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14 March 2016

"Setting up a new roof system with these huge dimensions within four days, without even a trial build, is a daring accomplishment! We would not have taken this risk with any other company than Prolyte," explained the owner of the Prolyte Space roof, Gino Spijkerman of Interstage, shortly before the concert started.

Prolyte engineers Marc Hendriks and Ruud de Deugd were responsible for getting the roof ready for the show. "Ideas and negotiations for this roof started a couple of months back, but coming close to the final building and seeing it all come together, still is a thrill. Even though you are 100% certain of the design and the materials and every detail is calculated through and through, with a roof with these dimensi

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14 March 2016

With responsibility for the audio design, JVG Sound Lighting & Visual recommended a Crown driven JBL sound system. "JBL has such a good sound and offers a really competitive price," said Jade Golar, managing director of JVG. "We've been using JBL powered by Crown on quite a few installs. We've also been us

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14 March 2016

The award-winning hit show is based on a poignant book by Michael Morpurgo and has reopened to resounding success. The book was inspired by a conversation with a First World War veteran in Morpurgo's home village in Devon, and relates the extraordinary journeys of Joey, a horse sold to the cavalry, and his inconsolable young owner, Albert, who sets outs on a mission to rescue his much-loved animal companion from the trenches and killing fields of war-torn France.

War Horse was designed with the drum revolve stage in the Oliver Theatre at the National in mind; however, when the production moved to the New London Theatre, different stage dimensions and dynamics had to

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14 March 2016

The production, which the New York Times called "an emotionally rich revival," is innovative from a lighting perspective because the team chose to program the conventional lights, automated lights and LEDs from a single platform, the grandMA console. This enabled the production team to have fewer consoles on site during set up and rehearsals and allowed the programmers to work on any console at any time while always having specific access to their part of the rig.

"We decided to run the whole show off the grandMA for two reasons," says Aaron Sporer, Hair's associate lighting designer. "It was more cost-effective than renting two moving light consoles and a conventional light console. And by

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14 March 2016

Lighting designer Dan English has worked with the band on and off since 1982. Over the decades, English has experienced the evolution of rock and roll lighting and toured with many pioneering fixtures. The Dead are famous for their psychedelic shows and their lighting rigs have continuously boasted the latest technology.

English reports, "The band wanted a space theme. This tour was scheduled for arenas selling 360° - so the entire scenic concept was limited to the overhead lighting rig. The design had to offe

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14 March 2016

The Vineyard Church does a contemporary rock presentation, with two guitars, keyboards, bass and drums, usually with three vocalists. With a l

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14 March 2016

The show's lighting design has been created by Nick Schlieper, and the stage adaptation, Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical was initially premiered at the Star Casino in Sydney in late 2006. From there, it toured Australia and New Zealand before coming to London, where it is being produced by Back Row Productions and the Really Useful Group (RUG).

Lighting equipment is being supplied by PRG, and freelance programmer Stuart Porter was asked by RUG to programme the moving and intelligent lighting components on to a grandMA. Porter has a wealth of experience and many West End productions under his belt, however this is the first time he's programmed

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14 March 2016

The success of the two concerts was due largely to the outstanding sound quality provided by Triple Show Techniek, the same company that recently provided reinforcement to the successful Jan Smit concerts in the same arena. To create the best possible sonic environment the Techniek team employed an extensive and highly sophisticated sound system from Electro-Voice. The concert rig included X-Line and XLC array cabinets, TG

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14 March 2016

Once each year the historic religious site comes to life as hundreds of thousands of live music fans converge on the plaza. Many arrive early, camping in the square to claim the best seats. This year's event drew a crowd estimated at more than one million spectators, largely due to the special appearance by legendary rock singer Vasco Rossi. In addition to Rossi and his band, performers for 2009 included Edoardo Bennato, Alessandro Mannari

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14 March 2016

Rosco and GobosFactory have united their efforts and resources and, combined with its existing market share for custom gobos in France, this acquisition now gives Rosco a solid position in the French gobo-market.

GobosFactory are the French market leaders for custom gobos. Their manufacturing capabilities will now be expanded with Rosco's worldwide production processes. With the high demands of the live events- and television market, Rosco/GobosFactory are well equipped to meet these high-quality demands and significantly reduce delays f

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14 March 2016

The innovative stage and set design was created by Gearhouse's Tim Dunn. He wanted a distinctive, stylish structure based on mellow curves and clean lines that complemented the surrounding urban environment.

He achieved this using several integrated elements, including a 25m domed roof - essentially the trussing structure from an In2Structures MaxiDome - with clear skins. The downstage elements were flown from the trussing superstructure o

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14 March 2016

Syntonic Design Group, contracted for the audio production portion of the concert, provided a DiGiCo D5 for FOH. Syntonic's staff engineer, Donnie Smith, chose the D5 based on his previous experience using it on other symphonic events, and the console's ability to handle the large input requirements and dynamic musical range. "The features of the D5, including compression, EQ, effects, made the workload really easy to manage," he said. "Everything is right there sho

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14 March 2016

A multi-room operation, O2 Academy Birmingham will have an overall building capacity of 3,859. The three venues can operate independently as well as simultaneously and will feature "state of the art in-house production". The main auditorium has a capacity of 3,009 and artists already confirmed to play this autumn include Bloc Party, The Maccabees and Dizzee Rascal.

Commenting on progress to date, AMG operations director Richard Maides say

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14 March 2016

Kravitz is touring with a seven-piece band and has a large monitor rig, so the SD7's high channel count on both in and outputs has proved very important. Monitor engineer Kevin Glendinning comments: "We have pretty much everything - lots of side fills, lots of wedges, lots of in-ears - so it's nice to have a large amount of inputs and outputs. I'm constantly making up new channels that are pertinent to just ears, just side fills or just wedges.

"I have four channels set aside just for Lenny's vocal - one has extreme compression measures that he insists on hearing in his ears; another very flat and unaltered that feeds effects; one that is sent to band's and

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14 March 2016

By taking advantage of the location of the Singapore subsidiary, says the company, D.A.S Audio in Hong Kong can fulfil orders immediately not only for Hong Kong and Macau but also for China, offering all the guarantees of factory direct contact along with customer service for technical issues under the direction of Ron Koh, technical support representative in Singapore.

The opening of the D.A.S. Hong Kong office coincides with the ce

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14 March 2016

The Fray's FOH engineer Mark Maher specified a DigiDesign Profile console for his mix, to which he added a pair of Empirical Labs EL8-X distressors for the snare drum and acoustic guitar.

Adlib systems engineer Declan Fyans toured a Dolby Lake processing system and wireless tablet remote, which he used to EQ and fine tune the house speaker systems. "It was interesting working with different loudspeaker brands each day, all have their own characteristics and nuances, but generally all the ones we encountered were good quality, and we achieved great results in all the different rooms". The various system

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14 March 2016

Rourke's rig included 30 Robe ColorWash 700E AT and four Vari*Lite VL 3000 Spot moving lights, CK iColor Tiles, ColorWeb LED panels and SoftLED cloths as well as 30 ETC Source Fours, i-Pix BB7s, JTE Pixel PARs, trussing and lighting control - all supplied by HSL.

HSL won the tender to supply the kit, and Rourke comments: "They offered all the kit at the best price - and along with that came the great HSL service as always". The account was handled by HSL's TV specialist, Sean McGlone.

The show was shot on a 360 degree set designed by Sid Scott. The 12 initial contestants w

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14 March 2016

"The Vi6 is the only desk that makes sense," he says. "A lot of the digital boards are fine at front of house but they fall down on access in a busy monitor environment. This is probably the best desk for monitors, because not only is the sound quality way better than other digital desks I have used but it has a better footprint. This is a big issue on small stages and also visiting festivals where having a slim profile desk is a big advantage."

The five-piece Maxïmo Park are partly on in-ears and partly floor

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14 March 2016

"Point Source Productions has always serviced its own hire equipment and, in the past, we have serviced our customers' equipment on a more or less ad hoc basis, fitted in around our existing work schedules," says hire manager, Ian King. "But a large increase in demand over the past year has shown us there is a distinct need for a dedicated service department."

Equipment servicing can take place either at the client's own premises or those of Point Source Productions and can be tailor made to suit each customer.

"Many schools, for example, have their annual Portable Appliance Testing done by electricians who have little knowledge of theatre equipment,&

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14 March 2016

The new site has video content, showing the PSCo technical team in action as well as details of the company's upcoming showcase events, product information for the 108" Sharp LCD, Orion Infinite Plasma and Samsung large format display range and an area to contact the training team directly for details of upcoming courses.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Scenic designer Douglas Schmidt has created an elegant stage waiting to be brought to life by dancing snowflakes, while colleague Beowulf Boritt's card is a challenge for theatre lovers, filled with props to identify from some of the many shows he has designed.

Photographer Andrew Hefter is back for a third year with a card featuring the ghostlight as a beacon of hope against a brilliant night sky. Tim Hunter Design has used a large canvas with the Behind the Scenes ghostlight to remind us that the holidays are the time to care for each other and for those less fortunate.

There are several ordering options. Meeting the minimum order of 250 cards, you can personalise your card with a company logo and a

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14 March 2016

Different combinations of Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs, ColorWash 2500E ATs and ColorSpot and Wash 700E AT Series fixtures were used to illuminate a host of premium automotive brands including Toyota, Holden, Mazda, Lotus, Honda and Nissan.

Each of the stands lit by Cliftons had its own design and layout - developed with each of the individual LDs involved, complete with specially created lighting effects. These ranged dynamically from Lexus' massively impressive display with large washing effects to KIA's modernist LED screen presentation.

"Lighting effects play a huge part in having impact and makin

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14 March 2016

"We're well known for being Pro Tools suppliers, but we've never carried Pyramix before," says Mark Rickaby, audio consultant at Jigsaw Systems. "However, when eMerging showed us the Tango at the back end of last year, we thought it had a lot of potential. We put the Tango on our stand at the Broadcast Video Expo show in February, and the response we got from visitors there was so overwhelming, we signed the deal with eMerging s

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14 March 2016

Also involved were 400 MAC 2000 Washes, 76 MAC 600 washlights and 112 Atomic 3000 strobes with an extra 20 MAC 600s adding colour to the VIP Green Room. Main technical supplier for the Eurovision Song Contest was Procon Event Engineering. PRG served as a secondary supplier with a local Russian contractor also supplying some equipment. Supervising all of this was Rich Gorrod from Incandescent Design.

More than 750 moving heads and over 100 km of cabling were utilised. Procon sent 42 trailer trucks with technical equipment and a team of more than 70 people to this year's event at the Olimpiysky Arena Moscow.

Incandescent Design was contracted to prov