Germany - The Procon Group, international leading full-service provider of technical equipment for events and TV productions, has invested in equipment from Barco and High End Systems, representing the biggest single investment in Procon's history.

Procon's order of LED equipment included a significant amount of Barco NX-6, MiTRIX and OLite.

"We always aim to offer our clients the latest products that are available on the market. As well as the increase in MiTRIX and OLite, we have now also decided on a Black Face LED system. The decision was made in favour of the NX-6 from Barco for reasons of its quality and flexibility", stated Morten Carlsson, managing director of Procon Event Engineering.

With this order, Procon has increased its stock of LED walls by more than 1,000 sqm this year. The company has also invested in projection equipment. The stock of Barco XLM H

UK - Stage One, working with Cricket, a brand communications agency, helped to create a new photographic exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in London to celebrate Land Rover's 60th Anniversary.

The exhibition of 60 images, entitled Portraits of Adventure, consisted of 50 regular sized photographic images along with 10 specially commissioned four-metre high portraits by photographer Alastair Thain.

"We enjoy a close working relationship with both Cricket and Land Rover and are delighted to play a part in Land Rover's celebrations," said Simon Wood, sales director, Stage One.

For the exhibition, Stage One was asked to construct a number of different items including several plinths, two of which were designed to take a Land Rover vehicle and one used to display an Alastair Thain camera. In the main gallery area four double-sided aluminium walls

The Netherlands - Robe Lighting is collaborating with Netherlands-based Leasing Services to develop a series of financial packages for its clients and business partners. These can either be arranged directly with the client/rental company/end user or via over 40 of Robe's worldwide distributors.

"We have been looking for a suitable and solidly reliable leasing partner for some time, and a lot of careful consideration has gone into our decision to team up with Leasing Services," comments Robe lighting MD Josef Valchar. "This agreement is a major step forward in Robe's evolution, and will greatly benefit a majority of our business partners and clients by facilitating a wide range of accessible, flexible, cost-effective finance options."

Interested parties will be able to fill in the initial inquiry forms on the Robe website www.robe.cz and send these directly

Guatemala - Fraternidad Cristiana de Guatemala (also known as Mega Frater) is the largest Christian church in Latin America. Measuring 1,217 million square feet, this massive structure includes a school, restaurant, swimming pool, full television and radio production facilities, a heliport atop an eight-story parking garage, a 12,500-seat theatre in the main sanctuary, a stage larger than most major concert venues, and much more.

To find a powerful sound system capable of delivering even coverage for spoken word and live music material in the expansive room, Mega Frater turned to Guatemala City-based Pro Sound. After thorough considerations by a committee which included the church's senior pastor, Jorge Lopez, a self-powered system based on Meyer Sound's Milo line array loudspeaker was chosen.

"For me, the biggest priority for our sound system is intelligibility," sa

UK - At this year's Scottish festival T in the Park, local rental company EFX Audio deployed their two Midas XL8 Live Performance Systems at front of house for the Radio 1/NME stage with two Heritage 3000s on monitors. Main stage headliners REM also brought in a pair of XL8s supplied by Rat Sound, plus a Klark Teknik DN9696 hard disc recorder which they've been using for their European tour. In addition, Britannia Row supplied the main stage with two H3000s for front of house and Kings of Leon brought in their own XL4.

"Any misgivings we felt about running a festival on digital consoles were lost after the first day," says EFX systems tech Bill Laing, who worked with the XL8s alongside EFX's Stevie Murray. "First time users found the consoles immediately familiar thanks to the traditional channel strip layout and easy channel access. Bands that already had show fi

Denmark - Artcoustic will host its third Global Annual Conference from 13-15 August 2008. The three-day event will take place at the showroom Artcoustic opened in Copenhagen last year.

Artcoustic will present its latest news with products and audio solutions aimed at optimizing customer lifestyles. The conference will be a meeting place for its worldwide exclusive distributors where they will be able to share ideas and techniques and immerse themselves in the latest audio technologies presented by Artcoustic, says the company.

At the conference Artcoustic will also honour the best projects and installations from Artcoustic's Worldwide Dealer Network.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Foley supervisor and film sound recordist Alex Joseph encountered a useful new addition to his arsenal of DPA microphones when working on the movie version of Mamma Mia! - the DPA 4017 shotgun mic.

Adapted from the successful stage musical (which featured DPA miniature mics across the cast) Mamma Mia! presented Joseph with the brief of working the sound effects into the music while retaining many factors which make it a success on stage. Joseph worked with a core sound team of sound supervisor Nick Adams, sound designer Alistair Sirkett, dialogue supervisor Tim Hands, dialogue editor Jenny Evans and assistant sound editor Connor Mackey during the six-month project, on various location recordings and Foley studio sessions before mixing the film at Sound One in New York.Set on a Greek island, water sounds feature heavily in the film. "We rented a local swi

UK - Behringer and Bugera have announced new artist and public relations partnerships for their European territories. UK based AMP will be handling AR and PR for Behringer and PR for Bugera while Artist Relations LLC will handle European AR for Bugera.

Artist Relations LLC are a Miami-based AR operation fronted by Randy Fuchs, who has worked in the music industry for over three decades.

AMP Ltd's Jonathan Miller comments: "We at AMP are delighted to be taking Behringer and Bugera's artist, media and public relations to the next level." Randy Fuchs adds: "Together with AMP we are keen for artists across the continent to be introduced to - and be blown away by - products from both Gehringer and Bugera."

Scott Garside, Behringer's's corporate communications manager, adds: "Partnering with both AMP and Artist Relations LLC demonstrates our ongoing commit

Spain - The C.A.T Centre Artesà Tradicionàrius, a major theatre in Barcelona promoting the Catalan tradition, has become the beneficiary of a new Installation Line Array (ILA) system from QSC Audio.

In order to reflect its growing importance, and increasing number of traditional festivals it is hosting, this civic auditorium recently commissioned a complete technical overhaul, completely rewiring the building and and installing a system comprising six WL2082-i and one WL115-sw sub per side.

The Centre Artesà Tradicionàrius was opened in 1993 on the initiative of l'Associació Cultural TRAM (an organisation set up to promote the Catalan traditional culture), with funding from the Cultural department of the local government.

It was they who financed the upgrade of the 400-seat auditorium, which hosts everything from traditional instrument players to folk dance and expositi

Germany - Heavy metal band Manowar secured a place in the Guinness Book of Recors during the 1990s as the loudest band in the world, and sheer volume has remained an integral part of the Manowar concert experience. The band's technical rider specifies a minimum unweighted SPL of 126dB at FOH position.

At the recent second annual Magic Circle Festival in Bad Arolsen, Germany, Manowar achieved levels in excess of 139dB through Westfalen Sound's Meyer Sound Milo system.

The Meyer Sound system that Westfalen provided comprised a total of 32 Milo and two Milo 120 line array loudspeakers, with massive low end provided by 64 700-HP subwoofers. Twelve M'elodie line array loudspeakers covered front- fill, with three CQ-1 loudspeakers handling centre-fill and out-fill duties.

Westfalen Sound's Dirk Maron points out that the earth-shattering sound levels were maintained

UK - Lighting rental company Siyan has invested in 15 i-Pix BB7 LED wash lights which will be going out on the upcoming Killers tour after they were specified by LD Steven Douglas.

Twelve of these, along with six BB4s were recently used on the London date of Duffy's UK tour, which has also been serviced by Siyan, and designed/operated by Bryan Leitch and Cate Carter.

"They are fantastic fixtures - bright, dynamic and unusual " says Leitch, who was actually specifically looking for a light-source that was similar in shape to the flower/petal appearance of the BB7. As soon as i-Pix' Chris Ewington had demonstrated the power and effect of the BB7, a seven- cell high powered homogenized 10 degree RGB lightsource, Leitch put in his order.

Six went directly onto the KylieX2008 world tour, with lighting designed by Leitch and Nick Whitehouse, where they were used in the o

UK - Pioneering loudspeaker manufacturer Tannoy makes a welcome return to the PLASA show after being absent for a couple of years. The company will be using the Earls' Court extravaganza as the perfect platform for a first UK demonstration of their newest pro-audio product lines, VQ and QFlex, as well as exhibiting some of the existing V-Series loudspeaker range.

The new Tannoy VQ Series is a range of revolutionary loudspeakers designed for any application where precise directional control, outstanding sonic performance, and high SPL's are critical issues; such as large corporate AV systems, stadiums, large dance clubs, live concert halls, theatres, houses of worship and open-air venues, say the company. Utilising precision engineering and design, the VQ series can produce enough power and clarity to be used individually, maintaining your building's aesthetics, unlike line array

Poland - Fiat Bank Polska in Warsaw recently celebrated its tenth anniversary - with a spectacular event in the famous old Warsaw University of Technology, one of the largest academic schools of technology in Eastern Europe.

The building's grand façade was flooded for the occasion with architectural lighting from four PR Lighting Century Color 2500Ls to create a breathtaking effect.

These fixtures were provided by MEDIAM Sp. zoo, PR Lighting's Polish distributors for an evening which saw a performance by Polish singer, Natalia Kukulska, in front of an audience of around 400.

Mediam were brought in by professional creative agency and production company, Creative Media, with whom they have worked in the past - and the company's in-house lighting designer Maciej Bubula set to work on ingtegrating several PR Lighting fixtures with an LED screen (for the performance by Kukulska

UK - The Park main stage at this year's Glastonbury Festival was produced by Bristol-based South West Group using recently-purchased lighting and sound equipment from MilTec (UK).

South West Group took advantage of the demanding festival situation to run a live demonstration of the new Lynx line-array system from VMB, also distributed in the UK by MilTec. The system comprised eight Lynx V8 active top boxes, with six Lynx active 218 subwoofers per side, driven through the new Ark 48 system processor.

Operations manager, Mark Bott, explained: "We'd already heard the VMB system at the manufacturer's headquarters in Spain and were suitably impressed with the sound from such a compact system. We wanted to put the Lynx through its paces and the Park Stage was the perfect opportunity. We were allocated a very limited weight to fly from the speaker towers and the VMB line array m

UK - Adlib Audio supplied sound production and crew for the third consecutive year to Lake Stage, the Film & Music Stage and the Cabaret Arena at the 2008 Latitude Festival.

The Lake Stage was sponsored by the BBC as an "introducing" platform for new, young and hot emerging talent. The tent was a small saddle-span design with relatively low headroom, so the Nexo Alpha PA supplied by Adlib was ground stacked, and comprised two S2 subs, two B1 bass speakers and twoM3 mid-highs.

This was powered by Camco amps with Nexo NX242 system processors, and all bands were mixed from side- stage on a Soundcraft Series 4 console, which was also used to mix six monitor sends.

A standard Adlib outboard FX rack contained a Lexicon PCM 70, Yamaha SPX 990 and 2000s and an Eventide H3000 harmoniser plus Drawmer DS201 gates and DBX 1066 and 160A compressors.

Monitors were 10 Adlib AA1

UK - Ward Steedsy Associates has become the first PA company in Scotland to purchase an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system. Run by Steven Ward and David Stevenson, the recently formed hire company took delivery of an iDR10 Mixrack and iLive-112 control surface.

"We organised a few shootouts with existing analogue consoles and the affordable digital options. iLive impressed us because not only does it provide all the benefits of digital - such as the use of Cat 5 cables instead of bulky multicores, and a whole host of inboard processing - it is simple to use, easy for engineers to pick up, has a small footprint, is excellent value for money and has fantastic analogue sound quality," comments Steven Ward.

Ward Steedsy Associates provides dry and wet hire of lighting and audio equipment, as well as full event management services, specifically for live music event

Italy - Rome-based commercial TV station Mediaset has refurbished its TG5 news studio. Director Giorgio Marra, and senior director of photography, Gianni Mastropietro opted to incorporate the Coemar ParLite LED.

The broadcasters made a bold commitment to the fixture - requisitioning 140 of the 36 x 1W Luxeon ParLite LED heads, all fitted with 12° lens; these were supplied, complete with colour frames by Di & Di Lighting & Truck srl, a large rental company based in Rome. Set in Par 38-style cans the ParLite LEDs have been built into the vibrant new set conceived by scenographer Raffaella Galbiati, and mounted on racetrack-shaped truss around the studio perimeter.

TG5 sits alongside, TG4 and Studio Aperto at the historic Centro Palatino site and broadcasts four news programmes each day; the number of journalists on set at any one time defines the number of ParLites used, the

UK - A.C.'s Audio division has recently supplied Imperial College Union with a new Opus 900 Series wireless radio microphone system.

A.C. Audio sales executive Glen Thompson, who oversaw the equipment supply commented: "Over the last year or two, Imperial College Union have been gradually updating their sound technology to meet with the growing demand from the drama productions and live band nights held at the venue. Already having experience with Opus wireless technology, the Union was keen to purchase three NE900Q UHF quad receivers due to their 1U rack size and known reliability and durability."

Thompson continued: "Rack space can be a huge issue for many sound directors in this modern age, so the NE900Q is a superb solution that has no limiting or negative effects on the sound quality. The union will also have the option of running any brand of microphone wi

UK - After a successful trial in 2007, The Championships 2008 - more commonly known as Wimbledon Fortnight - saw the hosting All England Lawn Tennis Club elect to replace its longstanding scoreboards on Centre and No.1 Courts with state-of-the-art LED screens.

The new screens meant that the scoreboards could be put to a much wider range of uses, so improved communications between the court control booths and the main screen control room were essential. And these communications were significantly aided by four Yamaha DME4io-C high-performance terminal I/O processors.

Wimbledon-based RG Jones Sound Engineering has been the main audio contractor for the All England Club for over 20 years "At such a high profile event, reliability is everything. A breakdown in communications would cause huge problems," says the company's Jon Berry. "We needed a straightforward devic

Germany - Through cooperation between Optocore and Neumann, it is now possible to transport, distribute and route Neumann digital microphone audio signals and control data using one digital network - one network connection for all signals with no limitation in distances.

Neumann's recent developments include the Solution D Series digital microphones with AES42 interfaces. A most advantageous A/D conversion, especially developed synchronization technology and the capability of controlling standard microphone parameters and various integrated signal-processing functions remotely ensure that Solution-D meets the most demanding professional audio production requirements, says the company.

Audio signals are available at any point of the network as AES/EBU and MADI as well as conventional analogue format. Optocore has now developed a RJ45 to Sub-D adapter cable, allowing every Optoc

Show News - Loudspeaker manufacturer Tannoy makes a welcome return to the PLASA show after being absent for a couple of years. The company will be using the Earls' Court event as the platform for a first UK demonstration of its newest pro-audio product lines, VQ and QFlex, as well as exhibiting some of the existing V-Series loudspeaker range.

Executive News - Bandit Lites has announced that Peter M. Heffernan, a 30-year veteran, has been named president of the firm. Effective immediately, Heffernan will take the reigns and serve as both president and C.O.O., a role he has held for the last 15 years. This move comes at a time of growth for Bandit and is the logical step in taking the firm to the next level, says the company. Heffernan began his full time relationship with Bandit Lites in 1978 and he has risen through the ranks. He served as lighting director and/ or production manager f

Canada - In an effort to support the continuous growth in southern Europe and specifically the Spanish market, Adamson has announced a new distribution deal with SeeSound Spain. The deal was finalised in early June with Adamson president and CEO, Brock Adamson, visiting the SeeSound operation in Barcelona.

As part of a strategy for brand penetration in Europe, SeeSound will now be the official distributor and point of contact for all Adamson related sales and support. All inquiries for Adamson products can be directed to the head of See Sound, Nacho Alberdi, who will be the executor of the Spanish operations.

SeeSound started its new partnership with Adamson by placing a substantial first order for a new Adamson rental partner Fluge which includes 12 Y10s, 32 Y18s, and 24 T21-Subs, as well as SeeSound demo gear, which Includes SpekTrix Series, Metrix Series, and M15s.

On 7 J

Australia - Dante digital audio networking technology proved its reliability and cost-effectiveness at one of this year's largest public gatherings - World Youth Day 2008. Huge crowds attended the July events in Sydney. Crowd estimates for Pope Benedict XVI's final mass at Randwick Racecourse ran as high as 400,000.

Scott Willsallen of Auditoria was charged with delivering a high quality audio experience to everyone in attendance at both Randwick and the "Super Thursday" opening mass, which drew 140,000 to Barangaroo on Sydney Harbour. He relied on Dante to distribute signal from the mixing desks to speaker towers throughout the enormous audiences.

Willsallen is an expert in designing audio systems for major events. His resumé includes the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, 2006 Commonwealth Games, 2006 Doha Asian Games, 2006 Eurovision Song Contest and the 2003 Rugby

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