fgura-based Futuretech, who ins

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World - Lighting and stage designer Andy Hurst is utilising the razor-bright beam of the Clay Paky Sharpy for electronic dance music duo Chase and Status's first ever arena tour.

Inspired by the dance clubs of the nineties Hurst has put together a theatrical stage design of curvaceous trusses and Clay Paky fixtures, provided by Blackburn based hire company HSL, along with a set backed by five large video screens.

"The feeling of the new album is kind of nineties so I went for that look in my design," explains Hurst. "I remember how all the clubs were designed in circles, loads of circular tread plate everywhere so I have rigged lots of curved trusses on stage to give it that nineties rave sort of feel.

"I chose the Sharpys because I needed a small, lightweight fixture that was easy to rig but can still produce a bright enough beam to punch through all the

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Germany - New Year's Eve in Berlin! Silvester is one of the largest New Year's Eve parties in the world, attracting around one million people to the city's famous Brandenburg Gate to hear international stars on a variety of show stages, and of course to see the fireworks display.

For several years, Berlin-based rental company artecom Veranstaltungs GmbH has favoured Nexo systems for this event, which involves long throws over the 1.5 km 'party mile', very large crowds and extensive networking demands. To ring in 2014, artecom chose to put Nexo's new modular line array, the STM Series, onto the main stage at Platz de 18.Marz in front of the Brandenburg Gate, using Nexo geo D and Geo S systems for the other two stages and for delays.

Twenty four sets of Nexo STM were used for the main stage PA, comprising 24x M46 Main and 24x B112 Bass cabinets flown left and right, with 24x S11

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Astera - Large MPU - June 2025
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