USA - Sight & Sound Theatres has selected 10 Robert Juliat Super Korrigan followspots for its new venue in Branson, Missouri. A Christian theatre company based in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, Sight & Sound Theatres is well known for its multimedia stage productions with Biblical themes.

"We brought in Juliat's Super Korrigans plus followspots from another manufacturer for a shootout on our main stage," says lighting designer Joe Basinger. "One of my goals was to get better colour temperature and gain than other followspots we have used. Our distances are half-way between long throw and really long throw, so we needed a happy medium. With Robert Juliat's Super Korrigan, gain and colour temperature are far superior to the other followspots we've seen."

Basinger deploys the lights, purchased through PRG Dallas, for any new production rotated into the theatr

China - Turbosound's Chinese distributor Phoenix Audio & Lighting Technology has supplied equipment to three very different establishments in two Chinese cities.

The Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Nanjing Agricultural University are two of the region's major seats of learning. Phoenix Audio has supplied a wide range of TCS and TXD series loudspeakers in three locations for installation by Ao-bang Audio And Lighting Engineering.

In the theatre of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Ao-bang installed a system comprising TXD-081 and TXD-151 full range cabinets, TXD-218 subs and TXD-12M wedge monitors.

Meanwhile at Nanjing Agricultural University, the company installed six TXD-151 in the Academic Hall and, in the university's Multi-function Hall, a range of TXD and TCS Compact loudspeakers, with control by Turbosound LMS-D24 processors.

Canada - Wireless Solution Sweden's W-DMX was recently used to good effect in Pemberton, BC Canada, for Live Nation's Pemfest 2008 which featured two stages, two performance tents and camping for 40,000 people.

Mark Laughton of Viridian Power, the site power and lighting contractor for the event, worked on the project with Ian Gordon of Christie Lites Vancouver. Their aim was to have the ability to control the entire site so that when performers such as Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails and Tom Petty were playing, the ambient level across the sight could be reduced. Also, because of the size of the site, the ability to remotely increase or decrease light levels in zones for security or other purposes was an advantage if achievable.

Jason McKinnon from Electric Aura Lighting Design was consulted to see if W-DMX from Wireless Solution might be able to achieve this goal. The site was ext

UK - South West London's Capital Sound has introduced a KV2 Audio EX system into its hire inventory for use at ongoing corporate retail events, such as those within London's Armani stores, and to satisfy Capital's CSE work entertaining the British Armed Forces overseas.

The system was initially demonstrated by LMC Audio, who subsequently made the sale. LMC's Steve King commented: "The KV2 Audio brand is a genuinely exciting one and our belief in the product range is validated by every demonstration and sale. Many respected sound hire companies like Capital are blown over by the sheer value, power and quality of the products."

The EX system, comprised of two EX10 two-way, full range active cabinets, two EX12s incorporating the revolutionary 3-inch NVPD large format compression driver, and two double 12" EX2.2 active subwoofers, fulfils a diverse requirement from

UK - Hire Association Europe (HAE) will launch its new trade association for the event hire sector at the Showman's Show this month. Event Hire Association (EHA) will cater especially for companies in the event hire industry, and will run alongside HAE.

Working specifically for the event hire sector, the board of the new association will provide help and support for event hire companies across the UK and Ireland.

Graham Arundell, managing director of HAE and board member of EHA, said, "The new association has been created to better support those companies in the event hire market. Although we offer a range of benefits as part of HAE's membership, we decided that we could offer a much more tailored service to event hire companies if they had a dedicated association of their own."

(Jim Evans)

Switzerland - A major new seminar facility in the Swiss town of Thun has been equipped with an ILA Installation line array system from QSC Audio.

The manufacturer's territorial distributors, SDS Music Factory, supplied hangs comprising four ILA2082-i per side with a pair of ModularDesign MD-S215 (2 x 15") subwoofers to meet the main hall specification of project designers and installers, DIONIX.

The venue itself offers a total of seven seminar rooms, with the largest providing even coverage for up to 700 seats. Since the shape of this space is oval, it presented a special challenge for the sound system designers, who not only needed to achieve even coverage, but set EQ patterns appropriate for concerts and worship.

DIONIX and SDS managed to meet these criteria, achieving optimum speech intelligibility and a wide dynamic range.

Christian Frei, project engineer of DIONI

Germany - A total of 62 L-acoustics Kiva cabinets and 16 Kilo low frequency units have been used for a production of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen - a piece for three orchestras - performed during the Musikfest Berlin in late September. The epic piece was staged four times as part of the festival finale by the Berliner Philharmonika with conductors Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding and Michael Boder, in a 1930s aircraft hangar at Tempelhof Airport in Berlin.

Gruppen was written for 109 players divided into three orchestral units, each with its own conductor, deployed in a horseshoe shape to the left, front and right of the audience. The spatial separation was designed to keep simultaneously played, musically separate passages distinct from one another, but in some passages a single musical process passes from one orchestra to another. This setup required three dis

UK - The ceremony for the handover of the torch Olympic from Beijing to London (2012) was reinforced by Britannia Row's Butterfly systems. Visa London 2012 Party was transmitted live by the BBC with a Beijing-London link-up.

Along The Mall, the road running from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square, several scaffolding towers were set up with a total of 100 Outline Butterfly CDH 483 Hi-Pack enclosures installed.

The main stage, the hub of the event, hosted a spread of acts including Will Young, James Morrison, The Feeling, McFly, Scouting for Girls, Il Divo, Katherine Jenkins, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Heather Small and the cast of the musical We Will Rock You. Here, the sound was entrusted to 44 Butterfly Hi-Packs and 16 SubTech 218.

In St. James Park, there were 24 more Hi-Packs and 4 SubTech 218. The entire set-up was digitally controlled by Dolby Lake processors and p

France - Lighting effects from PR Lighting dominate the new nightclub, Le Sens, which opened recently in the French town of Moulins-Les-Metz.

The imaginative design scheme, created by Gerard Giraudon of ColorSonic, incorporates 10 of PR Lighting's Solo 250 effect - which took full advantage of the available space.

The Solo 250 features nine colours, seven interchangeable rotating gobos, an independent shutter for strobe effects, a rotating prism and remote focus. And with its stand-alone and master/slave operating modes (as well as conventional DMX) it suitable for a wide variety of applications.

Additionally, Gerard Giraudon's clever use of LED lighting strips at the bar counter ensures an ever-changing environment in this lively new venue.

(Jim Evans)

UK - A new three-floor, 32,737sq.ft, 2,600 capacity venue, named matter, is part of the successful O2 Arena Complex in London's Docklands. The new all-concrete, heavily soundproofed building is the brainchild of fabric owners, Keith Reilly and Cameron Leslie, and represents a multimillion pound investment.

Their brief to Most Technical's Dave Parry was to take the use of entertainment technology to a new level.

This he has done by a bespoke integration of sound, lighting and video, with the mainstay of the sound system being a Martin Audio W8L Longbow line array, which incorporates Timax Outboard Processing; this allows the sound to be mapped in three dimensions and be manipulated around the entire space by the operators. Another core element is Djenerate's new BodyKinetic interactive dance floor system with some 75,000W of sound pumped through the floor, which is underfitted

UK - PSL was on hand to greet the triumphant Jetman Yves Rossy, as he zoomed into the record books last week, flying across the English Channel strapped to a single jet-powered wing, with only a helmet and flight suit for protection.

His 22-mile France-to-England journey took 13 minutes, and ended when he opened his parachute system and floated down to a ploughed field not far from the White Cliffs of Dover.

PSL's production team had turned that field, which belongs to the National Trust, into a veritable media village for Rossy's sponsors, the National Geographic Channel. Handling all the site issues, including the management of the landing site, PSL's Neil Smith and Stuart McLaren had to contend with the extremes of British weather - just like the Jetman. "On our first day of build, we got absolutely soaked; later in the week, conditions were still not right and Yves ha

UK - Sennheiser's two new condenser microphones, the MKH 8020 and MKH 8040, were given their maiden outings this summer in the company of respected front of house engineer Dave Wooster.

The first mission for the new mics was a sequence of shows with reggae and hip hop-influenced singer-songwriter Jamie T and his band.

"The first two shows with Jamie T were small warm-up gigs in August at very small venues in London and Southend," says Wooster. "Both venues proved to be great tests for the rejection characteristics of the 8040s which I used on the hi-hats and the snare drum. I also used a pair of 8020s to capture the cymbals, close miking the underside of the two crash cymbals.

"The next two shows were at the V-Festivals, playing in large marquees. At both shows the mics really proved what they could do going through a very substantial PA system, producing

UK - Midas reports strong demand demand for its new PRO6 Live Audio System, the company's second networked digital audio system, which employs technologies developed from the XL8 in a compact package.

Among the first clients to place orders for the PRO6 are Irish rental companies MG Audio and Murt Whelan Sound and Lighting, who have each purchased a PRO6 system from local distributor Sound Communications. The companies are located on the east and southwest of the country respectively, and work closely together on a number of festivals and larger events. Both companies feel their PRO6 purchases will further enhance this arrangement.

Whelan's console inventory is exclusively Midas, offering Veronas, Siennas and Venices for rental. "I've been a Midas user for eight years and have been looking at upgrading to a higher spec console for some time, so it seemed a seamless transi

Europe - Queen, fronted by Paul Rodgers, have called on Power Logistics to ensure the electrical supply on their current world tour is entirely reliable and smoothly delivered. The tour opened recently at a large charity concert in Kharkov, Ukraine and will have passed through Riga, Berlin, Antwerp, Paris, Rome and Zurich before arriving in the UK on 10 October.

Power Logistics' managing director Pete Wills remains with the band as tour electrician for the duration of the 2008 tour.

"We are delighted to be able to help Queen on their current European Tour," says Wills. "We have a long standing relationship with Queen's production team built on our reputation for making doubly certain the show must go on."

(Jim Evans)

USA - A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens' epic story of Revolution-era Paris and London, has been brought to life in musical form for the Broadway stage by Jill Santoriello; a Midas XL8 mixing console from New York-based theatre sound design specialists Sound Associates is making its Broadway debut with the show.

Having completed its debut run in Florida at the end of 2007, and having had a stellar preview run on Broadway in August this year, A Tale of Two Cities ...the musical moved to its new home at the Al Hirschfield Theatre, where it opened on 18 September with Warren Carlyle directing. Sound Associates' Carl Casella and Domonic Sack are sound designers for the show; Wallace Flores (Sound Associates) is associate sound designer. Ty Lackey is mixing the production.

Sound Associates' Wallace Flores has been part of the XL8's development since the beginning, working

UK - Modern in-store radio is instant, flexible, convenient and, according to PEL Music and Media, it works: it helps increase high street sales. PEL Music and Media, owner of the 'Mediainstore' radio system, has been conducting trials with some of the major high street department stores and the results are extremely positive.

What's different about the modern breed of in-store radio is its exceptional flexibility and immediacy. 'Mediainstore', for example, uses the latest foolproof audio scheduling technology, enabling it to transmit radio programmes to every location that is set up to receive the service.

Content can be stored digitally, allowing for regular updates by ADSL, Broadband or CD, making the system far less vulnerable from equipment failure than other broadcast methods, and also making it extremely fast in the case of ADSL and Broadband.

Because of this incredib

Australia - Showtech Australia was commissioned to deliver six performers on the roof of the MCG, and the AFL Premiership cup, the most prized item in the AFL, for the opening ceremony of the AFL Grand Final 2008.

Showtech was contracted by event organizer Peter Jones Special Events to deliver the two special rigging items for the production. The Engineering and OHS considerations of delivering these two effects were several months in the planning and had to meet the strict guidelines of the Victorian OHS regulations, the guidelines of the stadium management, and the challenges of not impacting on the playing surface. The match begins 20 minutes after the ceremony was completed.

The first effect was six singers appearing high on the scoreboard roof. 50m above the field. The performers, camera operators, audio, and pyrotechnics crews all had to be closely coordinated so as not

USA - Melissa Etheridge makes no secret about her concern for the environment. For her 2008 Revival Tour, Etheridge's lighting director David Hamilton switched to a new LED fixture that saves energy, yet is so bright that a handful of units can light up an entire concert stage. The new fixture also creates less waste, since its lamps last for 100,000 hours, generating less throwaway for landfills.

That 'green' fixture is the Impression from Elation Professional, a compact LED moving head with RGB colour mixing. Powered by 90 high-power Luxeon K2 red, green and blue LEDs, the Impression produces a light output that's at least as bright as a 575W discharge fixture with no less than a 50% power savings, says the company.

Etheridge's tour manager Steve Girmont first saw the Impression at a trade show and brought it to the attention of Hamilton. "We were wanting to go L

UK - When the University of Dundee embarked on building a major new teaching facility, it was a key requirement to include induction loop systems. Now, 31 teaching rooms, staff rooms and lecture theatres in the new facility have Ampetronic loops installed.

Consultants White Young Green looked at all the available induction loop options and were impressed by the quality of Ampetronic's approach and products, leading to Arbroath-based Streamtec installing Ampetronic systems in the new teaching block's four main lecture theatres, driven by two Ampetronic ILD1000 loop amplifiers each.

"The lecture theatres provided some challenges," says Streamtec's Ian McMillan. "The biggest (280 seats) is located directly above two smaller 180 seat theatres, so containing spill was very important. We worked very closely with Ampetronic to ensure that the design worked flawlessly.

UK - White Light has supplied and installed a complete new lighting system St John's, Smith Square. Located in the heart of Westminster, the hall regularly plays host to leading international performers. However, the venue's existing lighting system was a quarter of a century old and in poor condition.

To replace the system, White Light worked with lighting designer Mark Henderson to devise a system that provided the venue's concerts with the lighting they needed while also being versatile, easy to maintain and easy to control.

The new installation is based around a series of small lighting grids installed on winches to allow easy access to the equipment at ground level; the winches were installed for White Light by Unusual Rigging. The grids are fitted with 50 1kW fresnels from Robert Juliat, which provide bright, even lighting for the venue's concerts. "We chose the Jul

UK - Following their recent agreement to become master stocking distributor for Litestructures, Impact Products invited staff from the Wakefield-based trussing and staging manufacturer to its headquarters to further strengthen the inter-company relationship with a tour of their extensive facilities and an afternoon on the local go-karting track.

Impact's business manager Keith Williams was joined by Lee Brooks, Litestructures' sales director, in presenting the staff with the mechanics of the new deal, which sees Impact distributing Litestructures' product from stock held in its warehouse.

"This is a fantastic opportunity for both parties" commented Brooks. "Impact is a young and energetic company which has already established itself as a leading trade supplier of professional sound and lighting equipment. The addition of our product to its range effectively offe

Australia - Eight new Robe ColorWash 750AT Tungsten fixtures have been added to The Gold Coast Arts Centre's moving light system. Technical manager Chris Dbais, states: "We needed some new fixtures, and the Robe Tungsten's were the best choice for excellent reliability and great features."

Robe's Australian distributor, the ULA Group, provided the Arts Centre with some demo Tungstens, which were utilised on the Whitlams Orchestral Tour.

The Tungstens are being rolled out in the coming weeks for the Centre's annual in-house production of the hit Broadway musical, The Boy from Oz. Lighting director Scott Allan has included the fixtures in his rig, and Dbais comments that he is "excited" to see what the LD comes up with.

The Gold Coast Arts Centre is a multipurpose facility incorporating the Arts Theatre, art gallery, comedy clubhouse, boardroo

UK - Style By Solares managing director, Wren Solares contracted TAO Group to design and produce L'Oreal Redken's Tribe '08 Hairdressing Awards, held at Battersea Evolution during London's Fashion Week this September.

Presented by TV's Alex Zane of Popworld, Tribe '08 is L'Oreal's annual awards for the UK's top hairdressers and was attended by over 1,200 hairdressers from around the country.

This year the aim was to achieve a more rock 'n' roll feel. TAO's Andy Cotton designed a production that included two 4mx 3m rear projection screens with Barco SLMR12 projectors, interspersed with 240 panels of stealth screen, supplied and operated by High Resolutions' Peter Canning.

The stage was installed as a three-stage system with a 12m x 10m main stage and a 9m central catwalk protruding into the audience arena. A connecting DJ stage was set at 18 inches higher and occupied

France - Digigram has announced the launch of its online directory of 'Network Audio Gurus' at www.ethersound.com/guru. The directory is designed to offer website visitors instant access to the right kind of expertise for their projects. The directory is free to register and open to all consultants, system designers and contractors with network audio experience who wish to promote their services via the pages of EtherSound. Interested parties can create their own profile and describe their field of expertise.

According to Digigram's marketing communications manager, Remi Oudinot, this is an opportunity for all network audio experts to increase their visibility within the market place. "We get over 6,000 visitors per month to ethersound.com," he explained. "Many of those will be looking at the site to see how they can incorporate EtherSound technology into their pr

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