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14 March 2016

One of the country's flagship venues, Amsterdam's Paradiso, has recently been outfitted with a Venue D-Show system, and two of Holland's top rental companies have also invested heavily in Venue systems.

Story Sound, one of the country's largest rental houses, recently added a D-Show Profile and Mix Rack system to their three existing full-size Venue systems. Story Sound's Michael Story reports the acquisition allows them to offer a wider range of systems to their theatre-oriented customer base, with an increasing number of freelance engineers specifying Venue on their shows, including sound designers Bo Bruijs and Dennis Slot.

"We'd originally been attracted to Venue by its comprehensive plug-in support," reports

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14 March 2016

UBS contracted Habegger AG, a leading Swiss event and production specialist to oversee the sixteen venues. Like similar 'soft skills' organisations, Habegger does not own any equipment, and always rents in goods and services, in this instance from its regular partner Procon Schweiz, specifying high fidelity d&b audiotechnik Q-Series.

Mostly situated in downtown locations, Procon's project leader Elias Ruh explained: "For us the Q-Series system was an obvious choice; small and easy to rig, the 75° horizontal dispersion of this light weight line array is ideal for sound containment in a close urban area. But of course football fans sitting in the listening

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14 March 2016

The three-day Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival in Indio, California near Palm Springs was the first of the two festivals to use the W-DMX system, which performed double-duty at the back-to-back events. Prince, Roger Waters, and Jack Johnson headlined the Coachella festival that included over 130 bands on five stages.

The system consisted of a single S-1 transmitter and 10 R-512 receivers controlling 20 7kW Falcon moving lights from A&0. The lights were mounted on 30ft towers, surrounding the festival area. An 8dBi omni antenna was at the transmitter, and each receiver had a 24dBi grid antenna. The longest distance was 2033ft (620m).

A repeater link was also set up from the main stage to the site lighting control area so the lights could be incorpor

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14 March 2016

The Alcons system deployed by Profimusik in Hamburg consisted of six LR16 cabinets per side, with six LR14s as underhang, powered and controlled by ALC2 and DDP processing, with for bass reinforcement a BF302 MK2 per side, powered by an ALC6 amplifier/controller with DDP processing.

As stage-lip fill for the first rows, four units of SR9, also with ALC2 and DDP came into play. Taylor's engineer David Morgan and James' crew were

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14 March 2016

Slingco services a broad range of markets with its wire rope and engineering solutions and a diverse range of companies were represented on the day - from theatre equipment suppliers to garage equipment suppliers, and from lift installers to aerospace designers, to name a few.

The move from the previous home four miles away has given the company a 50% increase in building size and additional land for expansion. With the building needing extensive remedial work prior to moving in, the Slingco team was able to shape the facility just as they wanted it.

On the day, sales director, Matt Dykins, introduced visitors to the full scope of the company's work

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14 March 2016

After months of heats around the country, the final eight beatboxers battled it out at the Grand Final at the London Islington Carling Academy on 13 June. Last year's champion Beardyman, as well as Shlomo and Killa Kela presided over this year's event and eventually judged the winner to be MC Zani.

The KSM9, one of SDUK's flagship microphones which is currently being use

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14 March 2016

A total of five main stages for live acts were dotted around Coachella - this year headlined by Roger Waters and Prince - with the aforementioned 'cool' area run by the Do Lab artist network. Ostensibly an art installation, it featured kind souls wielding hosepipes to help cool festival-goers off, as well as the latest dance beats and DJ sets playing in 'hexaphonic' sound day and night.

Audio provider Whump! Sound provided an all-Turbosound rig for the installation, with

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14 March 2016

Disturbing News: Almost one in four secondary schools in England no longer has any specialist physics teachers, a survey suggests. The report, published by academics at the University of Buckingham, warns of a threat to the subject's future. The government has set targets to promote the number of physics teachers in secondary schools. But the report's authors wa

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14 March 2016

"I have admired the company's product line for many years," says company founder Dirk Schubert. "We received one of the first pallets of amps shipped to the US in 2002, and adopted Lab.gruppen for our systems the first time we listened to them. No other amplifier makes a rig sound as good as Lab.gruppen. I particul

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14 March 2016

The knowledge of Yamaha engineers is regularly being used to help a wide range of audio professionals to improve their skills, via teaching documents, a range of seminars and 'hands-on' training programmes.

"In order to design reliable and functional networked audio systems, the application of this complex technology requires a very high level of technical knowledge," says Nils-Peter Keller, YMCE deputy general manager. "Therefore, Yamaha actively provides the knowledge and support required to those who need it."

One such event was an advanced training semina

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14 March 2016

The licence, which was issued before the 2007 event, lasts for four years and allows organisers to continue holding the Glastonbury Festival until 2010, after which they will need to apply for a new licence.

One main issue dealt with by the district council was concerns about noise. Wind and low cloud meant that some Mendip residents who have normally not been able to hear the festival could hear some noise this year. However, according to Mendip's director for planning and environment, Charles Uzzell, although noise monitoring had taken place there was no significant breaches of the licence, and the levels of noise were within the national recommended guidelines.

Tom Killen, Mendip's portfolio holder for licensing and public protection

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14 March 2016

Grant Thomas, sales director for Batmink, explains: "It soon became obvious that although still images and video footage give a flavour of what this flooring system can deliver, there is absolutely no substitute for seeing the floor operating 'in the flesh'. With this in mind, we have decided to take a 6m x 6m floor on a tour of the UK to enable interested parties to come and have a look, see a demonstration of its motion graphics and text capabilities and discuss any questions they might have."

The floor will be in Glasgow, on Monday 11 August, Leeds on Tuesday 12 August, Donington Park on Wednesday 13 August and London on Thursday 14 August. For more information regarding venues and

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14 March 2016

"Historically, you don't think of handheld microphones as being go-to devices on Broadway," says Spring audio engineer Francis Elers. "But as the nature and scope of the shows change, so do our needs for mics. There are four or five full-on rock songs in Spring Awakening that haven't been diluted one bit for theatre sensibilities.To meet the needs of these numbers both in look and performance, handheld mics were the only choice."

Sound designer Brian Ronan' comments, "This is a very rambunctious show. The first mics we chose weren't up to the task of taking hard knocks. We needed something that could be punished regularly, and that's one of the reasons the switch was mad

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14 March 2016

Rogers' portfolio includes some of the most notable buildings of our time - the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Millennium Dome and Madrid Bajaras airport.

GE CMH TC 70w 3000k lamps with IOS reflector with narrow and beams are used in all ambar track mounted and suspended units which light up the exhibition models and stands.

The Richard Rogers + Architects exhibition, which has already run for three months in the Pompidou Centre, Paris, opened at the Design Museum in April and will run until 25 August.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Lighting designer Paul Nancollas used one grandMA full-size, one grandMA light and five MA NSPs. "The grandMA is the only desk capable of controlling something so complex, the choice was obvious," he says.

The show also used two grandMA video servers and was visualised via grandMA 3D. The design integrated over 2500 LED strips of various types from German manufacturer Schnick-Schnack-Systems. "I had used the B25 and B12 strips in previous shows to great effect so I was very excited when the C25

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14 March 2016

"In my role as entertainment consultant to P&O Cruises I was instrumental in selecting Martin as the lead supplier to provide the moving light elements of the entertainment systems for Ventura," reports Chris Blackburn of Snap2Black.

Ventura incorporates flexible Martin lighting systems into several areas of the ship. "Most major entertainment areas are multi-use, although they do have a main use focus," says Blackburn. "They all have an identity."

The two-deck Arena Theatre is the ship's primary show space. "The brief was to augment the generic rig with moving light and mirror fixtures. There w

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14 March 2016

Owner Jonathan Lutz turned to United Digital Integrators (UDI) to fix their "musical problems" and bring in an efficient and easy to use solution for their indoor and outdoor seating areas. Prior to the installation, the previous system needed to be reset every 20 minutes, causing massive interruption with the service of its customers.

The new system consists of two Crown amplifiers; the 180MAx Pack is an 80W mixer amplifier with built-in XM Radio tuner and comes with four JBL Control 1S speakers. The system also includes a Crown 1160MA 160W single channel amplifier and eight additional JBL Control 1S speakers.

"Our goal for Uptown Kitchen was to fix two big issues; the unreliable digital

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14 March 2016

The Canadian company is a division of JAM Industries, which itself has been distributing audio and music equipment in Canada for over 30 years. The company has office and warehouse space in Montreal and a nationwide sales force.

John Vellone, director of Erikson Commercial comments: "Cloud products are truly designed for the contractor's ease of installation and the user's ease of operation. Cloud products are a perfect fit and compliment Erikson Commercial's product offerings."

Simon Curtis, managing director of Cloud Electronics, adds: "For the distribution of the Cloud brand across Canada, there really is no other company that better fits o

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14 March 2016

Last year's inaugural Award was won by Tony Andrews of Funktion One for his decades of dedication to the advancement of loudspeaker design.

The Nomination phase of the 2008 Gottelier Award is now open, and industry professionals worldwide are being asked to put forward the names of individuals who they believe should be considered for this year's award.

Following the nomination period, a shortlist of the leading nominees will then be ope

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14 March 2016

With such an eclectic array of performers, the lighting rig needed to be equally diverse and able to adapt to each unique show. Putting it all together again this year was lighting designer Paul Normandale, who laid out a spectacular rig on the main stages for the various guest LDs who came and lit individual shows. With so many artists and so many LDs in such a short period of time, once again flexibility was the order of the day.

Paul explains the brief: "The lighting had to be suitable for a live, multi-band event which has a constant BBC/TV broadcast element. So a bal

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14 March 2016

"In response to modern production specifications, we decided we wanted to bring a new roof to the market," says Hedwig de Meyer, Stageco's president. "Bon Jovi needed three roofs and approached us for a standard roof type. We told them we wanted to invest in a new roof type and offered them the new, original product."

The Bon Jovi team has always used innovative production elements, where possible, to create an exciting live show, and the three new roofs

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14 March 2016

The largest consumer of Studer consoles for the games is CCTV (China Central Television). Their English-speaking International channel, CCTV-9, is using a Studer Vista 7 in its on-air studio, while the main studios of CCTV have been equipped with four Vista 5s and five OnAir 3000s. Quindao Radio has purchased an OnAir 3000 for the games, and Hong Kong's TVB has purchased a total of five Vista 5s, three for its studio for the games and two for OB vans.

Local broadcasters Guangdong TV, Beijing TV and Shanghai Media Group all feature Vista 8s in their t

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14 March 2016

"Saving our members money is important to NSCA," said NSCA senior director of member services, Jodi Montgomery. "We're constantly looking for new solutions and new ideas to help members succeed."

Greg Bedross, regional sales manager for Kramer Electronics Sierra Video, was the lucky winner of the Prius, which averages 46 miles to the gallon. Bedross said he received the news via cell phone while working on the show floor.

"I just can't believe it. I want to thank everyone," said Bedross when he picked up the keys to his new car. "I think (NSCA) is a wonderful organisation and I'm ver

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14 March 2016

Camco's international sales director Mick Anderson comments: "As the complexity and maturity of the Chinese market continues to grow, it becomes ever more important to plan and develop long term business strategies.

"They say its not what you know but who you know that counts. Here at Camco we have found that it is a combination of both that works best in China. Right Way Audio's knowledge and professional attention to service and support means that it is correctly positioned to represent the Camco bra