Canada - Adamson Scandinavia has been established. A company statement says, "Adamson is growing the Scandinavian market which is reputably a forward thinking and technologically aware region of Europe, with a passion for music; it is home to hundreds of music festivals annually. Adamson's complete line of advanced technology loudspeaker products will consequently be a great fit for the Scandinavian regional professional touring and installation markets."

Adamson's long-time rental partner Nordic Rentals has finished building a massive new storage and office building in Velje, Denmark, which will now house the separate entity of Adamson Scandinavia, beside the Nordic Rentals divisions of Nordic Rentals, Nordic Sales and Nordic Staging.

Adamson Scandinavia staff includes manager Lars Aunsberg, director of sales Lars Bo Baadsgaard and sales staff Lars J°rgensen, an

UK - Arena Structures has been awarded new contracts signalling a positive start to 2008, whilst also being recognised for last year's achievements.

The Company was awarded the Business of the Year award at the 2008 Performance Textiles Awards held this month. In presenting the award to Arena Structures managing director Grahame Muir, Colin Bryer, managing editor of Performance Textiles magazine, commended Arena "for showing significant growth and innovative development throughout the year following the management buyout of January '07."

Arena Structures also collected a silver award in the Project of the Year category for its input into the BCIC exhibition at the Sage Centre, Gateshead.

Grahame Muir commented: "These awards reflect the efforts of everyone at Arena Structures, who are continuously looking to improve the service we can deli

UK - Red TX is the new company set up by Ian Dyckhoff, formerly a director of Fleetwood Mobiles, and sound designer Conrad Fletcher, with the aim of capturing audio from major live music events for subsequent television broadcast and/or release on DVD. Broadcast sound engineer Tim Summerhayes, who is currently working on a freelance basis after resigning his directorship of Fleetwood Mobiles, is being represented by Red TX and was behind the controls of the Red TX OB truck at the recent NME Awards.

For the past year Dyckhoff and Fletcher have been trading under the name of Mobile One, handling a variety of high profile events including the Vodafone TBA series, T4 On The Beach and Keane's concert from the O2 Arena, which was the first live DVD from the venue. However, the Shockwaves NME Awards 2008 - the largest in the history of this particular awards ceremony - wa

USA - Following on the heels of his sold-out European tour, controversial Goth Metal icon Marilyn Manson recently brought his high-intensity show to North America. Supporting his current release, Eat Me, Drink Me, the 19-city tour took the rocker to some intimate theatres and auditoriums in the US and Canada.

Manson toured with 16 self-powered, high-performance MJF-212A stage monitors from Meyer Sound. Monitor engineer was Bruce Danz, a long-time associate of Taylor, Mich.-based Thunder Audio, which supplied the monitors.

"The MJF-212A is really the only stage monitor that can deliver clean, intelligible sound at the levels we require," reports Danz.

Since its release in 2007, MJF-212A has provided monitoring for the many artists including Metallica, Steely Dan, Dave Matthews and Kanye West.

Before his show dates in North America, Manson toured Europe with

USA - Live sound and lighting production company On Cue Systems of Phoenix, AZ recently provided the sound reinforcement system for a Barack Obama presidential campaign rally at Phoenix Veterans Memorial Stadium in Arizona. The Stand For Change rally drew more than 13,000 supporters and included appearances by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and Caroline Kennedy.

On Cue Systems deployed a Vertec line array system consisting of a left/right arrangement of 12 VT4889 full-size line array elements per side, with 10 VT4880 full-size arrayable subwoofers per side. Additionally, On Cue Systems set up six VT4889 line array elements each for two out-fill side hangs.

According to Dan Myers, system technician for On Cue Systems, the event drew larger crowds than expected. "The campaign staff was only expecting five or six thousand people to show up, so it was amazing to see

UK - Through dealer White Light, lighting manufacturer ETC has installed lighting at London's Arcola Theatre in Hackney. But the installation was the easy bit for the theatre. The difficult bit was keeping the show's peak power consumption below 4.5kW. And the reason why they had to do that was because the venue has recently had a hydrogen fuel cell installed, as part of its bid to become the world's first carbon neutral theatre.

ETC's technical director Adam Bennette, who happens to live just a couple of streets from the theatre, assisted with the installation, which includes nine 375W ETC Source Fours and a SmartFade ML control desk - which is also able to control the LED and fluorescent lighting on the show. "I have a pet hate of West End shows which are over lit and can even end up dazzling the audience," explains Bennette. "So it was nice to be able to work o

UK - For the third consecutive year, Stage Electrics supplied staging and lighting for the Laurence Olivier Awards, presented annually by the Society of London Theatre.

Stage Electrics provided crew together with 36 Source 4 lanterns, four MAC 250 Entours, 12 MAC 300s, 10 MAC 500s, six MAC 700s and 14 MAC 600s for the awards held on Sunday 8 March. Lighting design was by Matt Evered, the awards were project managed by Stage Electrics' Andrew Loveday.

Production Manager Andrew Loveday said, "This is Stage Electrics' third night in a row in the Great Room. We provided equipment for Revolution Awards, Variety Club Awards and the Oliviers."

(Jim Evans)

UK - PRG Europe has supplied lighting for the relit Tosca at London's Royal Albert Hall, which ran until Sunday 9 March. It was lit by Andy Bridge, who says, "Although this is a reproduction and relighting, it needed a lot of refining. A lot of the equipment we used nine years ago is no longer in normal use, so we had to go to PRG Europe's demo studio with the show file and lighting plots, and compare old with new - a mammoth task."

Bridge, who worked with assistant Mike Odam, is using Vari-Lite luminaires, as well as some 200 ETC Source Fours with Wybron colour scrollers, on the show. The moving light programming was by John Harris on a PRG Europe-supplied Wholehog II, while static lighting is by Dan Last on a Strand 520.

"Nine years ago," continues Andy, "we still preferred not to rely on moving lighting, but now we can be more confident about

UK - Adlib Audio has completed it's first School Tutorial Event of 2008. Adlib's Andy Dockerty says, "The way to learn how to become a live sound engineer and system technician is to actually be involved in the environment.

"Many young people are pushed into 'live audio' and 'technical' courses by career advisors at schools. Whist sounding superficially exciting, these courses are obviously bringing in funds to educational establishments, but "live" production cannot be taught in a classroom or a one space environment.

"You need to be able to anticipate venue-to-venue problems and nuances and experience true working days - including load-ins and outs before you leave college."

Dockerty adds that apart from highlighting technical issues, the Adlib Schools Events are realistic about the fact it's not an especially glamorous career at the outset, a

The Netherlands - XLNT Advanced Technologies has announced a strengthened distribution, sales and customer support structure for CyberHoist motion control products in Germany.

Sales distribution for Germany will be handled by Hagen-based CAST, headed by managing director Heinz Siller.

A new company, CyberHoist Germany GmbH, will become the country's CyberHoist Service Point, responsible for all service and rental support in Germany. The company has been set up by the team from current CyberHoist rental dealer Lightcompany of Neuss, Germany, and is headed by managing director Peter Nellen.

CAST and CyberHoist Germany GmbH will together form the complete team that will support all CyberHoist clients in the fast-growing German market, says the company. Meanwhile, Lightcompany will continue in its existing role as CyberHoist rental dealer, supplying full productions using CyberH

Korea - A number of new QSC Audio ILA line array installations have been carried out in Korea recently by territorial distributors, Sama ProSound. The long-established Seoul-based company reports that applications vary from auditoria in educational establishments to places of worship.

The main auditorium at Wooshin High School in Seoul is used for a variety of functions and its long rectangular shape would generally have dictated that a large number of subwoofers would be required to complement the main full-range main speakers.

QSC's Installation Line Array (ILA) offers 140° horizontal coverage, and 12 enclosures have been specified (in two hangs) with four WL118-sw subs. This necessitated adding only a pair of QSC's AcousticDesign AD-S82's in each of the corners of the auditorium's second floor to ensure that an evenly-dispersed sound can be experienced from any location

New Zealand - Audio networking for Skycity's new Vue Bar in Hamilton, has been placed entirely in the hands of the Soundweb London DSP platform from BSS Audio.

The Soundweb system, comprising a BLU-80 signal processor and BLU-32 I/O expander, forms part of a Harman Pro integrated system, designed and specified by James Greet from Greet Consulting of Auckland, in consultation with Paul Edlin of JANDS NZ Technical Resource Group (TRG). The system was supplied and installed by Security Specialists of Auckland - and all network design programming and commissioning was handled by Robson Birch, of JANDS NZ TRG.

The 600-capacity Vue Bar has been designed specifically to provide world-class entertainment in the city centre, and marks the end of a multi-phase development which also saw the opening of the Rebo Restaurant and Bar in May of last year. General manager Geoff Hogg confirms t

UK - BDP Lighting won the special projects category and had a further entry short-listed in the workplace category in this year's Lighting Design Awards. The awards were presented at the London Hilton on 6 March. BDP's Guerilla Lighting events in London and Manchester won in the special projects category and Westminster Academy, London was short-listed in the workplace category.

The concept of Guerrilla Lighting was created by Martin Lupton, director of BDP's lighting group, to promote lighting design and create a platform to discuss key issues such as professional design, waste and sustainability. The power behind the exercise was the participation and collaboration, which was what particularly impressed the judges.

Under the guidance of a team leader, the teams created transient lighting designs by using high powered torches, battery powered LED projectors, luminous dot ligh

All flights to Frankfurt full! The annual ProLight + Sound gathering looks set to be busier than ever. Judging by the number of press releases and product launch invitations received at LSI, visitors and exhibitors are in for a hectic few days.

Meyer Sound has announced that professional audio veteran Dave 'Wiggy' Wiggins has joined the company as its director of marketing for Europe. In this newly created position, Wiggins will be responsible for planning and executing strategic marketing efforts and will work closely with Meyer Sound's marketing department in Berkeley and with the sales force throughout Europe.

Meanwhile, another major North American loudspeaker specialist is ramping up its European activities - Toronto-based Adamson has launched Adamson Scandinavia, so expect some serious marketing activity there.

In Italy, The organisers of Show-Way 2008, the new trade show whi

Germany - LSI Online can exclusively reveal the launch at Frankfurt's ProLight&Sound exhibition today, of MA Lighting's brand new grandMA2 series lighting control system.

With the introduction of grandMA2 series, MA Lighting has made a significant development of its successful grandMA system. grandMA2 comes with completely newly designed hardware supporting the grandMA software as well as all current and proposed lighting control standards.

Listening closely to the market, MA Lighting has kept the intuitive grandMA control philosophy, including the same command line and syntax. However, the company has cleaned up, improved and extended the software, and optimized the colours and views. The advanced networking architecture is even more powerful and allows full upward compatibility from the "old" grandMAs, while a 'Series 1' mode also allows for full downward compatibi

USA - City Theatrical says it has completed the first ever 16 universe test of wireless DMX documented under real world conditions. Using CTI's wireless technology, SHoW DMX (Synchronized Hopping of Wireless DMX), CTI created an outdoor testing facility in which the data fidelity of the wireless DMX could be monitored and measured.

CTI's president, Gary Fails commented, "Our testing has allowed us to confirm for the first time what the data fidelity levels are in a very saturated radio environment. In a range of tests at a distance of over 700'/213m at optimum power output settings, the maximum packet loss was in the low 20% range with many universes showing packet loss in the 10% range.

"Packet loss in the low 20% range has a minimal effect on performance of moving lights, although it may be occasionally noticeable. You may not ever operate 16 full universes of SHoW

USA - Spectra, is one of two art pieces commissioned during the construction of the Lynnwood Convention Centre north of Seattle. It is a 35ft outdoor sculpture created by Seattle artist Doug Hansen. The tower is made of steel fitted with fused colour glass panels, reflecting light from PixelArc C LED fixtures uplighting from the base.

Director of operations Mohnie Mangat explains: "We looked at a lot of fixtures before choosing PixelArc. It was the perfect choice for our needs: simple, easy to use, low energy and very powerful."

When the existing fixtures specified by the construction architect were found to be insufficient and the intended water feature did not work - the Lynnwood PFD who own the building, asked the Center's management company SMG to look at ways to make the sculpture more dynamic.

SMG's Mohnie Mangat has a lighting design and theatrical backgroun

UK - XL Video UK supplied MiTrix screens to Mark Ronson's LD Matt Arthur for the latest UK leg of the Brit Award winning star's tour. XL worked closely with lighting suppliers Lite Alternative, who supplied the Catalyst digital media server and suggested using media server tech Stevie Marr to look after both elements of the video.

Upstage were five 'fingers' of MiTrix, each 1.5m wide with a 4.5m drop, rigged with six 250Kg CM Prostar motors (two for the centre panel and one each for the others) suspended inside an upstage truss. These fingers were each constructed from 54 panels of MiTrix and spread out into a 1960's style fan, as Ronson was particularly keen on a retro look for the stage.

There were several risers spread across the stage, including a downstage section for people and dancers, accessed via two sets of stairs. All the riser fronts were bordered by MiTrix panels,

Oman - The visual effects for the opening of the new Lexus showroom in Oman were created by Tim Riley, video designer from XL Video. The opening took place outside the new showrooms with grandstand seating for around 500 and the Lexus building as a backdrop.

Running the full length of the showroom are eight metre high windows which allow the passers-by, or in this case the audience, to look into the floor and view the array of new, cars. But around dusk, this all changed when a large section of the windows came to life. They were lined with 72 Martin LC2140 LED panels covering a total of 144 sq.m.As the LC panels moved through colourful stages of intensity, beginning with images gently floating on glass, the cars inside the showroom slowly disappeared and the focus became the staged area outside.

"I had been looking at several other LED products, but when I saw the LC2140

Germany - Meyer Sound announced at ProLight + Sound, Frankfurt, that it has incorporated its business in the UK by establishing Meyer Sound UK. This marks the second announcement from the company this month that demonstrates Meyer Sound's commitment to the growing European marketplace, says the company, the first being the appointment of Dave "Wiggy" Wiggins to the newly created position of director of marketing for Europe.

"The continuing development of Meyer Sound's business in Europe has made it essential for the company to form a strategic presence in the UK, which is one of the most influential professional audio markets in the world," says Helen Meyer, executive vice president of Meyer Sound. "The move to establish Meyer Sound in the UK is a key ingredient in our medium to long-term plans for growing our customer base, developing new markets, and g

Austria - When the Grand Casino Baden reopened in 1995 - as part of the resplendent Congress Casino Baden - it not only became the largest casino in Europe but one of the most prominent event centres in the country. A subsidiary of Casinos Austria AG, the venue was set up to handle around 240 events a year (in three different function spaces) 365 days a year.

Back in 2002 Andreas Gallé, Congress Casino Baden's senior technician, decided to install a CobraNet digital backbone. "When we started to evaluate new amplifiers two years later it was logical to look for network-based audio devices," he explained.

The technician specified quantities of QSC PowerLight PL6, PL236, PL230 and PL218 amplification, networked via seven QSC BASIS 922 units. To this the Casino subsequently added a further three BASIS 922 DSP's, linked by the DataPorts of two QSC CX 168's and and

Germany - Audio-Technica has taken on the exclusive distribution of speaker systems manufactured by AD-Systems in Germany, it was announced at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt this week.

"We have been looking to expand our product range over the last 18 months, to offer our customer a complete 'system house' solution," stated Joerg Rader, branch manager for Audio-Technica Germany.

"We have found a perfect partner in AD-Systems and secured very close cooperation with a highly motivated and flexible manufacturer, which offers a complete win win situation for both our customers and ourselves."

AD-Systems and its team of 14 employees, is located on the outskirts of the Ruhr area in Wesel. After their relocation from Spain to Germany in 2006, the organization's national and international operations underwent a fundamental restructuring programme. "We are loo

South Africa - The first Avolites Tiger console in South Africa was delivered by distributors DWR to Pretoria-based lighting rental company, Stage Effects.

The Tiger's first gig in the country was Gospel Times, a show broadcast from the South African Broadcasting Association (SABC) Studios, Johannesburg. From there it went directly on to Tempo's, a Johannesburg venue where Stage Effects runs moving and generic lighting. "It's smaller than the Pearl but just as powerful," enthuses Stage Effects' Theo Papenfus. "On many of these shows where you are just adding moving lights to a studio generic rig, you don't need a large console."

The Tiger joined the two Pearls already owned by Stage Effects, which works across all industry sectors, but specialising in lighting for live concerts and broadcast applications.

(Jim Evans)

UK - The UK's latest 'super club', the 1200-capacity, three-level State Club in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, has opened its doors with the UK's largest installation to date of the Dynacord XA PA system, installed by Doncaster based Electro Music.

Created by Peter Swann, the entrepreneur behind the successful Sands Jazz Club in the same town, the spacious State Club resides in the totally renovated shell of a former cinema. In its new guise it makes abundant use of the space to offer four venues in one - nightclub, live music venue, café/lounge and digital cinema.

The main stage hosts live acts and, using its retractable 20m screen and dedicated DLP digital cinema projector, daytime movie screenings. It is flanked by a pair of ground stacks of Dynacord FX12 mid-high tops from the XA range that focuses sound on the dancefloor, with a row of eight matching FX20 Planar waveg

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