UK - Adlib Audio supplied sound equipment and crew to the Latitude Festival for the fourth year running, this year taking over two new stages - the event's Uncut second stage, and the Sunrise Arena.

The other stages supplied by Adlib were the Lake Stage, the Film & Music Arena and the Cabaret Tent which also had an associated 'roving' sound system. The Adlib team of 14 was crew chiefed by Richy Nicholson.

Adlib specified and installed an L-Acoustics V-DOSC rig for Uncut, configured as two flown arrays of six elements, 12 SB28 subs on the deck and a combination of dv-Dosc and ARCs cabinets for in-fills and out-fills. It was all processed via Adlib's standard set up using Dolby Lakes.

Uncut saw some heavy hitting headliners in the line up including Gossip, Magazine, Bat For Lashes, Squeeze, Newton Faulkner, Spiritualised and many more in a demanding environment for sound requi

Japan - MSI Japan is the latest PA rental company to join the L-Acoustics Rental Network and take delivery of a complete K1/Kudo system and LA-RAK touring rack fitted with LA8 amplified controllers.

The company has a long history with L-Acoustics, becoming the first V-Dosc partner in Asia in 1998. For more than a decade the relationship between the companies has flourished, and MSI has become one of Japan and Asia's leading sound companies. 11 years after their initial contact, MSI was contacted by L-Acoustics founder Dr Christian Heil and invited to France for a meeting about K1.

"I flew over to France with MSI vice president, Nishio Motoshige and listened to the K1 system at L-Acoustics," says MSI director Fujii Shuzo. "The moment I heard the system, I immediately knew I would be buying it, and we were given the opportunity to become part of the pilot programm

USA - Crossword Christian Church in Riverside, Calif. recently upgraded its sound system on a massive scale, replacing the systems in its sanctuary, courtyard, and children's wing with an assortment of Electro-Voice equipment from CBC Technical.

Crossword's new sanctuary system comprises five Phoenix PX2152 boxes in a flown left-centre-right configuration (including a central cluster of three) with two Phoenix PX2181 subs on the ground at stage left and right, with Dynacord VL262s compact double-six-inch, two-way loudspeakers as delays. The system is powered by EV's CP4000S amplifiers.

Chris Batchelor, sales manager for CBC, comments: "This is a Gospel church, and the system they had in there could not keep up with the volume they required. We came to the conclusion that Phoenix was the best option to get the SPL that the church was looking for, with dual drivers on each

UK - In June this year the screen-to-stage musical Sister Act - premièred at the London Palladium. The original 1992 film grossed over $200 million worldwide. The theatre adaptation transfers the story to 1970s Philadelphia and the cast includes Patina Miller as Deloris Van Cartier, Sheila Hancock as the Mother Superior and Ian Lavender as Monsignor Howard.

Delstar Engineering kitted out the Palladium with a modular floor 15 years ago and was invited back again to enhance the engineering capabilities of the theatre for this fresh and exuberant show.

The installation includes a walkway and an arrangement of over 40 dedicated working winches that drive a variety of effects ranging from small flown pieces to heavy scenic walls. Delstar also installed a complex show deck, incorporating an inner and outer revolve that can raise and lower lifts while rotating as a central fo

UK - With little more than a month to go until the PLASA Show, organiser PLASA Events has confirmed over 40 exhibitors new to this year's event, as pre-registrations look set to match 2008's record levels. Pre-registration for PLASA09 is still open, with a 50% discount for online bookings (see website below).

New & Returning Exhibitors
Exhibitors new or returning to the show include Adam Hall, A.T. Industries, All Access Staging & Productions, Ambient Lighting, Artistic Licence, Avid Technology, Bestlight, Bison Produkter, Coemar S.p.A, Entertainment Equipment Supplies, Flying by Foy, Gerriets, Indu-Electric Gerber, Klotz Audio Interface Systems, Laserworld (Switzerland), LumenRadio, MediaLas Laserproducts, NEXO, Picturall, Prism Media Products, Promoberg, Pyrotechnology, R K Sound Engineering, ShowCAD Control S

Sweden - Docked at Skeppsbron in Malmö harbour in Sweden, the M/S Prins Bernhard is the after-hours place to be in this southern port city. The 70m long ship, which serves as a leisure and entertainment gathering place for up to 600, houses two top-end restaurants, several bars, a sun deck, a VIP lounge and the popular nightclub Under, outfitted by local company Informationsteknik with a dynamic lighting package that includes a customised LED wall made up of Martin Professional's new flexible LED string, FlexDOT.

Informationsteknik, the main contractor for lighting and sound which handled design and installation for the entire ship, was contacted last May by Prins Bernhard's owner who sought to do something 'really special' in order to put Malmö on the map for nightclub installations.

"We came up with the idea to design a nightclub concept with an LED wall as the

Downloads Down - There has been a slight drop - from 63% last year to 61% this year - in the number of young people illegally downloading music, a survey suggests. The UK Music-commissioned study, now in its second year, also found that 85% of those who downloaded illegally would pay for an unlimited download service. UK Music is an umbrella body that represents the British music industry.

Some 1,808 14 to 24-year-olds from across the UK were surveyed this spring by the University of Hertfordshire. Of the 61% of respondents who said they illegally downloaded music, 83% said they did so on a daily or weekly basis. Last year's survey research was based on 773 respondents. Of those who said they would pay for an unlimited MP3 download service, 77% said they would continue to buy CDs.And 78% of respondents said they would not pay for a streaming service, such as Spotify.

UK Music

UK - English Heritage and IMG have again been promoting their successful summer Picnic Concert series at London's Kenwood House and Audley End in Essex, retaining RG Jones to provide all the sound reinforcement and control throughout the festival season.

For the final weekend in Saffron Walden, featuring Back to the 80's, with an all-star line-up, followed by The Last Night of the Audley End Proms (headlined by Katherine Jenkins and featuring a Spitfire display) RG Jones assembled their own 'strictly '80s' technical line-up.

For acts like The Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, Go West and Heaven 17, they had their own 'old boys' Jim Lambert project/production managing and Al Woods (both ex RG Jones employees from the 1980's) mixing all the bands on a Yamaha PM5D (with the exception of The Human League).

With the spectacular Audley End House providing a

USA - American rock band 311 has been using GLP Impressions to help boost its stage presence on this summer's Unity tour.

The Nebraska-based outfit was formed 20 years ago and for the last four of those their LD Joe Paradise has been designing increasingly innovative stage sets to enable a band that has sold over eight million units in the US, and had five Top 10 albums on the Billboard charts, to reproduce the dynamic in a live context.

At last year's LDI Show in Las Vegas he saw the Impressions for the first time and was impressed both by the quality of the construction and rich array of features.

He immediately decided to integrate eight fixtures into the stage design - mounted atop a 40ft vertical arch truss upstage. This was one of three arch trusses that formed the set, along with Main Light 2.5 scrims. "The Impressions were used as intense 'e

Italy - On Sunday 21 June, Pope Benedict XVI made a special visit to San Giovanni Rotondo, in southern Italy to pray in the Sanctuary of Saint Pio da Pietralcina.

The Pope celebrated Mass and recited the Angelus in the churchyard of San Pio da Pietralcina Church, which was packed with more than 50,000 worshippers coming from all over the world.

RCF's TT+ Touring and Theatre system had been chosen to amplify the sound for the event. Local rental company Sonika, which had organised the technical aspects of the celebrations and had also looked after many such events in past years, chose again to use the TT+ Series from RCF for this important day.

Apart from giving vast coverage, the system had to be flexible enough to amplify both the speech and the music, which was played by the Symphonic Orchestra of the Niccolò Piccinini Conservatoire in Bari. TT22-A and TT08-A were

Israel - Compulite has announced that Burple UK is its new exclusive UK distributor. Compulite's Vector & Dlite lighting consoles and the wide range of products are now available to the UK market via Burple UK.

"We have been working with the Burple's team for some time and were impressed by their demonstrating knowledge with our products and with their technical skills to serve the products. They have adopted our products and formed excellent relationships with our UK customers and users. We are confident that this partnership will be very valuable to our strong presence in this important market," said Compulite's CEO Yehuda Shukrun.

Agustin Arocha, director of Burple UK said, " We have been providing technical support to Compulite's end-users for some time now and taking on the distribution in the UK Market seemed like the logical next step. With our sound know

Italy - Tenor Andrea Bocelli, conductor Marcello Rota, and the Symphonic Orchestra of Abruzzo came together for a benefit concert held in Rome on May 25 in one of the most fascinating locations in Italy's capital: the Colosseum. The important benefit concert was allowed to take place in the historic venue due to "exceptional circumstances".

Lighting for the event was designed to exploit the charm of one of the best known monuments in the world. To create an unforgettable backdrop to the performance, it was necessary to use techniques that were compatible with the strict technical restrictions in place to protect the historical site.

Using SGM Giotto Spot 1500 and Giotto Beam 1500 moving head projectors with Wireless control, lighting designer Nicola-Manuel Tallino set up an unobtrusive lighting system without the need for wires and cables, which were expressly forbid

UK - The two-site packaged acts festival is an embedded feature of the UK summer scene; take that model to extremes - as is only right and proper for metal music - and you get Sonisphere. Six sites across Europe saw a truly muscular line-up of bands visit Holland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and culminated with a massive thrash at Knebworth Park in the UK.

The festival has learned well from its forebears: this is not a 'cram them all in a big field and gouge the wallet' event; two main stages, and two lesser venues give fans the chance to sample a broad cross section of world class acts as well as some up-and-coming bands.

For Britannia Row Productions Ltd (Britrow), charged with servicing three of the four stages, the demands were clear. "They needed the controlled release of power," said Bryan Grant of Britrow. "That's what these bands are all abou

South Africa - Lighting sales company DWR Distribution enjoyed an extremely busy Mediatech 2009, with the added bonus of winning the Gold Stand Award for its impressive booth.

The three-day biennial exhibition for production, broadcast, entertainment and leisure industry technology took place at The Coca-Cola Dome, Northgate, Johannesburg at the end of July, with record visitor figures and massive interest being shown in all sectors of the market. There was also a leap in international awareness of the show.

DWR showed products from all its premium ranges, including Robe, MA Lighting, Vari*Lite, Avolites, CM Lodestar, Arkaos, Strong and many others. Eight international visitors representing various brands joined the DWR team for the exhibition.

It was the first time that MA Lighting's new grandMA2 console, the new Robin range of moving lights from Robe, and Vari*Lite'

Ireland - Following an investment of nearly €5 million, the Asian-themed Mantra Garden Bar & Club has opened in Maynooth, Co. Kildare - introducing a new concept to the university town, situated just 30 minutes from Dublin.

Sound and lighting installation specialists Audiotek were tasked with equipping the technical infrastructure, and proprietor Frank Murray again turned to PR Lighting's catalogue as his primary source.

In the upstairs Mantra nightclub, which opens at the weekends until 2am, he has used eight of PR Lighting's Solo 250 moving heads on a circular truss that surrounds an LED centrepiece. The Solo 250's are expected to punch their weight as they are up against lasers, scanners and an ever changing LED peripheral landscape.

Murray comments: "I must have used these in over 50 venues now. I use them everywhere as the colour is consistent and for an entry lev

Brunei The Jerudong Park Amphitheatre in Brunei has purchased an Allen & Heath digital iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-176 Control Surface.

The venue is part of the largest amusement park in South East Asia. In addition to various community services and events, the venue has hosted a long line of premier international artists and theatrical productions including Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Seal, Janet Jackson, Ronan Keating and Spirit of the Dance, as well as artists and prestigious Asian performers.

The venue wanted to migrate its FOH set up from an analogue to a digital system and approached Singapore installation firm, BCI. They recommended the Allen & Heath iLive system due to its distributed audio design and flexible architecture, making it an ideal choice for the large size of the venue and the variety of major productions hosted there.

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Germany - The Stadttheater Am Hagen, as the municipal theatre in Straubing is known, is an affiliate of the Landestheater Niederbayern (Lower Bavarian State Theatre). In 2003, the theatre was thoroughly renovated and now seats 330. To make it possible to stage lavish musicals and other musical productions in future, it was necessary to reequip the auditorium with new sound equipment. TRE Professionelle Audiotechnik, which is based in Parkstetten, was entrusted with the installation. It was supported in this task by Thomas Sterling, PI sales manager at Bosch Communications Systems' Support Centre (South).

The centrepiece of the theatre's new sound system comprises - for the first time in Europe, Africa and the Middle East - the new Electro-Voice Expandable Vertical Array (EVA) system. This system, which was specially designed for fixed installation. The full-range, passive system

USA - Located outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, the National Infantry Museum honours the oldest and largest branch of the US Army. The signature attraction at the new museum, called The Last 100 Yards relies on Renkus-Heinz Iconyx steerable array loudspeakers in its portrayal of 234 years of infantry history.

The exhibit, which acts as an entryway to the rest of the museum, is a gently sloping, 100-yard ramp featuring a chronological multimedia journey through eight key battles from the Revolutionary War up through the current War on Terrorism. According to Major General Jerry White (ret.), president of the private National Infantry Foundation, which operates the museum, "The Infantryman's mission is best portrayed by having visitors fight with those soldiers over the last 100 yards of major wars from the Revolutionary War to the present. The music, the gun

UK - A new trade body has been formed to combat the incursion of sub-standard and illegal products into the projection lamp aftermarket. Formed in response to the growing problem of sub-standard and illegal copy lamps flooding the market for replacement projection lamps, the Genuine Lamps Alliance will protect both the interests of consumers and the legitimate lamp supply channel.

To date, buyers of replacement lamps for projectors and rear-projection televisions have been largely unaware of the risks posed by copy lamps, which range from poor value to physical danger. The Genuine Lamps Alliance will take the lead in raising awareness of the issue through a pan-European public relations campaign and the provision of resources to help consumers identify and avoid copy products.

The copy lamp problem has developed over the last three years, as unauthorised manufacturers reverse

USA - With Adam 'MCA' Yauch recovering from recent cancer surgery, the Beastie Boys were forced to cancel their Day 2 appearance at this year's Lollapalooza. In their place, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs agreed to take the stage at the very last minute, sending lead singer Karen O scrambling through wardrobe for suitable stage attire to complement an equally electrifying set list.

Once onstage, O commandeered visual attention with a fluorescent outfit featuring a headdress and cape shaped from cloth cut-outs of multicoloured human hands. Delivering her sound to the crowd using a handheld Shure UHF-R wireless transmitter sporting an SM58 capsule, the colourfully-clad Ms. O couldn't stop smiling throughout the entire set. Drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zinner cut loose musically with equal panache, bringing the night to a close with a hot energy factor matching the day's earl

Serbia - With over three million judges tuning in to select the winner of the Serbian equivalent to American Idol, singer Darko Lazic turned to AKG's vocal system to help him stand out as the Grand Star of Zvezde Granda. The final night of competition, which was held on 20 June at Belgrade Arena in front of a live audience of 18,000, was sponsored by production vendor Studio Berar and fully stocked with AKG's sound systems.

Auditions for Zvezde Granda began in September, with judges and producers visiting locations throughout all of Serbia. By June, the TV audience had narrowed the competition to seven contestants, all of who competed for the grand finale using AKG WMS 450 wireless microphones.

"This year, they had the highest watched show in Serbia on Saturday nights," said Alfred Reinprecht, AKG's vice president of marketing and product

UK - Lighting designer Max Conwell of Naked Eye has been using 12 i-Pix BB7 beam lights for Morrissey's 2009 Tour of Refusal.

It is the first time he has incorporated these fixtures into one of his touring designs - after initially using them to light the top of the 'Gherkin' office building in central London, where the only available power supply was two 13 amp sockets.

For Morrissey, he specifically wanted to introduce different dynamics to the stage with the quality and feel of the BB7 light output.

The starting point for his design was the backdrop and it's very distinct artwork - a carefully considered decision by Morrissey - featuring a charismatic snapshot of Italian 1960s actor, Walter Chiari.

Also factored into the design was the eclectic variety of venues - ranging from 700 to 7000 capacity - so he needed very adaptable kit.

The new album has plenty of &

South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa supplied full technical production for the Closing Ceremony of the 2009 FIFA Confederation Cup at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg. The spectacular show took place ahead of the Brazil vs USA final, with 53,000 fans watching in the stadium, joined by several million viewers of the live broadcast on SABC 1 and Superchannel 1.

Lighting was designed by Hugh Turner, and programmed and operated by Tim Dunn using a grandMA full size console. Turner comments, "The power of the grandMA system lies in the total integration and ease of working between the desk and its peripherals like the visualiser and video server."

Time was extremely tight in the run up to the performance, and concerns about the state of the pitch allowed for just one dress rehearsal in Ellis Park before the show. This was also the first time Turner and Dunn actually s

Spain - Multi-media/audio provider Focus, S.A. was recently contracted to furnish sound reinforcement for Pride Barcelona 09, a huge GLBT event attended by an estimated 15,000 people. The event was held 28 June at Avenida Maria Cristina in Barcelona. Focus turned to EAW for loudspeakers and processors for the night's main stage concert, which featured several live musical artists and DJs performing well into the early hours of the morning.

The main P.A. system consisted of 16 EAW KF760 Line Array Modules (eight on each side of the stage), eight EAW KF730 Compact Line Array Modules (four on each side) and 16 EAW SB1000z Large Format Subwoofers, all processed by EAW UX8800 Digital Signal Processors.

Onstage sound for the bands was accomplished with eight EAW JFX260i Compact Full-Range Loudspeakers, and for stage monitoring for the DJs, FOCUS used two side-fills formed by

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