Denmark - NEXT-proaudio, recently supplied the sound reinforcement setup for the Club Awards in Denmark. The whole sound system was provided by the Danish Rental Company Showtech Event Group.

Showtech Event Group from Denmark increased its NEXT-proaudio inventory two months ago, having recently purchased a large quantity of NEXT LA212x and Las418 cabinets from the Portuguese manufacturer.

Sound reinforcement for the Club Awards comprised models from the manufacturer's LA Series, with a total of 16 LA212x, 16 LAs418 as FOH, 28 LA122 as out-fill and delay system, eight LA122W, two Las218 as front-fill and DJ Monitoring, eight Lam112x as stage monitors were used on this edition of Club Awards which was staged at Ballerup Super Arena in front of more than 8000 people. The event was broadcast on MTV the following week.

"This show is the biggest of its kind in Denmark. ShowT

USA - In the first week of May, the cluster of live entertainment companies located in Lititz PA partnered with the non-profit Keep The Beat Alive in order to certify over 60 staff members in CPR, AED device and active shooter training.

"Rock Lititz is on the leading edge of reducing cardiac deaths in touring professionals. Rock Lititz gets it," said Dr. Damian Brezinski, president of Keep The Beat Alive.

The training was held on site at Rock Lititz Studio where some of the world's largest tours come to prep before hitting the road. With companies such as ATOMIC, Beame, Clair Global, PEDG and Rock-It Cargo all based in Lititz, it was the perfect match for Keep The Beat Alive.

"Our ultimate goal at Rock Lititz is for every tour to hit the road with a crew that is fully prepared for their tour, which includes being certified in CPR and AED devices. In fact, Keep The Beat

UK - Show designer Bryan Leitch and lighting director Jamie Thompson from creative visual design specialist MIRRAD chose over 120 Robe moving lights among other fixtures to light YesLive 2016, a hi-energy showcase music performance and awards event staged at the London Roundhouse.

The annual YesLive show helps inspire 15 - 17 year olds to get involved in once-in-a-lifetime activities via the National Citizen Service (NCS) initiative. Bryan worked alongside CC Labs who commissioned MIRRAD to produce the show design and co-ordinate the visual production including lighting, set and video.

He and Jamie started with a series of four 3 x 2m 'scenic' screens curving around the back of the stage mimicking the curvature of the venue's famous architecture. A downstage centre video screen 6m wide by 3.5m high came in and out on a Kinesys system shielding the stage for changeovers.

Australia - Specialist lighting company, Chameleon Touring Systems has invested in a fleet of Solaris Flares from TMB, the powerful and flexible RGBW LED fixture that can wash, blind and strobe all at the same time. With around 1000 watts of LED generating more than 30,000 lumens of output at a 1200Hz refresh rate, lighting designers are loving the practical capabilities and creative possibilities that the Flare gives them.

"We first started looking at the flares when we saw them on a couple of specs," says Tony Davies, owner of Chameleon, "and a lot of the lighting designers we regularly work with were also expressing interest." Chameleon were impressed with the Flare's specs and unique capabilities, and invested heavily; a move that has more than paid off, as the company are poised to expand their Flare inventory further.

"They're working hard," reports Tony. "They're go

UK - Leading pro-audio provider The Warehouse Sound Services has enjoyed a hugely productive PLASA Focus in Leeds this week. The event provided the organisation the opportunity to announce its exclusive UK partnership with Adamson Systems Engineering and a new UK partnership with Nexo.

It also provided a platform to showcase the company's range of products from major brands including Shure, Allen & Heath and Sennheiser. PLASA Leeds delivered two days of constant activity, high quality visitors and high interest in The Warehouse's products.

PLASA was also a platform to announce the opening of The Warehouse's new office in Chorley, Lancashire.

Derek Blair, director of The Warehouse comments, "It's an exciting time for The Warehouse! Not only have we just opened our third office in the North West of England, we have also secured new major brand partnerships with Adamson a

USA - Located in Las Vegas, NV, Calvary Chapel Spring Valley is a growing worship family that is also dedicated to building a strong educational foundation through the Calvary Chapel Christian School on site as well.

As the congregation has now outgrown their current facility, they have temporarily relocated to the school's gymnasium in order to hold their worship services. With a desire to bring LED video into the new facility as well, Calvary Chapel then took this opportunity to incorporate the technology into the gymnasium environment and they did so using FLEXLite 3.99mm LED from PixelFLEX.

"When we began our capital building campaign, we knew we wanted LED video in our new worship facility, but we also needed it to help create a more ideal environment in the gymnasium during our relocation," began Tony Monto, Worship and Young Adults Pastor.

"When looking at which

UK - When the PR and communications team needed to promote the importance of voting in the 2016 London Mayoral Elections they came to SXS for an exciting solution.

"It was vital that the message of the 5 May vote for Mayor was communicated through social media, mainstream media and by passers-by seeing the message," says project director Tim Curwen.

"Working with the client we decided that a projection and lighting installation onto the iconic London city hall would be ideal," He reports. "This constituted a powerful colour wash and HD projection of the key message. The response on the night was fantastic with many photographers and interview teams from major news networks coming to see the installation."

The installation required both high-impact lighting and some easily-readable text images. In order to achieve both in a way that could compete with high levels of amb

World - The lighting design for Adele's Live 2016 - World Tour was realised by Patrick Wodroffe with Adam Bassett as associate LD and Roland Greil working as programmer and lighting director on the road.

For lighting control the tour is using 2 x grandMA2 full-size, one grandMA2 light and five MA NPU (Network Processing Unit). Neg Earth supplied the lighting equipment for Europe, while Upstaging covered the US.

Woodroffe described his lighting design: "The stage design consists of a series of gauzes and projection surfaces that are constantly changing in position and purpose throughout the show. Sometimes Adele's face is seen on a rear screen, sometimes it appears in a much more abstract way on the front gauze and sometimes she is simply glimpsed through a video or lighting effect.

"The lighting supports this concept, not just in the way that it sets the mood and the f

Indonesia - As part of a major AV refurbishment, Bethany Salatiga Church has become one of the first Indonesian houses of worship to install Allen & Heath's dLive digital mixing system, along with a ME personal monitoring system.

Located in the city of Salatiga in Semarang, Indonesia, the large capacity Church needed a system to manage FOH and monitors in the main sanctuary, which hosts several different traditional, modern and youth services each day, as well as broadcast feeds for its radio station.

"The church had the opportunity to update its AV equipment, and after much research, dLive came out on top," explains member of Bethany's technical staff, Samuel Aderiel Susanto. "Our church has been using a GL3300 every day for the past 13 years without any problems, so we know A&H is reliable. With the demands of a growing church community, dLive's digital features ensure w

UK - PRG XL Video, the UK operation of Production Resource Group, has announced a significant investment with Area Four Industries UK to upgrade its hoist stock with EXE Rise units.

In a continuing commitment to update its inventory with the latest rigging, lighting, and video technology, PRG XL Video has chosen the EXE Rise range of chain hoists to update its rental offering.

During the development of the Rise hoists, PRG XL Video worked with Area Four Industries UK to give feedback on the design and specifications. The selection of the EXE Rise units followed extensive evaluation of different hoists by a team of PRG XL Video's rigging experts including Chris Walker, account director, Q Willis, head of rigging services, and Richard Gorrod, head of event services.

The units are the new 8:1 EXE Rise Chain Hoists, which are both CE and LOLER (Lifting Operations Lifting E

USA / Europe - At 82 years young, singer, recording artist and frontman of The Four Seasons Frankie Valli is still playing live and touring two weekends a month for most of the year - with Robe as the first choice of moving light on the rider. Valli has had multiple chart-topping singles and albums throughout a six-decade career and has also been inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame.

Los Angeles-based Dean Egnater is lighting designer and tour manager and has been working for Valli for 15 years since originally being hired for a three-week period in 2001. Their touring schedule includes a variety of venues encompassing theatres and arenas which are always sold-out, and for which the largest version of their lighting plot includes around 46-48 moving luminaires - Ideally an equal split between profiles and washes.

Dean has been using Robe fixtures for at least 10 ye

Sweden - Barco was the technical event supplier for the Eurovision Song Contest. During the semi-finals and finals in Stockholm, a full stack of high-brightness Barco projectors, 10 of which are equipped with Barco's High End Systems' MMS-200 moving mirror systems, and Barco's E2 screen management system helped create the audiovisual experience in crisp, clear detail.

The stage of the 2016 edition has been described as "rock 'n roll meets Eurovision". Through its highly-defined scenography with straight lines, strong perspectives and a background in different geometrical patterns, the set-up enabled dramatic effects and optical illusions, and gave each performance a different look.

Barco provided a total of 13 HDQ-2K40 projectors - complete with XLD 2.8-5.5 lenses - through its rental partner Mediatec. Ten of the HDQ-2K40 projectors - four flown on an FOH truss and six sta

India - Music has announced the appointment of Alphatec Audio Video Pvt Ltd as the exclusive distributor for Lab Gruppen, Lake and Tannoy, adding to the company's successful relationship with fellow Music brands Midas, Klark-Teknik, Turbosound, Behringer and Begera.

The deal sees Alphatec Audio Video Pvt Ltd, located in Kolkata, become the primary contact for all eight brands in the country and now offers exclusive access to LAB GRUPPEN and LAKE amplification and processing products along with TANNOY's high performance professional loudspeakers.

Mr Mayank Gaurav, director of sales (installed) for Alphatec Audio Vide, commented: "Tannoy and Lab Gruppen are amongst the most recognised brands in the Indian pro audio industry. They have diverse applications in both the install and tour markets. We are very glad to be given this opportunity to represent such globally recognised

UK - The Warehouse has become a distributor of NEXO professional sound reinforcement products in the UK.

Founded in 1980 to provide sales, hire and operation of pro sound equipment in Scotland, the company has extended its reach from Edinburgh and Glasgow to a new Manchester location, bringing its blue-chip brand portfolio and specialist expertise into the north of England.

Company directors Derek Blair and Janet Murray joined Gareth Collyer, sales manager of Nexo UK, for a symbolic contract signing at the PLS Show in Frankfurt last month, swiftly following up with an opening order for classic Nexo PS Series cabinets and a quantity of the new super-compact ID Series multi-application loudspeakers. The popular compact GEO M6 line array is also scheduled for delivery.

"I am delighted to secure a partnership with the most respected sales and distribution company in Scotla

Spectacular Eurovision 2016 - Saturday night saw the spectacular grand final of the 2016 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), broadcast live around the world to an estimated 200 million-plus people from Stockholm's Globen Arena. As the world's largest live broadcast of a music production, Eurovision's production standards were bigger and better than ever this year.

The technical production, steered once again by Technical Director Ola Melzig (this being his 12th Eurovision production) featured many of the same design and technical team who worked together on Eurovision when it was held in Malm

Slovakia - KV2's new VHD5.0 Large Format Concert System was successfully applied for three sell out concerts in Bratislava for the country's leading singer, Lucie B

South Africa - Audio Engineer Mickey Beck has been with Josh Groban for 12 years and Chris 'cookie, Hoff has been with Josh for three years. They recently came to South Africa on the Stages tour where they worked on two DiGiCo SD10 consoles with waves and two 2SD Racks.

The Stages Tour took in Johannesburg (Ticketpro Dome), Durban (ICC Durban Arena) and i Cape Town (Grand Arena, GrandWest) with the full technical supplied by Gearhouse South Africa.

"The main reason we have chosen DiGiCo consoles for the Josh Groban Stages tour was its scalability with a cohesive UI throughout the model range. There is no typical Josh Groban configuration. A show may be just Josh with piano or a trio which adds a guitar," said Beck "There have been shows where Josh has sung with an orchestra or orchestra and full electric band. We needed a console line that would allow us to move our work u

USA - Three-time and reigning Male Vocalist of the Year at the ACM Awards, Jason Aldean, is currently on tour across America, having completed the Australian leg, with his We Were Here tour, named after his single Gonna Know We Were Here.

Lighting designer, Mike Swinford, of UpLate Design Inc, was intent on bringing a fresh new look to the country singer's headline tour, using modern technology and new lighting tools to achieve an inspirational design that would be very different from what Aldean was accustomed to. Included in his design are a plethora of lighting fixtures from Ayrton that include MagicDot-R, MagicRing-R9, IntelliPix-R and the award-winning MagicBlade-R.

"We wanted a departure from the very large 'rock' lighting look that we had last year," explains Swinford. "We started the current tour with a new set based upon many diamond shapes, with diamond-sh

UK - When popular, multi award-winning folk band Bellowhead embarked on their farewell tour, their FOH engineer Andy Bell opted for Soundcraft's new Vi7000, eager to try it for the first time.

The respected engineer and record producer, working in the folk genre, was already familiar with the topology of Soundcraft's earlier Vi6, and with his work doubling between that of a live and studio engineer, he knew the benefits of having a full suite of plug-in options at his disposal - and although he considered other options, he was aware that Soundcraft's dedicated Realtime Rack engine runs Universal Audio plug-ins.

This would give him the versatility for keeping the rollicking sound from a theatrical 11-piece traditional band, playing a mix of traditional dance tunes, folk songs and shanties, with their acoustic instrumentation fresh.

The inventory was provided by BCS Audi

UK - Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood and Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur recently staged the first full UK performance of their new project, Junun, at the London Barbican with FOH engineer, Gavin McComb selecting Allen & Heath's dLive system to manage the diverse audio requirements.

Heralded as "a powerful coming together of Eastern and Western musical traditions", Junun comprises compositions performed by Ben Tzur and the nine-piece Rajasthan Express band, with Greenwood adding electronic elements.

"Having used iLive for many years, this was my first opportunity to use A&H's new dLive system," explains McComb. "The Junun act is a big sound with Indian drums, brass, guitars, harmonium, percussion and lots of vocals. For this gig there were 11 musicians on stage with a lot of open mics.

"There was a fantastic range of instrumentation to manage but these guys ca

UK - Suspend your disbelief for a moment and imagine a concert performance that travels through Wagner's Ring Cycle to a string quartet by Mozart by way of the Nine Inch Nails. In terms of dynamic range, contrast in styles and instrumentation, this flimsy analogy only begins to describe the complexity of what is being undertaken on the current concert tour by Hans Zimmer.

While younger audiences will know Zimmer for his many super hero movie scores, most recently Batman V Superman, he has never-the-less inhabited our ears since the early eighties. First gaining attention, in the UK at least, for his work on My beautiful Laundrette, Zimmer has never neglected the human condition: Rainman, Thelma and Louise and more recently Twelve Years a Slave all pay testament to his sensitivity and diversity. To make possible a live rendition of such variet

UK - The Jamie Lloyd Company has built a reputation for creating innovative and energetic revivals of classic texts. Their most recent reinvention was Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, which recently opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London's West End. In one of the most anticipated shows of the year, it stars Game of Thrones' Kit Harington and WL has been called upon to provide the lighting equipment.

Doctor Faustus tells the story of Faustus who makes a pact with the Devil, selling his soul in return for the ability to perform anything he desires through the power of black magic. This 400-year-old play has been given a modern rewrite by Colin Teevan, who has transported it into a celebrity-obsessed society of greed and instant gratification.

The lighting designer for the show is Jon Clark, who previously worked with the Jamie Lloyd Company on last

UK - The 32nd Reproduced Sound Conference (Southampton,15-17 November 2016) will focus on all aspects of electroacoustics for cinema, TV and the internet.

Papers are invited on all electroacoustic topics including the following: Cinema Sound, Live Sound, Audio System Design, Case Studies, Environmental Noise Control of Events, Audio/Visual Timing, Intelligibility, Measurement & Evaluation, Loudspeakers and Microphones, Acoustics of Venues.

Offers of papers on any electro-acoustics topic will be considered for the programme.

Abstracts (150 words) for papers plus a short biography of up to 150 words may be sent to linda.canty@ioa.org.uk by Friday 20 May 2016. Final written papers for the Proceedings must be submitted by Friday 30 September 2016.

(Jim Evans)

South Africa - Shure and South African distributor Wild & Marr have announced the Shure Masterclass event that will take place during the week of 30 May to 3 June 2016. This will be held at the APSO Training Facility in Isando, Johannesburg.

The masterclasses will be presented by staff from the Shure MEA office and will include certified sales and technical application training of Shure's new audio solution for AV conferencing - Microflex Advance.

Sessions are open to audio industry professionals, systems integrators, AV professionals and their associated sales teams.

"After a successful event last year, we are excited to welcome the Shure MEA team back in 2016," says Andrew Sorrill who is sales and marketing manager for Shure distributors Wild & Marr. "Shure have a number of new products that we would like to introduce to the market and highlight how flexible they are

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