USA - When one of the nation's largest cruise ships commissioned Gerry Hariton and Vicki Baral (Hariton/Baral Design) to design the set for their largest-ever onboard musical concert show, the Los Angeles production designers were determined to create a truly spectacular environment. The ship was Royal Caribbean's Independence of the Seas, and the production was to be held in its 1,350-seat Broadway-style theatre. "They were going to have 21 musicians on stage at one time, which is extraordinary for a cruise ship," said Hariton, who has been working with Royal Caribbean for a decade.

How to design a set for such an elaborate concert production? Model it after one of the nation's most famed cultural landmarks -- the Hollywood Bowl. Working with lighting designers Peter Moore and Mark Pranzini (Lightspeed Productions), Hariton and Baral emulated the legendary Los Angeles

UK - The 2009 Technology Finalists have been announced and voting is now activated. Over 11,600 individual votes were cast last year. There are no hidden voting costs. All that is required is some thought about the products that you consider being the most innovative and helpful to your business, say the organisers.

All valid and fully qualified votes registered before December 21st 2008 will also be entered into a prize draw. Prizes include flight & accommodation to Integrated Systems Europe 2009 and VIP tickets to the InAVation awards gala dinner held at the Hotel Okura, Amsterdam, 2 February 2009.

Among the manufacturers nominated in the 11 categories are Martin Audio, Vieta Pro, Niles, Community Professional, Barco and Crestron International. Full details are available at inavationawards@imlgroup.co.uk .

(Jim Evans)

USA - Harman International Industries has announced that its professional audio products will play a key role in the new Grammy Museum which opened in Los Angeles this week. The museum is a collaboration between The Recording Academy, the membership organisation responsible for the Grammy Awards, and Anshutz Entertainment Group, and was founded to celebrate the enduring legacies of music and its premier recognition through the Grammy Award.

The museum, located in the downtown Los Angeles sports, entertainment and residential district, L.A. LIVE, features some 30,000sq.ft of interactive exhibits and multimedia presentations. The Museum elected to feature professional audio technologies from several Harman International units including loudspeakers from JBL, microphones from AKG, processing technologies from BSS Audio, amplifiers by Crown Audio and mixing systems from Soundcraft.<

USA - October 2008 saw the United States' first eco-friendly lounge open its doors to the public of Hollywood, California - Ecco Ultra Lounge.

Every material used in the construction of Ecco - which is owned and operated by Danny B, David Stratton, Sean Muniz and Matthew Portnoff - has been carefully selected, from its LED lighting system, through to its power supply from the LA Department of Water and Power's Green Power resources. In fact, such is Ecco's pioneering status that its transformation has even featured on the Discovery Channel (Planet Green) on its show, Alter Eco. The sound system is based around Turbosound products.

"Everything that Turbosound produces is ROHS compliant and therefore produced within a 'green' process," says Joe Lodi owner and chief designer from Ecco's audio installer Advanced Audio Technology. "It is also WEEE compliant, w

UK - Arena Seating was a key part of the winning team when it came to creating a new look studio for the current series of X Factor. Series production manager Paul Viollet of PAV Productions, working with Talkback Thames, created the setting for the entertainment experience. The seating system had to fit around an expanded stage while giving the producers a number of flexible seating options.

Arena Seating installed 505 of its In Style temporary seats, finished with handrails, carpets, drapes and timber sides, all in muted black, rendering it almost invisible to the camera. The company's scaffolding expertise allowed the seating to fit snugly into the restricted studio space. In addition, it provided camera platforms and the supporting structure for ITV 2's Xtra Factor studio. An additional 165 Milano floor seats were provided by Spaceworks.

"Arena Seating designed

Romania - The cities of Galati and Tecuci are considered the crossroads of Eastern Europe (located only a few km from the border with Moldavia and Ukraine). Today they are experiencing a cultural and artistic renaissance thanks to the resourcefulness of the local Chamber of Commerce. In addition to many enterprises undertaken, the Chamber decided to light the most important buildings in the city centres.

Dan Lilion Gogoncea, head of the Galati's Chamber of Commerce, is renowned in Romania for his foresight and having supported various urbanistic projects aimed at the modernisation of the country.

One of the first projects was carried out at the Galati County Council, formerly a owned by Ceau?escu, now the magnificent headquarters of the local County Council.

In order to light the building in such a way as to attract attention as well as enhance it, Dan Lilion Gogoncea delega

UK - The latest production of Living's Most Haunted Live was set in a location that would raise the goose bumps of even the most pragmatic onlooker. The derelict and dilapidated Denbigh Asylum, was the setting for the live shows produced by Antix Productions and broadcast for four hours live each consecutive night for the week leading up to Halloween.

Antix Productions worked with Stage Electrics on the project having already delivered 13 Most Haunted Live programmes together over three years. The location, due to be demolished and redeveloped after filming had ceased, was initially visited by Antix, Stage Electrics and lighting director Warren Hodge in September, just eight weeks before the show. Its potential as the perfect location was instantly recognised.

Due to the dilapidated state of the buildings, Stage Electrics' Live Events team had first to ensure the

Singapore - The Singapore skyline was transformed by a fusion of creativity and knowledge as the long-awaited Fusionopolis development officially opened in October at One-North.

The centrepiece of the development - designed by the late Japanese architect Dr Kisho Kurokawa - is a S$20m (£8.6m) performing arts space suspended six storeys up between three 24-storey towers. Designed to look like a brain, the theatre - Genexis - is a flexible, curved performance space set to become a magnet for Singapore's most exciting artists.

The 120,000sq.m complex is intended to become a hub for the media and information technologies of the future and a creative environment where brilliant ideas are born: a nerve centre and, almost literally, a neural network.

Keeping with the idea of neural signals, Genexis glows and flickers with an interactive light show programmed to synch with act

Korea - Banpo Bridge in Seoul, South Korea used to be a rather ordinary connection across the Han River. But no longer. Thanks to a special fountain feature that dramatically shoots jets of water from the sides of the bridge, and a Martin Exterior range lighting scheme that dynamically illuminates the water show after sundown, the extraordinary water and light display has become a major attraction in the capital city.

The Banpo Bridge water feature shoots 60 tons of water every minute from some 380 nozzles located on each side of the 1.4k long bridge. The fountain was unveiled in September as the world's first large-scale water fountain from a bridge.

The jets of water 'dance' to music in 100 different choreographed movements. Creating an even more fantastic scene at night is a dynamic lighting scheme from 190 Exterior 600 colour changing luminaires.

Water management and tec

Italy - Last summer, Italian DJ Joe T Vannelli took over a second discotheque: the Canniccia Versilia in the Tuscan resort of Marina di Pietrasanta. For the Canniccia Versilia, he opted for the same formula that worked so successfully in his first club, the Area Venezia in Venice.

While architect Massimo Cadamuro concerned himself with the refashioning of the interiors, installation engineer Dario Juka selected and assembled the requisite equipment; Juka's first decision was to replace the existing audio system with an alpha concept system from Dynacord.

Dario Juka notes, "Our watchwords are 'state-of-the-art in every respect'. Since we engage as resident and guest DJs only the very best in their fields, we cannot and will not tolerate any compromises. All the experts - whether DJs or music producers - are convinced of the qualities of this system."

(Jim Evans)

USA - Harbour Marine Systems recently installed a Bosch Praesideo public address system on Carnival Cruise Line's ship Carnival Triumph. Since working with the new system, Carnival has determined that they will retrofit all of their ships with Praesideo.

Mauro Jacobellis of Harbour Marine Systems comments, "Praesideo provides excellent audio performance and ease-of-use, and has impressed a number of our major clients. Praesideo is perfect for Carnival because it fully complies with every rule and regulation set down by maritime authorities.

"In our business, working with marine applications, we have specific issues to address. For example, our client needed a public address system approved for ship use (for insurance purposes), and we needed to replace our previous system quickly in the dry dock, because the ship can't sail if the system isn't working. We always try

Canada - When the City of Edmonton Community Service Department wanted to enhance the night time appearance of the Muttart Conservatory they wanted to utilise the energy efficiencies of LED, so contacted ElektoLED's Canadian distributor Optilume Engineered Light Corporation for a solution. Elektor-FLEX RGB System was chosen, enabling the operators to choose from a palette of 16.8 million colours.

The Muttart Conservatory is Edmonton's premier horticultural attraction, featuring four glass pyramids filled with rare and exotic plants from all over the world, therefore the lighting needed to be equally as stunning.

The installation of the Elektor-FLEX was carried out by specialist contractors, assisted by Optilume, with commissioning carried out by ElektoLED Technicians from the UK.

Comprising of nearly 400m of RGB Elektor-FLEX and utilising over 30,000 LED's, the total install

USA - The city of Albany, Georgia has given a nod to its best-known native son with the opening of a park in his honour. Ray Charles Plaza includes a fountain featuring a life-sized revolving, lighted bronze sculpture of the famed musician seated at a grand piano. The sculpture, commissioned by artist Andy Davis, is the centrepiece of a five-acre park featuring piano-key studded sidewalks and loudspeakers playing the master's music.

The sound system, designed by Atlanta-based Lee Sound Design, features a series of Community WET loudspeakers, including eleven WET-218T two-way systems and four WET-112 subwoofers. The system is powered by Crown CTS-Series amplifiers, with Biamp Nexia DSP.

"This monument was designed to be a tribute to Ray that would last a lifetime, and the Community WET Series loudspeakers were the logical choice," said Lee Sound principal consultant

France - A Butterfly Outline array was used at the Cité de la Musique, in the heart of Paris, on the occasion of two concerts - Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg and L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches by Jean-Claude Vannier.

Outline's French distributor, AUDIO, installed a system made up of 24 Butterfly CDH 483 Hi-Packs and eight CDL 1815 Low-Packs (respectively 12 and four per side); all powered by Outline T7 digital power amplifiers. DVS 10 multi-purpose enclosures were used for the front rows of the audience and four Subtech 218 for the very low frequencies.

Bruno Morain, head sound engineer at Cité de la Musique comments, "I found the Butterfly system's performance in the theatre exceptional; I was particularly struck by the total absence of 'aggressiveness' and the aptitude to naturalness of its acoustic reproduction - practically s

Qatar - The Qatar Equestrian Federation centre has installed Meyer Sound systems as part of a major refurbishment.

The premier venue in the complex is the main outdoor arena, where the 120m diameter circular show grounds are flanked on one side by a covered grandstand with seating for 1,500 spectators. To project uniform, high-fidelity sound into the seating area, AV-TECH installed eight clusters of two M1D line array loudspeakers each along the front wall. The VIP area is served by a pair of the compact UPM-1P loudspeakers, while the vast expanse of the arena grounds - about 120m in diameter - is covered by three ground-stacked arrays of three M2D line array loudspeakers each.

"The old 100 volt distributed system had very harsh sound quality and poor intelligibility," says Hadi Arzouni, general manager of AV-TECH, the Doha, Qatar-based designer and installer of the

UK - The biggest and best All Star Lanes - the UK's original boutique bowling concept - opened this month in London's East End. Situated on 22,000sq.ft of prime real estate at the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, the third ASL, from co-founders Mark von Westenholz and Adam Breeden, has built on the same successful formula as its predecessors - including the multimedia infrastructure.

The public and private bowling lanes, cocktail bar and authentic '50's-style, 200-cover diner/luncheonette are all served by audio visual systems designed by The Sound Division Group. Their integrated system is based around Harman Pro sound reinforcement products.

In Brick Lane there is a total of nine lanes (six on the ground floor, the remaining three forming a 1950's penthouse-style private lounge on the first floor), with a stylish drinking den specialising in classic American cocktails, pitc

France - DPA Microphones' French distributor Audio² has provided DPA MSS6000 microphone summation systems and DPA 4060 miniature omnidirectional microphones to the Cité de la Musique in Paris for two Serge Gainsbourg tribute concerts.

The concerts covered the French singer's concept album Histoire de Mélody Nelson and Jean-Claude Vannier's L'Enfant Assassin des Mouches and featured vocalists such as actor Mathieu Amalric, Placebo vocalist Brian Molko, French singers Daniel Darc, Alain Chamfort, Brigitte Fontaine, and British singer Martina Topley Bird; the Orchestre Lamoureux; a rhythm section comprising drummer Pierre-Alain Dahan, bassist Herbie Flowers, guitarists Claude Engel and Thomas Coeuriot; and a young Parisian choir.

This provided a challenge to the sound engineers, who had to manage a huge input count, including more than 70 voices. This

USA - Audio-Technica reports that its SpectraPulse technology has been selected for the newly-remodelled boardroom for a high-profile Menlo Park, California-based venture capital group. California corporate system integrator Anderson Audio Visual chose SpectraPulse to provide clear, secure wireless audio for the boardroom's teleconferencing system.

"In boardroom settings, clients often have problems with group conference calls, in which the parties on both ends of the call have difficulty hearing the audio," said Andrew Hancox, Anderson Audio Visual representative. "So we had to design a system that would help them make the calls more effective. In addition, security was a concern, as these calls are often confidential and they need to be certain that no one else has access to the frequency, and also that no other devices can interfere with the clear signal.

&qu

USA - ESP New York and Wizard Studios recently deployed a Vi6 for the Veterans Day Celebration on the USS Intrepid. The Vi6 was used to simultaneously broadcast the live feed directly to the White House Communications Agency while maintaining 32 inputs from the celebration that provided countless obstacles.

ESP New York audio engineer Glenn Davis, who provided audio support for the event, comments, "The Veteran's Day celebration was a tremendous opportunity to showcase the capabilities of the Vi6 on a worldwide scale. A lot of technical requirements from the White House required us to pre-programme a majority of the presets, however there were a few vocal obstacles that required us to subgroup vocalist and insert graphic and sound via the console on the fly."

The Vistonics provided ESP New York engineers with an intuitive interface that is conducive for live sound ev

UK - Over 50 I-Pix BB4s and BB7s were used to great effect for lighting the ITV's new prime time games show, The Colour of Money, presented by Chris Tarrant.

The lighting was designed by Tom Kinane and Svend Pedersen, who made the bold creative move of not including a single moving light or any smoke in the rig. They wanted to introduce a completely new style of illumination for the show, utilising a substantial quantity of digital light sources to match Patrick Doherty's heavily LED based set.

Recorded in Studio 1 of the London Weekend Television HQ, space also restricted which lighting instruments could go where, and budget was also a consideration.

Around the top level of the multi-layered set were 22 BB4s, rigged just above three G-LEC LED screens, defining the top line of the set. They were used to add punch and brightness for accenting stings, and for snaps-to-s

Mexico - Sound production company Serpro Producciones (Monterrey, Mexico) recently provided Electro-Voice sound reinforcement for the first Zero-Fest music festival, which attracted a crowd of nearly 30,000 to Parque Fundidora in Monterrey.

The show local acts Zoe, Kinky, and Jaguares, along with international artists Thievery Corporation, The Mars Volta, and Junkie XL. Renowned Latin American bands Calle 13 (Puerto Rico) and Fabulosos Cadillacs (Argentina) also appeared, with Fabulosos Cadillacs headlining the event.

Zero-Fest required two stages to accommodate its long line-up of performers. The festival's Red Stage featured an EV X-Line system with two main hangs of 10 Xvls and two Xvlt per side, with low-end support via 12 ground-stacked Xsubs. The system was powered by P3000 amps and processed through a NetMax N8000 with FIR filters.

The Black Stage also featured

Germany - Dortmund's Domicil Jazz Club opted to replace its existing sound system with Adamson SpekTrix Series. The fairly new Domicil was recently voted one of the top 100 Jazz clubs in the world by Downbeat Magazine.

The entire club's footprint is about 1500sq.m and includes a café, a clubroom for smaller concerts for up to 100 people, and the main concert hall with 300 seats and standing room for 500. Hamburg based Adamson European Tour Support Jochen Sommer executed the sound design using Shooter v.2.7.0. The new P.A. in the main venue consists of L and R flown arrays of two Spektrix (5 degree) with a two-box Adamson SpekTrix W (15 degree) under-hang.

Two SpekTrix double 18" Subs per side are placed on the floor. The previous system was made up entirely of GAE Panorama speakers and some still remain as near fills and as a delay line for a balcony, as wel

UK - Promoted by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO), the closing event of the Edinburgh Festival sees a performance from the gardens beneath Princes Street, culminating in a spectacular fireworks display. The concert is broadcast through to several parts of the city, not least the length of Princes Street itself, where thousands of revellers congregate. In terms of audio it has always been an ambitious finale, and as the event has grown in stature, this was SCO's 26th year, so the expectations placed upon the PA system provider have grown with them.

"We've always seen the need for a PA system to deliver to the crowds up on Princes Street," said Cameron Crosby of Edinburgh-based Warehouse Sound Services Ltd, the company contracted to fulfil all audio requirements for the night.

"From the gardens the orchestra faces uphill and across the street, rather than down

UK - No.1 Leicester Square is recognised as one of the most famous clubbing sites in London. The place where Home launched, (prior to the Penthouse moving into the sixth, seventh and eight floors), it has now reopened as the 750-capacity Vertigo, under the new ownership of Alan Dugard's Interguide London.

With Sound Too trading further down the building, the new management team quickly realised that the inherited hybrid sound system was something of a mismatch.

One of the club's experienced DJ's, Southend-based Andy Smith, told marketing and promotions manager Arron Curtis that the seaside town was awash with high-octane KV2 systems, installed by local integrators, Essex Sound & Light - and soon ESL's MD, Mike Glover, was up in Leicester Square measuring up.

The first stage of a phased upgrade has seen him install a KV2 ES system in the main sixth floor clubbing area and the

Latest Issue. . .