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14 March 2016

It was the largest amount of screen supplied to date to the festival with which XL has been involved for the last five years via creative and technical production specialists, LarMac LIVE. The production values for this year's event were significantly increased following excellent results last year and to keep at the forefront of the vibrant European festival scene.

Three XL project managers - Steve Greetham, Paul "Macca" McCauley and Connie Glover - co-ordinated the project on site due to its scale and the tight timescale.

Around 70,000 dance music fans enjoyed an impressive

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14 March 2016

Perm-based lighting and sound company Lightmaster was contracted to head the sound system design and installation for the event. The sound technicians were faced with the challenge of designing a system that would stand up to the power and magnitude of Moscow's massive Olympic Stadium. After studying the particular features of the venue Lightmaster opted to fly the entire system from

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14 March 2016

Dedicated to the production - and co-production - of artists, Jean-Christian prides himself in offering a different service to that of standard commercial studios. "We prefer to work on projects that we record and mix, so that we can maximize the synergy and efficiency," says Jean-Christian. "The bulk of our work is recommended by word-of-mouth and are mostly jazz and classical music, but more recently we have also had some pop/rock.

"The Audient ASP8024 console is exactly what we were looking for because it suits the way we work in both the analogue and digital domains. We use a wide range of software and hardware outboard and therefo

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14 March 2016

Colour Sound's team was again led by crew chief Jon Rickets, and they all worked closely with creative and technical production specialists LarMac LIVE to achieve spectacular results as the clubbing event, which sold out to its 70,000 capacity, pushed new heights of production excellence. Colour Sound has enjoyed an association with Creamfields since the first event in 1998.

Now a global brand of huge significance in the buzzing world of EDM, this year the line-up included open air stage headliners Avicii and deadmau5 (Saturday) plus Calvin

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14 March 2016

Entertainment Workshops educates young people of secondary school age, in the technical skills of production, video, audio and lighting, with a view to creating the next generation of technicians, designers and sales representatives for the Entertainment Technology industry. As a charity, EW relies on the support of patrons in the industry to ensure students learn best practices on the latest industry-standard equipment - and so EW welcomes you all to meet the students at this successful time.

The Open Day will showcase the EW charity's students past and present, as they demonstrate com

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14 March 2016

Corporate, commercial, local, global, front of house, back of house, consultancy, delivery, advice, support - GMG Network has it covered, says the company.

"GMG has created an environment whereby all those associated with their network can benefit from the knowledge within," says director Matt Green. "Be it an event concept looking for a creative edge, an event planner looking for a technical solution, a conference looking for a sponsor or a roadshow looking for venues. GMG Network is your network."

Having spent years working for others across all aspects of the global live event industry, including a recent period at Eclipse Presentations, directors Matt Green, Jayne McFahn and John Gibson thought "the time was right to c

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14 March 2016

The event took place on 30 August at the National Stadium in Warsaw, and was the biggest sports event organized this year at this venue.

Within the set design by Giorgios Stylianou, 300sq.m of different LED curtains were installed, including 24 multimedia cylinders symbolizing each participating country in the tournament, as well as stage located on the stadium's stand.

Some of the regular LED cabinets has been modified to fit the set perfectly. Additionally, six screens were provided to present the actual results and display the match. All the multimedia was run by the Catalyst v.4HD media serves controlled via GrandMA 2 desk and Barco FSN-150.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Longtime ETC customer and owner of Coventry Lighting John Coventry knew this all too well, which is why he called upon ETC's testing services in the middle of a big lighting installation for the newly redesigned concert hall in Gaillard Auditorium in South Carolina. "ETC responded unflappably to my frantic phone call," explains John Coventry. "They had a great response time."

The LED fixture that Coventry wanted to test was from Cooledge Lighting, a manufacturer that specialises in

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14 March 2016

In regard to Sofitel hotel, a five star hotel with a total of 163 rooms located on the prestigious Avenida da Liberdade in the Portuguese capital, a sound system was installed covering three different spaces with a generic individual control and mix with Work Pro products; in particular, Digiline MX digital processors were used for the audio distribution (one per room) plus a fourth device that takes care of the mix.

Each room has IC 6 PRO ceiling speakers and a PA 240 USB/R amplifier, which integrates the amplification and the audio source. Because of the requirements of the installation, one of the rooms needed a highe

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14 March 2016

It was only a few years ago when managing director Neil Trenell was working single-handedly on projects and events using Hippotizer. These days his company employs 10 staff and owns more than 30 Hippotizer units, which have been used to run an average of 120 shows and events each year.

In the last couple of years FIX8Group has hired a few talented and experienced designers and programmers. Two years ago Nick Charalampidis, formerly of Green Hippo, joined FIX8Group as technical manager. And more recently, since early 2014 John Montague is bringing extensive experience and a long history in video design, programming and visual production to the company.

For a corporate event in Tenerife, FIX8Group created a huge immersive 360-degree projection screen which allowed 1400 de

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14 March 2016

Broadcasting from the company's showroom in the Czech Republic, Josef Valchar, CEO of Robe, described the BMFL as "The best fixture we have ever made".

"We have listened to the wishes and needs of lighting designers, rental companies and technicians from every corner of the industry, all around the world. We really believe we have created a product that will deliver both good short- and long-term returns on your investment."

"It is a big, powerful light or large venues, with a big, fat front lens full of light. Because of its relatively small size, it can be used for any application in TV, theatres or concert venues."

More than three years in development, the BMFL i

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14 March 2016

Osborne said: "Regional productions have dropped off over many years - even though the West End has been very strong in London - and I want to change that around. I want to make sure we get the benefit of our great theatre industry and our culture felt all over the country. More job opportunities for those working in the theatre sector as well as those working in the tourist industry

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14 March 2016

This year, long-time Primavera audio provider Twin Cam Audio specified L-Acoustics for five of the festival's seven stages. Right from the beginning, Twin Cam's technical director, Juan Cid worked hand in hand with L-Acoustics touring application engineer Frédéric Bailly, to jointly design all five stages.

Twin Cam chose Primavera to debut their newly acquired compact and lightweight K2 audio system. K1 along with K2 provided the one-two audio punch enabling them to offer a more powerful, accurate and versatile system than previously.

The core main stage setup (Sony Stage) was flown wit

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14 March 2016

Despite attracting top calibre artists and events, Brian Campbell, event services manager at the Odyssey Arena said, "The venue, which opened in 2001, is always looking at ways to evolve and to keep up with the demands of the events industry. We wanted to make ourselves more flexible, with smaller half hall formats and theatre formats, so we sought the help of the professionals and called in Unusual Rigging."

Working alongside drape company Acre Jean, the Unusual team, headed by Robin Elias, put together a spec for the installation of runner beams in the venue which could cope with the span be

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14 March 2016

More than 75,000 people attended Godiva 2014 to watch headline acts including Happy Mondays, Lightning Seeds, and Buzzcocks.

"The Sapphire Touch works well on a festival due to the many faders and easy to read touch screens," says Nyholm. "It's very intuitive, so any LD can use it within a few minutes of turning up. The many faders work well on a festival/busking situation, where you need to be able to grab anything very quickly."

Avolites' Sapphire Touch allows ultrafast programming with two wide screen touch monitors offering a huge workspace area, and 45 motorised master faders.

"The console features a very

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14 March 2016

The Fringe is renowned as a difficult taskmaster on both equipment and staff alike. A month of relentless hard work, with shows continually playing from morning through to the early hours of the following day, staff have to grab sleep where they can and equipment is invariably left powered up for the duration.

Add into that mix many of the venues are in 'found' spaces, or parts of university buildings, that aren't designed for live shows and the size of the task becomes even more apparent.

"It's a

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14 March 2016

According to manager of the Pro Audio Department, Igor Kovalev, the 12-year-old Moscow-based company will be providing Optocore solutions to their two core markets: sound reinforcement (theatres, concert halls, live events) and broadcast.

In addition to their formal distribution arrangement with Optocore, Audio Solutions say they are also working on a major project, using sister company BroaMan solutions for delivering scalable customised solutions for clients requiring SD/HD/3G video routing.

Kovalev states that adding Optocore to the company's brand portfolio was an obvious step. "It represents a good price/performance ratio when compared with other brands, along with amazing flexibility / scalability and extremely high sound quality. It will allo

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14 March 2016

The deal will see Prase Engineering, located in Venice, become the primary contact for all three brands in the country from September, with exclusive access to extensive library of Lab.gruppen and Lake amplification and processing products adding to their exclusive access to high performance loudspeaker ranges from Tannoy.

Ennio Prase, CEO of Prase Engineering, commented: "We have had a very strong working relationship with TC Group via the Tannoy brand for some time, so it is a joy to finally add products from Lab.gruppen and Lake to the offering for our customers. Both of these brands have a strong reputation for quality, and we look forward

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14 March 2016

The success of the PLASA National Rigging Certificate has increased the number of qualified riggers in the industry. Freelancers who wish to take the PLASA National Rigging Certificate at Level 2 have found it difficult to gain enough experience to get to the point where they are ready to be assessed because many venues won't allow them to work unless qualified.

The Trainee Rigger Scheme has been created as a result of demand from rigging companies, the Riggers Forum, venues, seminars and individual riggers who felt that extra help was needed to prepare new entrants to the industry to gain the levels of experience in order to register and achieve the National Rigging Certificate Level 2.

PLASA, are therefore developing a way in which those who wish to purs

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14 March 2016

Named in honour of the late Tony Gottelier, the industry innovator and commentator who passed away in 2006, the Gottelier Award is for our industry's product developers who have made significant and sustained contributions to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology - whether in audio, lighting, rigging, staging, or any other related field.

The nominees for 2014 are:

Richard Belliveau

As one of the co-founders of Texas-based lighting manufacturer High End Systems, and still leading the company's product developments today, Belliveau has been behind a long line of successful products from the company, from the Color Pro,

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14 March 2016

Handling the lighting for the project was PRG EML Productions in Utrecht. Under direction of production manager Martijn Roosen, W-DMX was used to create a wireless link between the Viskmart stage and Martini Tower, a church nearly 700m away. The network distribution was based on Art-Net with nodes and switches from ELC Lighting.

Martijn said, "ELC Lighting is always my first port of call on any job. I have been using ELC products for over seven years now - in fact we use them as

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14 March 2016

The station has a strong focus on cultural programming, such as a programmes dedicated to specific types of performance like wayang puppet theatre. Recently it has been broadening its horizons with reality shows, talk programmes and drama series'. For those reality shows and singing competitions a highly reliable and powerful lighting control solution was needed - a grandMA2.

Lighting designer Hadi Suroso specified a grandMA2 light: "Having used the console for the first time during the 2011 Southeast Asian Games in Palembang, it h

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14 March 2016

One of the distinctive features of Indian cinema is the importance given to song and dance in the plots - it is what gives the films their unique flavour and a primary reason for their popularity. Maintaining this popularity requires continuing excellence in sound track and background score production of which the audio engineering process is a key element. One of the leading figures in the field is KJ Singh (Kanwarjit Singh Sawhney), a recipient of many major industry awards for his audio engineering work.

KJ Singh is based in Mumbai and has had long and fruitful working partnerships with many figures in the Indian film industry, including A. R. Rahmann, t

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14 March 2016

Digital Revolution: An immersive exhibition of art, design, film, music and videogames, which opened on 3 July and which closes on 14 September, is described as "an immersive exhibition of art, design, film, music and videogames" and "the most comprehensive presentation of digital creativity ever to be staged in the UK". The exhibition will tour the world after its London run.

The BrightSign media player is normally deployed in digital signage applications. It is, however, characterised by its ability to deliver content to a screen with absolute accuracy and reliability, and this capability was critical for the designers of Digital Revolution, 59 Productions.

"We specif