UK - GDS has reported "phenomenal success" at this year's PLASA show held at the Earls Court Exhibition Centre. GDS reported a high footfall over the four day event with particular interest being paid to the newest addition to the successful LiteWare Range, LiteWare Satellite and the new ArcSystem, LED Auditorium Lighting System.

Sunday saw the eagerly awaited launch of the LiteWare Satellite, following a successful teaser ad campaign customers flocked to the GDS stand to see its latest offerings. LiteWare Satellite is the newest member of the LiteWare family and provides a completely flexible new way of thinking for battery based Luminaries, it incorporates a remote, fully adjustable head offering 360 degree pan and 180 degree tilt.

Monday and Tuesday continued to deliver success for GDS with ArcSystem winning an unprecedented three awards; the PLASA Award for Innov

UK - Formula Sound has announced the appointment of CUK Audio as exclusive distributor of Formula Sound products in the UK and Eire. CUK Audio will be an integral part of the brand development programme recently put in place by the management of Formula Sound with new product releases, a new marketing and PR package and an expansion of their international business.

Stuart Thomson, MD of CUK Audio commented, "Formula Sound is a highly respected, technically innovative brand which complements our existing portfolio and expands our capability as a complete system provider in the market sectors we serve. The products are well known for their outstanding audio quality and reliability and we believe that we can add value and enhance sales by providing the first class technical back up and support that is the foundation of CUK Audio's business."

Devshi Gami from Formula Sou

UK - M-Sport, the organisation chosen by the Ford Motor Company to mastermind the assault on the World Rally Championship, recently commissioned Litestructures (Prolyte Group's brand team dedicated to custom projects) to design and manufacture a modular touring infrastructure centre.

The Litestructures team fully designed, built and kitted out the structure, which includes a full size, fully fitted catering kitchen, toilets, air-conditioning and an integrated AV system. The structure had to be portable to allow transportation between events, but equally, as a key part of the company's branding, it had to have outstanding visual impact.

A clear requisite was that every area had a solid quality, giving an almost permanent feel, whilst the deployment should be restricted to three days for a crew of no more than eight operatives.

When fully assembled, the structure measures 16m

UAE - Ferry Corsten, voted as one of the top 10 DJs in the world over the past decade, recently played live at the Dubai World Trade Centre to an audience of thousands with a set of Sennheiser HD 25 Originals at his side.

"Ferry Corsten treated music fans to an enthralling set. The HD 25 Originals were a perfect match for the event, proving once again that they are a real standard for professional DJs with their mix of high SPL, excellent sound quality, superb noise-isolation and unrivalled comfort, ensuring that Ferry Corsten's show was not only flawless, but truly mesmerizing," commented Mig Cardamone, business area manager at Sennheiser Middle East.

Supporting the techno-house DJ at the event were Radio 1's Greg Stainer and Real Events' Marky Marc. As well as supporting the DJ's at the event, Sennheiser had some active listening stations for the revellers who atte

UK - Midas digital fan Ian Bond, owner of Midas PRO6 serial number 007, has become one of the first clients to purchase both a PRO2 and a PRO2C live audio system.

Bond has purchased one each of the new Midas digital models for his rental company, IPB Audio. "I initially saw some drawings, and as usual, gave my feedback to (designer) Alex Cooper," he says. "One of the great things about Midas is that they always listen to people's opinions. The price of the PRO2 means that there's going to be a lot of people who can afford to have a Midas digital console and, importantly for me, people who can now afford to rent it. They can now have the same sound as an XL8 for a lot less money. It's going to shake things up a bit."

Bond has used his PRO6 extensively on FOH for Porcupine Tree, so it's fitting that the first job for the PRO2 is a solo tour with the band's gu

Poll Toppers - Coldplay have been voted the best festival headliner of 2011, in an online poll conducted by BBC 6 Music. The band - who headlined Glastonbury and T In The Park - topped the survey with 22.7% of votes cast, breakfast show host Shaun Keaveny announced. US rock band The National came in second with 14.2%, while Muse were third with 13.9%.

Coldplay's drummer Will Champion told 6 Music playing festivals gave the band "a chance to win people over". He added, "There's also a strong possibility that people have already made their mind up about you - and no matter how well you play they're not going to be happy about it." Glastonbury, which also saw U2 and Beyonce play headline slots in June, is taking a fallow year in 2012.

In The Saleroom - The Beatles showed their support for the US civil rights movement by refusing to play in front of segr

USA - McCoy-Rigby's recently-launched national tour of Peter Pan hit the road with all-new lighting rig, supplied by Pacific Coast Entertainment (Huntington Beach, CA).

Working with the show's lighting designer Michael Gilliam, PCE put together a complement of automated spot, wash and specialty fixtures that included Elation Professional's DesignWash 1400E 1,200-watt DMX moving head wash and Power Spot 700 CMY-II 700-watt DMX moving head spot.

The tour, which will run through 2013, marks a reprisal of the production, starring Tony Award-nominee Cathy Rigby in the title role of this classic tale about a boy who can fly and magically refuses to grow up. Olympic gymnast-turned-actor Rigby, who co-owns the production company with her husband Tom McCoy, has been playing Peter Pan since the early 1990s.

"This show is a juggernaut," said PCE's Ryan Steidinger. &quo

UK - When ETC introduced its iRFR (Radio Focus Remote for iPhone and iPod Touch) two years ago, Luke Delwiche from ETC Tech Services in London suggested that the profits be shared between Light Relief and its US equivalent, Behind the Scenes. Little did his bosses realise just how much this would amount to.

At PLASA 2011, Delwiche presented Light Relief trustee Rick Fisher with a cheque for £12,458, collected over the previous 12 months. A similar amount of money will be presented to Behind the Scenes at the LDI show in October this year. These two cheques bring the total raised by the sale of the iRFR application to a staggering $86,000.

Delwiche was obviously delighted that his idea has paid off so handsomely, while CEO Fred Foster said,"One of the nicest aspects is that each individual who has found our iRFR to be a useful tool has helped raise this money. Chris

USA - Cold rain didn't dampen the spirits of the 60,000-person crowd who came to enjoy the free 15 September concert, Andrea Bocelli - Live in Central Park. But the 55-acre Great Lawn left many at a distance from the stage. So Pete's Big TVs was hired to bring the action up close to the masses via their video equipment.

Pete's Big TVs provided upstage projection and video screens on six delay towers. Two Christie Roadster HD30+ projectors provided upstage projection. A ton of fibre optic cables fed the video signals to the six delay towers, outfitted with six video screens, which provided up-close views of the action for the crowds throughout the Great Lawn. The delay screens were created from 610 high resolution flex LED panels - a mix of 15mm and 20mm screens. Though it rained steadily, the equipment performed flawlessly as it was designed for outdoor operation.

Worki

France - In a transaction made official on 5 September 2011, Digigram has formally acquired Ecrin Video & Broadcast, a division of Ecrin Systems based in Crolles near Grenoble, France. The move heralds Digigram's entry into the video market with the acquisition of Ecrin V&B's product portfolio and the specialized team behind it, who will be integrated into the Digigram team at Digigram's HQ in Montbonnot, also near Grenoble.

Ecrin Video & Broadcast is a designer and manufacturer of professional video compression solutions to transport video content over IP. Supporting all standards for broadcast, IPTV, WebTV and Telco operations, from HD to low bit rate formats, Ecrin V&B's streaming encoder, decoder, transcoder and archiving systems are designed to be the bridge between video media and the IP world.

"The acquisition of Ecrin Video & Broadcast which opens the door for Dig

UK - Yorkshire based digital system designers, 53 Degrees Ltd, have recently installed the first UK video wall using a new eco friendly video wall product launched earlier this year by Samsung. The video wall was installed at the Timberland Flagship store within the newly opened Westfield Stratford City shopping centre in East London.

The International apparel retailer, turned to the Leeds based company to help fulfill the brief that was to "bring the Timberland concept store to life through an engaging and emotional approach".

The giant video wall using the new Samsung screens, measuring 6.2m x 3.5m (36 x 46" screens), designed and installed by the company plays an integral part of the new Daiziel & Pow designed store and is used to showcase the latest seasonal outdoor experience stories. The large display screen takes centre stage on a recessed bulkhead at the

Belgium - Genelec has announced the appointment of Apex n.v. as its new distributor for professional monitoring equipment in Belgium and Luxemburg. The new partnership was officially launched at IBC 2011 in Amsterdam.

"We are delighted to welcome Apex to our distribution network," says Jarmo Masko, area sales manager at Genelec. "For a while, we have been looking for a strong player with roots in professional audio that can also effectively serve the important broadcast market and the MI dealer network. Apex fits the bill perfectly. They have an excellent track record in all these markets and understand the demands of working in Belgium where the language and cultural differences can make it difficult for an outsider to penetrate."

Headed up by Paul van Hees MD and RikHoerée, sales director, Apex numbers 20 staff, whose skills combine technical exper

South Africa - Loudspeaker manufacturer HK Audio continues to make inroads into the South African event and sound market.

South Africa's only independent Vehicle Sales Academy, Innermation, has invested in the HK Audio Elements speaker system which was supplied by authorised dealer The Sound Shop.

"We were looking for a scalable system that would suit the multimedia needs in our lecture rooms, with the ability of then matching the components together to form one large system for our road shows," commented Stefan Vermaak, founder and head of Innermation.

"After doing some research I discovered the HK Audio Elements system, which suits our requirements to a tee. The coverage and sound clarity that you get from the Elements system is astounding - better than many systems I have previously worked with."

"The folk at Innermation were totally impressed w

Italy - Presented in the Italian cave Grotte di Castellana, Hell in the Cave depicts anguished residents of the tragic underworld in Dante's epic poem Inferno. Rather than using a single stage, the creators of the show take the unorthodox approach to bring the audience through scenes in separate grottoes.

While visitors enjoy an immersive dramatic experience, the equipment supporting the presentation must endure a hostile environment through a long subterranean performance season. The sound designer chose a reinforcement system of 14 Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers.

"The biggest challenge inside the cave is the humidity, which is always close to 90%, combined with rapid temperature changes that result from the large opening in the roof," explains Giuseppe Saponari, sound designer for the production and president of Officina Musicale. "Yet des

UK - London-based lighting rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) supplied lighting to the main stage and four other areas - Swamp Shack, Wishing Tree, Rizla and The Production Office - at the 2011 Bestival festival on the Isle of Wight.

Bestival is a truly eclectic and eccentric universe of entertainment, fun, sociality, music and live performance - from psyco-chic afternoon teas to Bollywood, wooded grottos, numerous fantasy worlds, banging dance environments and a diverse main stage live line up, this year headlined by Pendulum, The Cure and Bjork. There is something for everyone of all ages and tastes at one of the final events on the UK festival calendar, staged in the fabulous grounds of Robin Hill Country Park curated by BBC Radio 1's Rob Da Bank.

For Colour Sound, it topped off a super-hyperactive festival season, with lighting, scenic LED screens and crew sup

UK - When Norwich Family Life Church moved into their new premises recently, they found they needed an in-house PA system to match. The church approached installation experts Moonlite Productions for guidance, and the Aylesbury-based firm had no hesitation in recommending a nine-box Tannoy VQ Live and VNET system.

"The in-house sound engineer at the church has the challenge of delivering high sound pressure levels from bands, choirs and of course preachers to quite a sizeable audience," says James Iyengar, Moonlite's managing director he says, "so his choice was Tannoy VQ Live and VNET."

Tannoy VQ Live and VNET systems are designed for installations such as churches, seminar rooms and mid-large halls because they provide a very simple single box solution which can generate the same SPL as a compact line array, but, with the beauty of an evenly controlled co

The Netherlands - Christie used the occasion of 'The IBC Big Screen' theatre screenings at RAI Amsterdam to deliver the world's first mass-audience demonstration of a 3D High Frame Rate (HFR) D-Cinema system using a single projector - the Christie Solaria Series CP2230 projector - in combination with other currently-available components.

"The RealD XL Cinema System and International Datacasting's SuperFlex Pro Cinema Event Player (PCEP) are available today, along with Christie's DLP® projectors, providing cinema owners and content owners with the foundation they need to realize new revenue streams from the projection of 'alternative content' sporting and theatrical events in 3D HFR," said Dr. Don Shaw, director, product management for Christie's Entertainment Solutions division.

Content showing the world-famous Cavalia equestrian production company in action was

UK - Over 9,000 people attended the first ever Music On The Hill festival on the weekend of 24-26 June at Kings Hill in Kent. Despite rain, over 3,000 people watched Katherine Jenkins perform with Wynne Evans on Friday, followed by the biggest crowd on Saturday for McFly and the Sugababes. Family Sunday was a great success, with performances from Stacey Solomon, Björn Again, ABC, Ben Mills and others entertaining the crowds, with hosting by Capital FM's Dave Berry.

Another outing in what has turned into a busy summer season for UK rental company Subfrantic, Music on the Hill presented some challenges in terms of less than perfect weather and some tight audio restrictions, but the company's Flex Array coped well and pleased the organisers with perfect coverage and excellent sound quality.

In what is now a favoured system configuration for the company, Subfrantic's Steve Davies

Germany / Belgium - Berlin-based AFMG (Ahnert Feistel Media Group) reached an important milestone recently when Belgian manufacturer APart Audio became the 100th pro audio company to enter its loudspeakers into the EASE database.

"We're very proud to have reached this level of participation," said Stefan Feistel, AFMG's managing director. "EASE has become an industry standard not only because of its advanced and accurate calculation engine, but because designers can simulate and evaluate a wide range of products. With its emphasis on meeting the full range of customer requirements through continual R&D efforts, APart is the perfect company to become the 100th member of the EASE community."

For APart, the major investment in EASE data measurement is an opportunity to win additional projects. Kris Vermuyten, sales and marketing director for APart, declared &q

Poland - Two Iconyx digitally steerable loudspeaker systems and a building-wide digital audio network have been provided for Poland's most historic building by M. Ostrowski Company, system integrator and Renkus-Heinz distributor for Poland.

Built between 1518-1619 as the residence of Sigismund III Vasa of Poland, Warsaw's Royal Castle has a rich and turbulent history. An imposing Baroque building by the river Vistula, the castle was fought over and repeatedly plundered by the Brandenburgian and Swedish armies. Having been rebuilt several times in the 18th century, it was almost completely destroyed by the Nazis in 1944.

Thirty years later, the fabric of the building had been reconstructed, and 1988 saw the entire refurbishment completed. The imposing façade, facing Castle Square, is 90m long, with Sigismund's Tower forming a magnificent centrepiece, flanked by two smaller spi

Japan - Earlier this year the Japanese city of Fukushima became known worldwide due to the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant caused by the earthquake and tsunami.

In order to boost the moral of the population of this area, a music and arts festival called Project Fukushima has been established as is set to continue on a long-term basis. Musicians and poets who were born and raised in Fukushima gathered together for this very special occasion.

The Fukushima event and festival featured the musical artistry of Japanese greats like Otomo Yoshihide, Michiro Endo, and the award-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto.

One highlight of the event was the performance by a 300 member free-jazz 'orchestra', made up of professional and amateur musicians, all playing their hearts out to show their support for the people of Fukushima.

RCF, supported by local distributor Ballad Co

India - 10 Lounge is the latest venture launched by the iconic Hyderabad pub 10 Downing Street and a proud component of the 10 Downing group. 10D, as it's affectionately known by regulars, has been a pioneer on the local pubbing scene since its initial appearance in 1989. Styled along the lines of English public houses and blended with Indian hospitality, 10D's signature is one of welcoming ambience, sophisticated interiors and friendly service.

Turbosound's Indian distributor Narain Proaudio Lighting Pvt Ltd was once again called upon to design and install a high-end Turbosound system of TCS Contracting loudspeakers at 10 Lounge. Narain has already completed four venues for the popular club chain in Raipur, Jabalpur, Bhopal, and now at 10 Lounge at Secunderabad, making a significant mark on the party circuit.

The most recent 10 Lounge venture is a more up-market nightclub, ai

UK - A lighting designer and programmer from Tel Aviv, Israel has been named the winner of Clay Paky's Win-a-Sharpy competition at the recent PLASA show in London.

Alon Cohen, 41, said it was a "huge surprise" to hear his name called out over the public address system at the Earls Court exhibition.

"I was so happy, I couldn't believe it. I thought someone was having a laugh," said Cohen who was one of almost 2000 PLASA attendees to try their luck at winning a Sharpy by playing a pair of specially customized slot machines at the Clay Paky stand.

The vintage machines had been carefully restored by Clay Paky president Pasquale Quadri, a long-time collector and slot machine enthusiast.

Alon Cohen was at PLASA in his new role as product manager for lighting console maker Compulite Systems. "It was almost not to be," said Cohen. "I've only been

Turkey - Stageco provided the festival stages for Rock'n Coke and the Fanta Youth Festival in Istanbul this summer.

Rock'n Coke took place on 16-17 July at Hezarfen Airfield. The popular festival, which has been running since 2003, attracts major international artists which this year included Limp Bizkit, Motorhead, Moby, Travis, Paolo Nutini and Skunk Anansie.

An audience of over 50,000 people attended, with the main stage capacity catering for 25,000 fans at any one time. Stageco provided its 18m by 14.5m Boogdak stage system, incorporating two PA wings with in-built video screens.

Uluc Dundar, production director at Rock'n Coke, said, "The Boogdak roof provides perfect clearance and width of performance area for the artists. The PA wings adds to the quality of the artist's performances and helps to make the festival a big event in our territory.

"We have used

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