USA - BSUN Media Systems, a full service audio design, sales and installation provider, recently worked with GoVision, a Daktronics rental partner, to provide a Supersize Surprise for a series of special events at LuLu's restaurant at Homeport Marina in Gulf Shores, AL.

When tropical storm Alex forced the postponement of a Gulf Shores charity concert to benefit victims of the BP oil spill, LuLu's was left without an act to entertain the large crowds expected on 30 June 30 and 1 July. Fortunately, when your name is Lucy Buffett, you've got an ace up your sleeve. Lucy convinced her brother, Jimmy Buffett, to make an impromptu, surprise appearance with his Coral Reefer Band at her harbor-side restaurant and bar on 30 June.

Special accommodations for staging, video, sound and other logistics were made last minute to enable the legendary performer to do what he does best. BS

USA - Audio-Technica reports that its microphones are the choice of monitor engineer Kevin Glendinning, who recently wrapped a high-profile gig for Alicia Keys at London's O2 Arena. Glendinning, who has also worked with longtime Audio-Technica users Justin Timberlake, Gwen Stefani and Linkin Park, selected a quartet of wireless Audio-Technica Artist Elite AEW-T4100 microphones (in conjunction with 5000 Series receivers) for Keys and her three backing singers.

Alicia is a phenomenal singer, Glendinning says, and the power she has is quite incredible. So it's really important that we use microphones that not only deliver beautiful tone, but that can also cope with the volume that she puts out. I've used the AEW-T4100 mics for a long time and they've proven themselves over and over as being incredibly durable as well as awesome-sounding, so they're the perfect choice for her.

Gle

UK - Milton Keynes Dons' stadium has recently opened a luxury hotel, complete with pitchside views and high-specification event / conference facility. At the heart of it is a Yamaha audio system.

The stadium has been home to a Yamaha LS9-16 since it opened, used for announcements and background music, and club chairman Pete Winkelman is well aware of Yamaha being located nearby. So when the Doubletree Hotel was opened within the stadium, the company was the natural choice for the sound system installed in its Ballroom.

The 50m x 22m room can be used in a variety of ways, as a single space or divided in up to three separate rooms by the use of moveable acoustic screens. Winkelman approached Yamaha with a tough brief - to provide a system that was extremely versatile, could be controlled by novice users and would provide high quality audio for speech purposes, but could still de

UK - London based Cover It Up supplied the recently finished Dancing On Ice tour with specialist printed draping, a concept that worked so well that production manager Andy Gibbs from Phil McIntyre Entertainment decided to use a similar style of draping for the current Britain's Got Talent tour.

For the Dancing On Ice tour, Cover It Up supplied a black wool serge 'touring package' of borders and legs, to cover all masking eventualities.

Where it became more interesting was the supply of a series of printed drapes. Two of these were straightforward kabuki drops printed on a gloss satin fabric, the result of a lot of research to determine optimum 'falling' properties - so it ended up in a neat quickly foldable pile on the floor rather than an unwieldy mass that was difficult to move. Cover It Up arranged for these to be printed at a specialist facility in Ma

USA - The Entertainment Technician Certification Program Council has announced that the Academy of Production Technology (APT) has been approved to become an ETCP Recognized Training Programme.

The Academy's three-day course covers the concept of electrical theory, power distribution and networking for stage and studio. Course instructor is APT Founder Richard Cadena, who is an ETCP Certified Entertainment Electrician and Recognised Trainer. Now that the course is recognised, ETCP Certified Technicians who attend will receive full ETCP Renewal Credits.

The course is designed for practising professionals as well as novices. This seminar is an excellent review for the practising entertainment electrician as well as a primer for the aspiring electrician, says Cadena. It has enough detail and information to challenge the experienced among us, but is presented in such a way as to c

France - Genesis Networks recently teamed up with digital audio solutions specialist Digigram to provide broadcast services to France's leading pay-television channel Canal Plus for their coverage of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in the UK.

Genesis needed to transmit 10 broadcast quality duplex audio channels between South Africa and France, and similarly, six duplex channels between Wimbledon and France. Digigram was able to provide a simple and cost-effective solution based on the IQOYA*SERV/LINK multiple stereo / multichannel IP audio distribution codec.

In this instance, Digigram provided six IQOYA*SERV/LINK devices for a fully redundant contribution system; one 'main' unit and a second unit for redundancy purposes for each site (Wimbledon, Paris, South Africa). The flexibility and scalability of the IQOYA*SERV/LINK system meant

Greece - In Platanias, a popular beach town located 10km from Chania on the island of Crete, a two century-old building greets you by the crashing waves. Outside banners and posters advertise A New Sound Experience at the historic locale, which has operated as the Mylos club since 1993. It's a popular stop for both locals and the thousands of annual visitors who venture in to hear internationally acclaimed DJ's.

The owners, brothers George and Stelios Varouxakis recently began looking for a new sound system and decided on Adamson.

"It is quite remarkable that a club has operated under the same name, ownership and philosophy for 18 solid years" comments Alexios Ganas, the club's technical consultant, and installations technician at DNA. "The previous system installed was an equally old used ElectroVoice MT-2 which partially replaced a system which caught f

Russia - With Over 200,000 DMX Channels, the Kremlin State Palace is one the largest architectural LED installations worldwide. Formerly known as the Kremlin Palace of Congresses, it was built in 1961 and intended for use as a modern arena for Communist Party meetings, congresses, performances and concerts.

It contains over 800 rooms, and its central space remains one of Europe's biggest auditoriums with seating to accommodate 6000. Today the space is used primarily for concerts and ballet performances, is home to Kremlin Ballet Theatre, and acts as a second stage for the Bolshoi Theatre.

The main auditorium is encased by towering walls which, during the recent contemporary update led by architects from the studio OTASH, were plated with RGB LED panels creating two vast curvilinear LED screens (25mx60m).

Centrally controlled by an e:cue lighting control system, the new multi

UK/USA - Columbus McKinnon has asked the PLASA Technical Resources Office to assist them to alert all CM hoist users to ensure that have carried out the correct replacement process of the brake retaining pins in line with their 2006 replacement programme. Owners of CM hoists may recall that there was a need to replace the brake pins on certain hoists due to a suspicion that there was a potential flaw on a small number of brake pins.

At the time, CM sent a warning bulletin to all their distributors with all the related serial numbers of the hoists manufactured between 2005 and 2006 that required attention. Since this recall in which very small number of the hoists were affected, no incidents had been recorded in which there had been a failure of the brake pin.

However, a recent incident in United States in which a brake pin failed has shown that in this case the pin was not rep

Malaysia - Every year at the end of May, Citrawarna Malaysia (The Colours of Malaysia) is held in Kuala Lumpur, commemorating the rich tradition of cultural diversity that defines the nation. This year on 22 May, LED display provider Lighthouse Technologies and regional rental partner Nova Superscreen brought Malaysia's culture heritage to life with three high performance LED displays installed at the main stage.

Comprising 36 R16 i/o 16mm LED panels in a 6x6 configuration, the main stage's centre screen measured 6.1m across and 4.57m high, while the two side screens, arranged in 6x5 panel configurations, measured 6.1m (w) x 3.81m (h). Together, the three screens displayed the rich colours of Malaysia's ethnic groups' traditional music and dance.

"Citrawarna Malaysia is one of Malaysia's most internationally recognised events, drawing guests and digni

UK - Cloud Electronics has announced the addition of six new distributors, now representing the Cloud brand across Europe and the Nordic region.

In the Nordic region, Standard Audio Systems AB represents Cloud in Sweden, while in Denmark, DTK Audio Produkter is flying the flag.

The BeNeLux area is covered by two companies - Mennegat Trading BV across the Netherlands region with M-Pro BeNeLux BVBA providing for Belgium and Luxembourg.

Sound Directions SARL France is the new distributor for France, as Show Supply is for Switzerland.

"The appointment of so many new distributors at one time is unprecedented for us and reflects our ongoing strategy to strengthen our brand throughout EMEA," says Mark Bracken, Cloud sales manager EMEA.

(Jim Evans)

USA - New York's Major League Soccer team, the New York Red Bulls, finally have a place to call home. The new Red Bull Arena, in Harrison, New Jersey, was completed on 20 March 2010, and features an EAW-based sound system.

The arena features a European design, with a canopy that encircles the entire two-tiered seating area. The first row seats are approximately 21ft from the touchlines, while the following rows are steeply raked, creating an intimate experience for fans that are closer to the playing field than in traditional US soccer stadiums.

This is the only soccer stadium of its kind in the United States, states Brian Elwell, project manager for Acoustic Dimensions. A catwalk that follows the path of the canopy made access to the hang points easier, but the proximity of the canopy to the seats created coverage challenges for the PA system design.

The closer speakers wer

Financial Matters - U2 have been the world's biggest-selling band over the past 12 months, raking in $130m (£84.9m), according to the website Forbes.com. The Irish group have been staging their global 360 tour in support of their album No Line on the Horizon. They claim the title despite singer Bono's bad back forcing them to cancel a Glastonbury festival appearance.

AC/DC were in second place with $114m (£74.5m) followed by Beyonce Knowles on $87m (£56.8m). Bruce Springsteen was fourth on the list with $70m (£45.7m).

One of the few relatively youthful acts on the list was Lady Gaga, who has amassed $62m (£40.5m) in the year to date, according to the website. The singer has been performing the Monster Ball tour around the world. Madonna demonstrated that she remains a major player in the music industry by coming in at eighth place, w

USA - ETLive, the forum for presenting live audio products in a real-world concert staged setting, will once again be presented 22-24 October in Las Vegas during the annual LDI show, in parking lot Silver 1, directly in front of the Las Vegas Convention Centre.

ETLive, will feature two types of demonstration formats. The first format will present up to six stages of live performance demonstrations in a round-robin format. Each stage will have a band performance of multiple genres presenting the full capabilities of a complete sound system as would be presented in a real-world concert environment.

The second format, new this year, is a seventh stage, presenting a Compact Solution loudspeaker demonstration. This stage is designed to present loudspeaker choices for the smaller listening environment for the House of Worship, corporate or music venue environmen

The Netherlands - Void Acoustics reports a major new club installation in Amsterdam, involving its signature Air Motion triple horns and the new Trinity X sub. The brainchild of successful Dutch event organiser and promoter Sander Groet, AIR is located on the former site of iT club and is packed with the latest audio visual technologies and innovative systems. The club features an interior design by Marcel Wanders, and can accommodate audiences of up to 1300.

Finding the right sound system involved a major search. as Sjoerd Wynia - one of the three directors behind AIR, comments, "We started out with a bare shell that fortunately already had a thick layer of sound isolation already in place - the architect obviously knew of the site's history. The sound system is the very heart of the club, and we looked at lots of different options. Void invited us to check out the sound a

Chile - dBTechnologies reports that Chilean distributor Audiomusica has now extended its coverage into Bolivia and Peru, after considerable success in the Chilean market.

Armando Gotelli, founder of Audiomusica says, "We are very proud and honoured to announce the new alliance formed by Audiomusica and dBTechnologies to distribute dB products in the Bolivian and Peruvian markets.

"Audiomusica is an international company specialising in the retail and distribution of professional audio equipment and musical instruments. For over 20 years we have developed this business, becoming one of South America's leaders in the industry."

A demo tour of dBTechnologies' top lines will kick off at the end of September, incorporating Chile as well as key areas in Bolivia & Peru. This will give Audiomusica's current and future customers the chance to hear dBTechnologies in sit

USA - Audio-Technica has introduced the AT2021 Cardioid Condenser Microphone. Designed for home studio and live applications, the low-profile AT2021 offers an extended frequency response, high maximum SPL and wide dynamic range.

he microphone's condenser design provides studio-quality performance for vocal and instrument applications, and is "outstanding for acoustic guitar, overheads, piano and group vocals". The AT2021 is also available packaged with the AT2020 in the AT2041SP Studio Pack.

Corrosion-resistant contacts from the microphone's gold-plated XLRM-type connector, in addition to the mic's rugged design and construction, ensure consistent, reliable performance and durability for the user, says the company. The unit's cardioid polar pattern rejects pickup of sounds from the sides and rear, improving isolation of the desired sound source.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Evadale TX's High School's drama department had to wait a long time for the resources to replace their auditorium's ageing sound system, but now the school has taken a major leap forward with the installation of a new Entasys column line array system from Community Professional Loudspeakers.

Brent Thornhill of Silsbee, Texas-based Southwest Building Systems (SBS) reports, "Their old sound system was a set of horn loudspeakers that had been in place for nearly 50 years. Coverage was pretty much non-existent anywhere off-axis of the horns, which meant most of the seats, suffered from poor intelligibility. It was pretty frustrating for them."

The original goal was to replace the horns with a distributed system of in-ceiling loudspeakers. But the age of the building resulted in an unforeseen snag. "When we had a look at the ceiling we realised it was made of a

UK - A 'condemned' Victorian Grade II-listed church in Wales has been saved from destruction, renovated, and installed with a JBL sound system.

The Diocese of St Asaph, serving the Anglican churches in North-east Wales, had been looking to close Holy Trinity Church in Holywell, Flintshire. However, newly appointed Rev Canon John Lomas was confident the church still had an important role to fill within the community. And so it received a stay of execution leading to a complete quarter of a million refurbishment project.

The 200-seat church, with its vaulted roof, was originally built in 1871 to a design by Ewan Christian and extended in 1910. When Richard Hughes of Richard King Systems of Oswestry was brought in, he knew just how he was going to treat it.

"We have fitted out around 40 churches in this diocese; mostly using loudspeakers from the JBL range and recently the

UK - Equipment produced by a North East company is helping to ensure the safety of the Tate Britain Art Gallery in London.

Attracting over one a half million visitors a year, the gallery, at Milbank in London, has joined the list of major buildings across the world using products from Sunderland-based Current Thinking.

The gallery, through its facilities managers SPIE Matthew Hall, faced the challenge of replacing its ageing voice alarm system and one of the key benefits of using Current Thinking's products was that it could be installed with the minimum of disruption to the fabric of the historic building.

Current Thinking managing director Anthony Smith says, "What appealed to the gallery - and to the installers VA Systems - was that our equipment enabled the use of the existing speaker installations at the same time as enabling the upgrading of the overall system to

Sweden - An Air Traffic Control training centre in Malmö has taken delivery of a new simulation system - specified and installed by Micro Nav, using rear projection systems and bespoke engineering from Paradigm AV in the UK.

The contract was awarded by Entry Point North (EPN) - an international Air Traffic Management Academy approved by the Civil Aviation Authorities in Scandinavia.

Although Micro Nav had not previously worked with Paradigm they were keen to collaborate when the right project came along. "We considered using other suppliers for this contract," says project manager Jackie Friberg, "but after meeting with various different companies, we opted to work in partnership with Paradigm for the delivery of these two large towers."

The requirement from EPN was that the display solution should be "at least as good" as the existing systems,

UK - Architainment Lighting reports its involvement with Funhouse Summer Carnival tour.

After working with production manager Richard Young and lighting designer Andi Watson on the lighting requirements for the two previous Radiohead tours, Architainment advised Young on lighting requirements for the video screen surrounds in Pink's first arena tour and provided him with the versatile LED string iColor Flex SLX product from Philips Color Kinetics.

When show designer Baz Halpin together with Young, was designing the set for Pink's Funhouse Summer Carnival tour and wanted to create an overhead stage mesh lighting canopy, they once again turned to Architainment to provide them with a quality solution.

This time Architainment suggested the new high brightness, tri-colour iColor Flex LMX, again produced by Philips Color Kinetics. Samples were presented to Halpin and

USA - BSR E1.17 - 201x, Entertainment Technology - Architecture for Control Networks, has been posted for review at www.esta.org/tsp/documents/public_review_docs.php. The draft standard is a suite of documents that revise sections of the existing ANSI E1.17 - 2006.

The revisions include changes to the Device Description Language, the Session Data Transport protocol, the Device Management Protocol, and to various EPIs.The revisions are being done to correct errors and to add additional functionality to the standard. The review period runs through 23 August. The review is over when 24 August starts. Responses must be submitted before then to be considered.

ANSI E1.17-2006, Entertainment Technology - Architecture for Control Networks (ACN), is a suite of documents that specifies an architecture, including protocols and language, that may be configured and combined w

USA - The sanctuary at Davidson College Presbyterian Church in Davidson, North Carolina, has been fitted with a new sound system utilising high-performance, low-profile Renkus-Heinz Iconyx loudspeaker systems.

"The sanctuary is a really reverberant space, and we've always had trouble with people being able to hear spoken word clearly," says Rick Cardenas, the Church's technical director.

"It's a beautiful space, and the idea of putting a big speaker system in the middle of it just wasn't an option." The solution was found in a pair of Renkus-Heinz's Iconyx IC24-R digitally steerable line array loudspeakers. The steerable arrays are configured to provide focused coverage to every seat.

Working around the sanctuary's full calendar, Cardenas got together with college staff members to install the IC24-R systems into soffits on either side of the proscenium. T

Latest Issue. . .