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France - The opening night of the annual Jules Verne Film Festival was held at the Grand Rex cinema in Paris this year, with the theme Space Conquest. Many of France's top astronauts attended the gala to pay homage to the guest of honour, Buzz Aldrin, and FOH audio was managed by an Allen & Heath digital iLive system.

A documentary film about Aldrin and Armstrong's lunar conquest was projected on a large screen, accompanied by a specially-commissioned live orchestral soundtrack called A Symphonic Voyage to the Moon written and directed by Emmy Award-winning composer, John Scott, who wrote soundtracks for blockbusters including King Kong and The Saint.

The festival's technical audio manager, Serge Babkine, chose an iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-144 Control Surface, to mix and record the score that was performed on the nig

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UK - E/T/C London is once again supplying spectacular 90 metre wide large format projections for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. This is the fifth consecutive year that the company has been involved in this high profile event, and the second year that the projection canvas has been increased from 60 to 90m wide - following the success of the widescreen style last year. This extended area stretches the full width of Edinburgh Castle's walls at the far end of the Esplanade/arena, forming a dramatic backdrop to the performance space.

E/T/C London's Ross Ashton designed and produced custom artwork for the high impact projections which run for approximately 50% of the show. This is the most that projected images have been used to date since the medium was first introduced into the Tattoo's visual mix in 2005.

Four of E/T/C's PIGI 6K projectors fitted with double rotating scro

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - City Building Glasgow, an independent building and maintenance company was formed in 2006 from the Building Services Dept of Glasgow City Council and now has a wide range of contracts in the public and private spheres. Maltbury Staging has been working with City Building for over two years, supplying new build primary schools with a carefully designed package of staging and performance equipment.

Jane Martin at City Building discussed the requirements with Maltbury MD Philip Sparkes and agreed on a package of equipment which would provide a lightweight 7m x 4m stage with backdrop system and disabled access ramp. For complete convenience, easy grip hand-wheels secured the legs on a deck without the need for tools. The kit has proved so versatile and reliable that City Building has just placed its twelfth order.

Drawings and set up instructions for each school were submitte

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USA - Bosch Security Systems Communications Systems Division has announced that its RTS Intercom west coast regional office in Burbank, Cal. is being consolidated into its Burnsville, Minn. headquarters.

Effective 23 August 2009, this move is in step with both the recent restructuring of the division's sales organisation and the continued expansion of its training programme into larger, better-equipped facilities.

Burnsville is also home base for the Division's Bosch Conferencing & Public Address, Electro-Voice, and Telex brands.

Bosch Security Systems also offers training at facilities across the US, including locations in California, Georgia, Indiana, New York, Ontario, and Pennsylvania. The Burnsville facility will serve as the location for the Communications Systems Division's largest training seminars.

"Our focus on maximizing value for our customers shapes every

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Australia/UK - State Automation has announced the appointment of Cooper Controls as the exclusive distributor for its products in Europe.

State Automation is a privately owned Australian company specialising in the design and manufacture of advanced dimming systems for professional theatre, television and other entertainment applications. Cooper Controls is a specialist manufacturer and supplier of lighting control products to the entertainment and architectural lighting markets.

"Following unprecedented success in Australasia and the Far East we have been looking to further develop our business in Europe for some time," says State Automation chairman Chris Bishop. "Cooper Controls has an extensive dealer network and market penetration throughout the region. Through their Zero 88 entertainment lighting control brand they have a core knowledge of the markets our

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USA - Meyer Sound has announced its international education schedule for August to October 2009, with seminars to be held in Mexico City; Toronto; Los Angeles; Montabaur, Germany; Seville and Madrid, Spain; Duivendrecht, Netherlands; and Osimo Stazione, Italy. Some seminars will be taught in the local languages, including Spanish and German, and others will be interpreted by qualified translators.

Meyer Sound's education programme emphasis the science of audio and practice in live sound applications. The seminars will cover core audio principles encompassing sound system design and alignment, line array theory, equalisation, delay and acoustical prediction with MAPP Online Pro. Other courses explore system measurement and optimisation, FFT analysis, filters and phase relationships at an advanced level with practical reference to the use of Meyer Sound's SIM 3 audio analyser.

L

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USA - Harman Professional has announced the appointment of Hi-Tech Audio Systems as the authorised distributor for India. According to Harman Professional regional sales director Sushil S. John, this move "underscores Harman Professional's commitment to evolving and improving its service of the professional audio community in India".

Headquartered in New Dehli with satellite offices in Noida and resident engineers based regionally throughout India, Hi-Tech Audio Systems was established in 1990 by PK Gupta, director and Rajan Gupta, director. Hi-Tech Audio Systems' team of 65 engineers and executives is highly experienced in the Indian professional audio market, having led many major fixed installs, live sound and recording and broadcast projects and also having previously served a host of other leading manufacturers.

"As India's creative community continues to e

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UK - The Big Chill festival continues to pioneer the integration of visual arts with live performance, attracting some of the world's best visual acts to the Herefordshire fields to create the special visual presence that has become one of the event's key trademarks.

All the video requirements of the festival, including system design, production, and VJ programming, are concentrated in the hands of creative services resource company As Described Ltd, run by Adam Seaman and Jim Horsfield. Both men are enthusiastic supporters of the professional video mixers and samplers from Edirol by Roland, and chose the V-8 8-channel mixers as the front-of-house standard mix kit for all the main performance venues, including the principal outdoor stages.

The 2009 Big Chilll proposition draws in visual artists such as D-Fuse, Labmeta, Flicker, Bob Jaroc, Myogenic, Mowgli, Visual

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Germany - Mainz-based integration firm BFE Studio und Medien Systeme has specified Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC16 arrays as part of extensive presentation, sound reinforcement and conference facilities in three new buildings on Campus Westend of the Frankfurt University in Germany.

The Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main is among Germany's foremost educational establishments, with ambitions to be one of Europe's leading universities. Its current renovation and expansion plan on the Westend Campus site will take the total capacity of the campus from 10,000 students currently to around 45,000 by 2014.

Three new buildings, the House of Finance, the Rechts-und Wirtschaftswissenschaften (Law and economics) building and the Hörzaalzentrum (centre) have been completed and equipped with AV systems designed by Datech consulting's Detlef Hartmann and installed, following a

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UK - The Youngman Group has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Staging Concepts, the Minneapolis, US based producer of lightweight modular performance staging systems.

The Staging Concepts range is now available throughout Europe via the Youngman Group's newly established Events division. Launched earlier this year, the Youngman Events division is dedicated to the needs of the events industry, including sporting fixtures, outdoor concerts, exhibitions and product launches.

The new division is headed by Jason Carlton who says: "The Staging Concepts system is the perfect complement for our own range of products for the events industry. Staging Concepts' is a complete system ideal for the end-user and specific venue applications."

Under the new distribution deal, Youngman will stock the Staging Concepts range at its warehousing site at Maldon, Essex and w

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Spain - SoundMan-Server has been recently installed by Kontrolcla in L'Auditori, a 42,000sq.m auditorium designed by the architect Rafael Moneo in Barcelona. L'Auditori" includes three auditorium halls, a museum as well as a music academy. A fourth hall will open within the next few months.

With more than a thousand events last year, the auditorium has decided to invest in a modern sound and show control system. SoundMan-Server, controlled by Medialon's Show and Media Control system has been installed by Kontrolcla Show Control in the auditorium's halls.

One Medialon Manager Pro license is used for the Stage Managers to control all the audio paging system and service lighting.

One Soundman-Server license, one Peavey MediaMatrix, eight DMX512 transceivers and one KissBox I/O box are connected with Medialon Manager via TCP/IP across the new optic fibre building network.

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Italy - The Protomoteca and Small Protomoteca are premises within the Capitol in Rome displaying priceless collections of antique sculptures. However, thanks to their prime location, they are not exclusively reserved for art exhibitions but as venues for prestige events. Thus, installing a quality sound system was a key priority when the two halls were recently renovated. The installation was entrusted to Rome-based specialists Video Company Multimedia, who worked closely with Cross-Point, the technology and design department of Texim.

The installation proved a complex task due to the tricky acoustics of both halls, which feature ancient stone walls and marble floors; the reverberation time in each was so extensive that it seemed any intelligibility would be impossible. With the help of multiple EASE simulations, the team was able to devise a solution that is not only tailored p

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Estonia - Over 1000 Tannoy loudspeakers have recently been installed in Estonia's newest upmarket hotel development. A range of CVS in-ceiling speakers and Designer Install surface-mount speakers have been specified throughout the Meriton Conference and Spa Hotel in Tallinn as part of a comprehensive audio system that also includes Biamp amplification and DSP.

An elegant and modern addition to Tallinn's cityscape, the Meriton, which opened in May 2009, is located at the heart of the Estonian capital, close to the Old Town and the Parliament. The hotel has 301 guestrooms and the hotel's ace card is its combination of modern luxury in the shape of fine dining and health spa along with cutting edge business facilities.

A total of seven flexible conference rooms are furnished with the latest AV equipment including Sanyo 4500 ANSI XGA projectors, CommTec video matrices and Tannoy's

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Denmark - The effects of the global recession on one of the professional lighting industry's best-known manufacturers was clearly illustrated when Schouw & Co, the parent company of Martin Professional AS, made its half-year financial report yesterday.

The report describes a difficult first half of 2009, in which the group's consolidated revenue has fallen 13.1% from H1 2008, while the company's earnings before income tax (EBIT) fell by DKK 138 million to DKK 12 million, which the report says "is not considered to be satisfactory".

Furthermore, Schouw says that its earnings difficulties are "predominantly attributable to Martin".

"Revenue failed to meet expectations, and Martin continues to be hard hit by the knock-on effects of the global financial crisis. Geographically, the recession is broadly founded, and investments in large parts of the events

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Denmark - SoundMan-Server has recently been installed in The Worker's Museum, also called Arbejdermuseet, in Copenhagen to manage audio playback and distribution. This museum is dedicated to the history of the Danish worker movement starting from the mid-19th century.

SoundMan-Server and Medialon have been selected as the main sound and show control system for the Industry worker exhibition section of the museum. The exhibition was designed by Blekksprut AS who contracted Multitekst Ltd to integrate SoundMan-Server and Medialon.

The exhibition starts in an introductory room where a seven-minute long HD movie with historical facts is displayed on a 42" LCD monitor. A Danish and English version is available. The language option and movie play can be selected by the visitors themselves. After the introductory room, visitors go through several exhibition rooms. In a co

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UK - PLASA Connect, the new business contact initiative set to run at this year's PLASA Show (13-16 September, Earls Court, London), has gained the support and sponsorship of Supply2Gov. The only official government lower-value contract opportunity portal, Supply2Gov was created in June 2006, specifically to provide small businesses with information on public sector contract opportunities - typically below £100,000.

The support of Supply2.gov.uk underlines PLASA09's role as a focus for business within the sector. Supply2Gov is the first major initiative to unite both buyers and suppliers in a single location, making it easier for business and government to work together. Suppliers can access UK-wide contracts for free via an online Contract Search, and can also sign up for a daily e-mail alert.Since its launch, the portal has provided small businesses throughout the UK wit

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USA - Beat three poker pros at their own game and walk away with $1 million. That's the premise behind Face the Ace, a new poker reality show airing this month on the NBC network.

Hosted by Steve Schirripa of Sopranos fame, contestants choose a professional poker player (the Ace) to match wits against from among four doors. Filmed at Cin City Studios in Las Vegas, Face the Ace uses a complement of Martin Professional lighting gear to dress the set in colour and beam effects, including the new MAC 301 Wash luminaire.

Innovative Show Design (ISD) of Lake Mary, Florida handled all scenic and lighting design, production and installation for client Poker Production. Lighting design is by ISD's lighting director/associate artistic director Justin Garrone.

The set design is based on a fashionable, contemporary hotel suite. "We were inspired by the look an

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UK - Manchester-based lighting company DBN Lighting supplied design services and equipment to illuminate the river facing façade of the Port of Liverpool building for LuminoCity, a 30-minute multimedia spectacular created and produced by Walk the Plank and featuring video projections, pyrotechnics, live performance, and a specially composed sound track.

The culmination of Liverpool's 2009 Art On The Waterfront event also produced by Walk The Plank for Liverpool City Council, LuminoCity was produced in conjunction with Tate Liverpool, which ran a week of colourful summer events for all ages inspired by their exhibition Colour Chart: Reinventing Colour, 1950 to Today.

Stephen Page of DBN designed the light show which illuminated the 50m tall building. Page used over 200 assorted LED fixtures, primarily Chroma-Q Colorblock mk2s, dotted all over the bu

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UK - grandMA consoles were in use at two key venues at the 2009 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

The Edinburgh International Conference Centre used a grandMA2 light console for their main Pentland auditorium, a 600 - 1200 capacity flexible space. This hosted two dance shows in rep and several comedy performances including Jimmy Carr and Jason Byrne, during the festival.

The console supply was instigated by freelance lighting designer Dave Elcome, who created the production design for most of the shows staged in the venue, and Kenneth Boak, the EICC's technical production manager.

Over in the Music Hall venue within the Assembly Rooms on George Street, another grandMA2 light was in action with a grandMA pico for the duration. The grandMA2 light was specified by Assembly Rooms' head of lighting Paul Lim, and operated primarily by Dave Evans and Steve Sanders, who ran it in 'series 1

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Japan - In the mahogany earthiness and mirrored elegance of its decor, the Cotton Club of Tokyo echoes its New York namesake, the celebrated Harlem venue revered in memory as the premier showcase of America's jazz age. A fusion of a restaurant, nightclub, and live performance venue, Japan's Cotton Club reaches beyond jazz to embrace essentially all Western popular music styles, which are reinforced through a self-powered Meyer Sound Mica line array loudspeaker system.

According to the Cotton Club's sound engineer, Taro Moriyama, selection of the Meyer Sound system was based in large part by the venue's eclectic musical fare. "Our stage hosts an incredibly wide variety of music, and we've found that Meyer Sound loudspeakers work well with any musical style because they don't colour the sound."

A quick sampling of acts that have graced the Cotton Club stage includes ja

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USA - The build team for popular US television show Mythbusters- Kari Byron, Tory Belleci and Grant Imahara - visited Meyer Sound's Berkeley headquarters as part of their quest to verify the claim that a Russian-made SKS rifle could be set off by the vibration of a high-powered subwoofer.

Mythbustersoften calls on Meyer Sound when it comes to investigating audio-related myths. The show, which features a team of five special effects and science experts who put some of the most outrageous urban legends to the test, has turned to Meyer Sound to prove or debunk such popular claims as a duck's quack not echoing, the human voice breaking glass, or the existence of the dreaded 'Brown Note'.

While the Brown Note episode called for modifying electronics to accept frequencies well below the normal operating range, this time the test involved four of Meyer Sound's 600-HP co

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UK - For the past five years, FOH Kyle Chirnside has been manning the controls for Fall Out Boy, and the Midas PRO6 is Chirnside's console of choice for the band's current world tour.

"I've always been a Midas guy," states Chirnside. "Whenever I had a choice, I would have my XL4. But then I had the chance to test drive the XL8." That opportunity came with an invitation to visit Metallica FOH engineer Big Mick Hughes during preparations for Fall Out Boy's autumn 2008 tour of the UK and Europe. "We were at his house, sitting around mixing Metallica tunes on the XL8, which was huge for me. I fell in love with the console. So when I heard Midas was developing a smaller, more affordable digital desk, I was totally into it."

Clair Global supplied a PRO6 for Fall Out Boy's spring US tour, which featured four support acts. "Even with five bands, we o

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UK - The church of St. Mary Bredin in Canterbury has had an eventful existence. Over the centuries the congregation has seen many physical changes to their place of worship, but the latest building project has seen some of the biggest improvements yet, including the installation of an Alcons audio system.

Originally founded in Saxon times, by the late 1800s the church of St Mary Bredin was an imposing and ornate Victorian building. In 1942 it was destroyed by a Luftwaffe air raid which devastated much of Canterbury and it wasn't until 1957 that a replacement church was constructed on a new site around half a mile away.

Happily the 1957 building is still standing firm and, unlike many churches, its congregation has seen steady growth in recent years. In 2008/09 the church undertook its latest building project, which involved making major changes to the main body of the building

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UK - A number of prominent British acts are using the new Sennheiser ew 500 G3 wireless receiver, paired with new SKM 935 and SKM 945 microphones, says the company.

"When we heard that a new product was on the way we were eagerly waiting for it," says Jon Burton, front of house engineer for The Prodigy, one of the first professionals to receive an ew 500 G3 and the new SKM 935 mics. "And once G3 arrived it exceeded our expectations.

"Our ease of setting up each day has been greatly improved. Even if we have to reassign all the frequencies at the drop of a hat we can do so in minutes using the infrared sync system. Using it has proved to be very intuitive. Very handy as monitor engineer Joe Campbell and I both have a casual disregard for manuals.

Dave Mcdonald, front of house engineer for Florence and the Machine has been impressed by the audio quality of

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