Portugal - Gabisom Audio Equipment provided a massive Vertec line array system at Rock in Rio, one of the world's largest music festivals. The first in two series of shows, Rock in Rio Lisbon featured performances by Lenny Kravitz, Bob Dylan, Bon Jovi, Metallica, Rod Stewart, and Linkin Park. The second series of shows in Madrid featured Bob Dylan, Franz Ferdinand, Chris Cornell, Neil Young, Shakira, The Police, and Amy Winehouse.

In both locations, Gabisom deployed a JBL Vertec system with four array locations for the main (World Stage) system. A total of 120 VT4889 large-format line array elements and 60 VT4880A Ultra Long Excursion subwoofers were deployed in the main suspend arrays. The main system consisted of four arrays across the front in the normal L/R (front), LL/RR (outfill) configuration.

Each array consisted of three separate hangs: dual Vertec VT488

Germany - The Halle Münsterland is the largest events centre in the region of Westphalia. 80 years after the first events were staged there, the Congress Hall has made a significant investment in a new sound reinforcement system for its main auditorium, a cutting-edge design driven by an EtherSound audio network via a digital matrix, allowing the settings of different sound reinforcement situations to be retrieved at the push of a button.

Jens Schmidt from installation specialists Trendco and Norbert Sangermann, the acoustics expert from Camco GmbH responsible for fixed installations, joined forces to design a system tailored precisely to the Congress hall.

For Jens Schmidt and Norbert Sangermann, the concept design had to accommodate possible future requirements while offering the clearest possible signal transmission. Decision-makers at the Halle Münsterland focussed stron

UK - The first UK installation of the new OmniLine Micro Line Array from Martin Audio has been installed in the new, three-storey, glass-fronted Kingly Club in London's Covent Garden.

The scalable system was specified by Bernard Mani, head of London integration company Systems Etc, after witnessing its launch at PLASA 2007 and seeing it immediately adopted in the US for Star Trek The Tour .

The Kingly Club is owned by Dezzi Mc Causland, founder and creator of the original award winning members club of the same name in Soho - on which Systems Etc also worked.

The new operation in St Martin's Lane consists of a contemporary Japanese restaurant, Kyashii, a lounge bar, a VIP mezzanine area and al fresco seating during the summer months.

Overlooking the ground floor with a private bar, DJ and the large floor to ceiling screens, the VIP mezzanine area offers views over th

- Hadrian: Empire and Conflict, the British Museum's latest major exhibition, which opened to the public on 24 July, sees the 360-degree projection system designed and installed by systems integrator Sysco deployed to dramatic effect for the second time.

The projection system, which helped the previous exhibition, ,I>First Emperor: China's Terracotta Army win the Museums & Heritage 2008 Award for Temporary or Touring Exhibition, was specifically designed to be reconfigurable - a technological 'first' both for the UK and the British Museum - thus maximising the Museum's investment in technology.

It features an array of 10 Barco HD Icon H250 projectors, arranged to project onto a variety of screens in different formats around the Round Reading Room's circumference - a space whose ornate domed roof was itself originally inspired by one of Hadrian's most iconic bui

Spain - Vieta has custom-designed two-metre tall loudspeaker cylinders for installation in the signature building of Expo Zaragoza 2008, an international event dedicated to the issues of Water and Sustainable Development. Vieta's bespoke speakers are fitted in the Expo's signature building, the Water Tower, alongside the company's Ti Line media players and amps, and more than 150 of its other loudspeaker products.

The city of Zaragoza, the fifth largest in Spain, has built an architecturally remarkable campus to house the Expo 2008, spread over 60 acres and featuring designs by leading architects such as Zaha Hadid. Running from July to mid-September, the event is expected to attract up to seven million visitors. More than 100 countries are participating, as well as private corporations, and live entertainment on-site will come from 350 international artists ranging from the Cir

UK - Weston-Super-Mare's beach once again played host to T4 on the Beach on Sunday 20th July, 2008. This year the event attracted it's largest live audience of 45,000 and a total of 30 artists including Kelly Roland, McFly, The Hoosiers, Scouting for Girls, Basehunter, Sam Sparro, Neo, Duffy and the Ting Tings.

Done and Dusted managed the event for Channel 4, bringing in production manager Tony Wheeler of Nine Yards to look after all aspects of the live production. Wheeler comments: "This year's event grew most significantly. We like to keep our team consistent and once again entrusted Power Logistics to ensure there was uninterrupted power, particularly important for an event driven by its live television show. As ever they have been exemplary and taken all of the late changes an event of this nature throws up in their stride."

Tony Harpur led the Power Logistics te

UK - 27 June saw a number of high-profile artists including Annie Lennox, Leona Lewis, the Sugababes and Will Smith assemble in London's Hyde Park for a concert to mark the 90th birthday of the former president of South Africa ­ and global icon ­ Nelson Mandela.

Organised by 46664, Nelson Mandela's global HIV AIDS awareness campaign, the concert was a celebration of Mr Mandela's 90th year and marked the 20th anniversary of the Free Nelson Mandela concert staged at Wembley in 1988. The concert also raised funds for his 46664 campaign to fight HIV and AIDS worldwide. This was the fifth 46664 concert that Sennheiser has supported, continuing a long standing relationship with the charity.

Working in association with the event's audio production company, Britannia Row, Sennheiser not only supplied equipment but also a high-profile technical team to the event, including Mark Saund

USA - Hard Rock Park, billed as the world's first rock 'n' roll theme park, is "a multifaceted musical experience that brings to life the iconic music that changed the course of music history and continues to influence generations of music fans".

Located in the Atlantic Coast resort town of Myrtle Beach, this $400 million music fan's dream boasts themed rock 'n' rollercoasters like Led Zeppelin: The Ride and Eagles: Life in the Fast Lane among its 50 rides and attractions, and dedicates entire sections of the park to pop-music movements such as the British Invasion, '70s era rock and even country music.

Peavey worked closely with Hard Rock Park and systems integrator Electrosonic to create an unparalleled music experience. As the first new major attraction built in the US in nearly a decade, Hard Rock Park benefits from the evolution of te

USA - Allen & Heath's iLive-80 digital console along with an iDR-8 digital zone mixer, and six remote control PL Series wall plates were installed at the Children's Theatre of Annapolis as part of a full audio system recently completed by Dennis Wilson at Audio Plus.

A new construction, the Children's Theatre hosts local and regional productions as well as other events. The iLive-80 provides FOH as well as monitor mixing duties and the iDR-8 takes care of all main loudspeaker, monitors, and zone speaker management. There are a variety of Allen & Heath PL wall plates installed in various locations throughout the theatre providing remote control of the system.

"The iLive/iDR integration is the perfect solution for theatre," states Sales Reps Audio Associates' Charles Cassell. "It is infinitely flexible and has a ton of features that will allow the system to grow w

Japan - Barco reports that Japanese rock band B'z has chosen its LED module MiSTRIP for their Action 2008 tour. The high brightness modules form a gigantic carpet-like LED screen, which moves up and down above the band during their show giving the impression of a flying carpet.

The B'z is Japan's best selling rock band. They have sold over 75m records and they were the first Asian artists to have their handprints and signatures put up in Hollywood's Rock Walk. For their Action 2008 tour, they worked together with renowned set designer Mark Fisher from Stufish. The mastermind behind stages for U2 and The Rolling Stones designed a 'magic carpet', a grand carpet-like LED screen, flying over the band.

The Stufish team worked closely together with Barco's Innovative Designs to turn their vision into reality. A total of 1,152 MiSTRIPs were used to create the experience

UK - W1 Productions has given a high profile baptism to the lowest-profile floor monitors - pressing their new Martin Audio LE1500 monitors into service for 31 consecutive nights at Koko in Camden Town throughout the month of July - the duration of the iTunes Live: London Festival '08 season.

The Festival has included performances from over 60 bands - from established acts such as The Feeling, Suzanne Vega, N*E*R*D and James Blunt to up and comers such as Hadouken! and The Ting Tings.

Stuart Turvill, who runs Bury St. Edmunds-based W1 Productions, says he had planned to upgrade his hire fleet - which already includes a large inventory of Martin Audio components - "but the iTunes Festival provided the trigger, as we needed to move up to a bigger box." And so he purchased 14 of Martin Audio's flagship monitor.

He added, "These have proved very popular and

Australia - Over 100 Robe moving lights were supplied by Clifton Productions for Australia's 2008 Future Music Festival, which was headlined by The Chemical Brothers, along with a line up of top international DJs.

Clifton supplied lighting for all the festival's auxiliary stages, all of which featured Robe at the core of their rigs. The event was project managed for them by Michael Parsons, who states, "Reliability was the key factor we looked for here, and that's why we chose Robe for this event."

For the Sydney and Brisbane legs of the tour, lighting for the main Future Music Stage was also operated by Parsons during the afternoon. He chose Robe ColorWash 2500 fixtures fitted with PC lenses, which were hung on side trusses and positioned so as not to impede on the Chemical Brothers' rig.

These were used to wash the stage and audience. "Their brightnes

Serbia - Clay Paky was on stage with the 136 Alpha Sport HPE 1200, with which LD Per Sundin created and achieved pyrotechnic lighting effects for this year's Eurovision Song Contest at the Belgrade Arena.

The Alphas created custom lighting for each artist so that each performance was characterised by a studied play of effects and colours. The light show was made attractive to both the large audience in the Arena and home viewers by the attentive layout of the numerous and different light sources including 120sq.m of Barco OLite 510, 24 sq.m of Barco 10 and about 400 sq.m of M LEDs LC2140. As in 2007 and 2006 the event was again controlled by a grandMA system.

PROCON Event Engineering Germany, was the general technical supplier and provided lighting, sound, video, stage building, rigging and power. Production designer was Goran Joksimovic. Sven Stojanovic worked as art director

USA - Blue Man Group, whose globally successful show is a performance art spectacle rooted in dynamic percussion, relies upon EV mics. Matt Koenig, audio director/designer for Blue Man Group, is responsible for specifying sound reinforcement equipment for all the Blue Man Group productions around the world. Drums and percussion are the driving force of every show and picking the right drum mics is a top priority to ensure consistently excellent sound quality. Koenig explained how he arrived at the Electro-Voice N/D468 and N/D868.

"We gathered a group of mics from various manufacturers, set them up in our studio rehearsal space in New York, and had a shootout," Koenig says. "We soon found the N/D468 and N/D868 to be the best-sounding mics for our application. They won fair and square, and were judged by people who really know drum sound, as that's such a huge part

RF News - The first ever Sennheiser RFX Series was a training event that gave Sennheiser's service and support engineers from around the globe the opportunity to experience RF issues that can affect live shows at first hand. Only by dealing with problems in real life pressure situations, Sennheiser believes, can engineers pick up the field experience needed to turn RF knowledge into operational RF expertise.

Putting theory into practice, the students ­ Sennheiser employees from the US, the UK, Denmark, India, Russia, China, Singapore and Germany ­ learnt the nuances of RF equipment and potential problems before spending a full day installing and troubleshooting RF mics and IEMs for a nine-piece band under the watchful and demanding eyes of two very experienced live sound engineers. Digico donated their new flagship SD7 console for front of house, and a D5 for monitors, and with Georg

UK - This summer has seen the busiest festival season yet for Chris Beale Associates (CBA), whose packages of wireless, site-wide communications have been adopted by many outdoor events including Glastonbury, Download Festival, the V Festivals, Reading and Leeds, Latitude, T in the Park and Radiohead's Glasgow outdoor show, while corporate events have included shows for the Royal Horticultural Society.

The objective of CBA Wireless Events, the networking operations part of CBA, founded by Chris Beale in 2005, is to transform communications between the myriad companies and people scattered across event sites spanning hundreds of acres - Glastonbury's Worthy Farm being a prime example.

Today, Beale says that wireless is in demand across major event sites to an unprecedented extent. "It was our second year at Glastonbury in an independent role, contracted to supply IT, netwo

France - Projection specialists E/T/C Paris supplied Christie video projectors, an Onlyview control system, an extensive video camera package and a digital outside broadcast van for the Unighted event, staged at the Stade de France stadium in Paris.

Hosted by club promoter, Cathy Guetta, the event 'unighted' five of the world's best known DJs - David Guetta, Carl Cox, Tiësto, Martin Solveig and Joachim Garraud - in a swirling, high energy multimedia mix of aesthetics and emotions enjoyed by 45,000 enthusiastic party people.

E/T/C Paris was asked onboard by long-time collaborators Skertzò, who were chosen to create the show's scenic elements and image design.

In addition to the video projection and Onlyview system, E/T/C provided equipment and crew for all the image capturing and relaying elements of the show.

A total of 23 cameras were used - five broadcast, two w

UK - fabric has added the Vestax PMC-580 4-Channel DJ Mixer with on-board digital effects and PDX-3000 turntables to its stock of premium DJ equipment. fabric is one of five clubs in the UK chosen to receive a PMC-580 Mixer sponsored by Vestax, organised by exclusive UK distributors Leisuretec Distribution.

Technical manager of fabric, Sanjeev Bhardwaj commented: "This is fabric, our reputation is everything and we have to have to have the best equipment available for our artists. Having road tested the Vestax PMC-580, this mixer is superb."

He continued: "The 580 is a very powerful, high level mixer, making it not just suitable for a large club like fabric, but smaller clubs too.The features are excellent, it's easy to work with and it's not cramped at the back. The 580 has every feature set you could want on a mixer; analogue and digital mode, MIDI, master out

USA - With sales of over 25 million albums, seven number-one hits, and eleven Grammys in less than a decade in the spotlight, Alicia Keys is at the top of her game. This summer will find her headlining shows and playing festivals throughout the world in support of her third studio album, As I Am.Keys sings into a Sennheiser SKM 5200 wireless mic with a dynamic MD 5235 capsule. Her backing singers use Sennheiser SKM 935 G2 wireless mics, and all of the mobile members of the band, including Keys, rely on evolution wireless ew 300 IEM G2 wireless personal monitor systems.

FOH engineer Larry Mignona comments, "The 5235 has a warm sound without the unnatural high-end boost that's so prevalent in many wireless mics. In my opinion, that high-end boost is there to flatter singers who can't really sing. But Alicia can really sing. In addition, the rejection from a Sennheiser

UK - Avolites consoles were specified extensively for lighting control in the majority of arenas at Global Gathering 2008, one of the UK's leading dance festivals, staged at Long Marston Airfield near Stratford on Avon, Warwickshire.

The visual design that united lighting, digital and video sources into one seamless atmospheric experience for all fivearenas and three terraces, was created by Nick Jevons and Phil Winward of Electric Fly Productions. Site wide lighting equipment was supplied by Blackburn-based HSL, and crew from both companies collaborated closely to ensure that it was one of the most visually memorable Global events to date.

The seven arena/terrace Avolites consoles included two Diamond 4s, two Pearls and three Tigers. Jevons says, "Avolites is the ultimate festival console - nothing else offers the flexibility or ease of use for the hands-on, live operati

France - L-Acoustics has announced the launch of the K1/KUDO Pilot Programme. This announcement follows the recent publication of an interview of Christian HEIL and Stéphane Ecalle at ProLight & Sound 2008 in which L-Acoustics unveiled the V-DOSC sequel and the future creation of a global DOSC Network.

The K1/KUDO Pilot Programme will be proposed primarily to existing members of the DOSC Network - V-DOSC and KUDO owners with an interest in advanced field proofing of the new K1/KUDO/LA8 system architecture for stadium and arena applications.

The K1/KUDO Pilot Programme is expected to last for a period of 24 months, a necessary time prior to the official launch of the future L-Acoustics Stadium line array system. K1/KUDO Pilot rental companies will closely collaborate with L-Acoustics R&D team and technical support. Emphasis will be put on preset validation, stadium syste

UK - Specialist supplier of audio visual, multimedia and videoconferencing technology, Saville Audio Visual has expanded its commitment to KV2 Audio - by adding to its existing inventory of KV2 Audio ES Series - in a number of the company's 14 locations across the UK.

Saville's Hull office has recently added 14 KV2 Audio EX10 two-way, full-range, active enclosures, all of which have joined Hull's existing four stacks of KV2 ES Series in time for the current 15-week, televised, Premier League tour for the Professional Darts Corporation.

The tour attracts live arena audiences of up to 8,000 per night and is transmitted live on Sky Sports channel. The KV2 Audio system provides the main sound requirement for each event, from the warm-ups, player walk-ons, referee decisions and TV announcements.

A double KV2 ES Series stack either side of the stage, each comprising of two flown E

USA - One of America's most iconic monuments, the 60ft high carvings of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt on Mt. Rushmore took the sculptor Gutzon Borglum and 400 workers nearly 14 years to complete in 1941. Since that time, millions of Americans and international visitors have travelled to the Black Hills of South Dakota to view this modern wonder and witness its nightly lighting ceremonies and other special events.

In 1998 a massive redevelopment project added an amphitheatre, museum, visitors' centre, gift shop, restaurant and other tourist facilities to the national park. In the decade since, the harsh Dakota winters have taken their toll on the facility's public address system, and Rapid City-based Haggerty's Audio Video was called in to design the system's upgrade and expansion.

"We actually created two separate systems," explains Haggarty's Mike Moo

Ukraine - D.A.S. Aero 48 units were recently deployed for rock singer and guitarist Vladimir Kuzmin's concert in Ukraine. This was the first of many concerts the singer will be offering as part of his tour which include events in the cities of Odessa, Nikolayev, Kherson, Krivoy, Rog, Poltava, Severo-Donetsk, Donetsk, Lugansk and Dnepropetrovsk.

The Aero equipment was supplied by Ukrainian rental company StormLine, partners of Indigo Music Company, D.A.S. distributor in Ukraine. The Aero 48 provided optimal performance at the concert, of which StormLine owner Yevgeny Shturmin, commented, "The sound was crystal clear and at the same time very powerful. I thought it was a large scale Hi Fi system." Eight Aero 48 units were flown per side and eight ST-32 units were employed as stage monitors. Signal processing was handled by the D.A.S. DSP-26 digital signal processors.

I

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline