Finland - ETC has completed installation of three separate ETC Unison Paradigm Control systems at the new Helsinki Music Centre.

There are seven performance spaces at the centre, seating up to 1,704 people. The first Paradigm system controls the main concert hall; a second controls three of the rehearsal halls (Rehearsal Hall, Organo and Camerata); and a third controls the Sonore, Black Box and restaurant stage halls. All were supplied, installed and programmed by Studiotec Oy of Finland.

Project manager for Studiotec, Oskar Krogell explains: "Paradigm was chosen by the music centre for its integration with lighting control desks, dimmers and DMX. They also wanted non-technical personnel - including orchestra organisers, stage managers and even music students - to be able to use the show lighting in the halls for rehearsals and concerts. The Music Centre has seven stages

USA - Jason Aldean, just 10-years old, has been selling out coast-to-coast and sweeping awards shows regularly. Aldean just won a record six American Country Awards, including Single of the Year, Album of the Year, and the Holy Grail of live shows, Touring Artist of the Year.

Bandit Lites has been part of the Aldean family since the start. Lighting designer Aaron Swetland has continued to craft his art as the shows and lighting systems have grown geometrically through the years.

The My Kinda Party Tour has been setting records throughout 2011, and it continues into 2012. The album is platinum and Aldean is currently on top of the country and pop charts with the smash hit Don't You Wanna Stay with Kelly Clarkson.

For 2012, Swetland has utilized a great number of different technologies to help Aldean shine each night. His arsenal includes Martin MAC III's, MAC 2K

USA - Chauvet reports that the first episode of We TV's My Fair Wedding features 12 SlimPAR Pro Tri wash lights.

Specified and installed by Lights Incredible, based in Kansas City, Mo., the flicker-free fixtures are part of a special episode called Make a Wish Bride.

Specified for their on-camera suitability as well as their compact size and low profile, SlimPAR Pro Tri fixtures added flexibility and precise colour temperature to the setting.

"They're sturdy, take up no room and look fantastic," Carol Rosenstein of Lights Incredible said. "We placed [the fixtures] around the perimeter of the room uplighting each of the fabric panels as well as around the back. They gave the ceiling a colorful glow throughout the reception and their output got more intense as the sun went down. The view from outside was beautiful."

(Jim Evans)

USA - On 2 December 2011, the RBC Centre, home of the NHL Carolina Hurricanes, NC State Wolfpack Men's Basketball and host of the 2011 NHL Allstar Game and numerous large events in Raleigh was transformed into the world of Hip-Hop and R&B music and grooves.

The concert The Platinum Legends of Hip Hop and R&B featured the top original pioneers of Hip Hop includingThe Fat Boys, Kurtis Blow, Kool Moe Dee, Christopher Williams, Al B. Sure, Aaron Hall, Doug E. Fresh and more.

The cutting edge RCF TT+ sound system, supplied by Rock Quarry Productions of Raleigh NC, included 32 TTL55-A, eight TTL33-A and 18 TTS56-A Subwoofers all software controlled by the RDNet management software

"RCF TT55 never fails to deliver the power and performance we need to cover even the largest of rooms. The RDNet system allows us amazing detailed control of all aspects of the system in real

UK - Following the success of the launch of the British Military Tournament in 2010, this year's event was bigger and better, with the addition of participating units from the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force, plus the American military.

Taking place in Earls Court, the Tournament is one of the largest displays of military theatre anywhere in the world, pulling together the best elements of the world-famous Royal Tournament. Once again, Unusual Rigging supported the event, supplying a raft of equipment plus crew.

In addition to 400m of truss for lighting and PA equipment, Unusual also provided truss and rigging for the massive 'hockey scoreboard' projection screen, flown above the centre of the arena. Hidden inside the screen were elements such as climbing ropes, for use in the gymnastic display by the Royal Army Physical Training Corps, and a hot air balloon basket, which w

Singapore - Synergy AVL was awarded with the supply and installation tender of the National Art Council's Black Box Theatre for full theatrical production use.

As the name sugests, Black Box Theatre is painted completely black inside, and has a seating area of 128m2. The simple black room is able to bring many theatrical performances to life with the help of high quality sound and lighting systems. National Art Council's original Black Box Theatre lacked that certain quality in their sound and lighting systems. Synergy AVL's design and consulting team surveyed the existing system in the theatre and replaced them with components from the well-known brands that it carries.

A combination of Outline EIDOS 15, EIDOS 12 and EIDOS 118SW subwoofers have been installed. The EDIOS speakers are driven by Outline DPA 1004 digital power amplifiers - both made by Italian Audio manufacturer,

Sweden - The highly contemporary Folkteatern Goteborg has incorporated a TiMax SoundHub-S32 audio showcontrol processor in the audio refurbishment for its main auditorium, controlled by a TiMax Tracker (TT) performer tracking system.

TiMax processing and control was specified by Alf Berntsen, head of leading Swedish acoustic consultants Artifon who undertook the audio design for the new space. A longtime advocate of delay-based source-oriented vocal reinforcement, Berntsen had previously included two TiMax systems in his designs for Norway's prestigious Oslo Opera House, where he had also been impressed with their ability to deliver highly immersive surround sound effects.

The project was overseen by head sound engineer at the theatre, Allan Antilla, and designed with the dual objectives of enhancing vocal intelligibility by transparent audio localisation of the actors' voices

China - An L-Acoustics Kudo large format line source system has been used for an outdoor concert in Guangzhou by Greek pianist and composer Yanni, as part of his Chinese tour. The sound system was supplied to the tour's equipment provider, Beijing Dadong Huahan Audiovisual Equipment Co, by L-Acoustics' exclusive distributor for Greater China, Rightway Audio Consultants.

The main system consisted of 16 Kudo cabinets, 32 V-DOSC large format line source boxes and 24 SB28 subs, with 24 dV-DOSC for in-fill and two 115XT HiQ providing stage monitoring. The complete system was powered by 32 LA8 amplified controllers housed in six LA-RAKs.

"The KUDO system was really great for this concert because of its accurate adjustable horizontal dispersion, extended frequency range down to 25Hz, and compact size," says Alan Wong, sales manager from Rightway Audio Consultants. "It'

UK - The latest Bryan Adams tour is the first major one in the UK tour to feature Robe lighting's new Robin MMX Spots, as specified by lighting designer Ewan McRobb and supplied by the tour's lighting contractor, High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, UK based Siyan.

McRobb - who has worked for superstar rocker Adams for the last five years - has used some Robe fixtures on rigs in the past, but has not actually integrated any into his designs until now. He was shown the MMXs when initially discussing the tour with Siyan's Nick Valdez, who had just taken delivery of some of Robe's newest technology. McRobb liked what he saw and decided to spec twelve MMXs onto the tour.

As a photographer of some repute, Adams takes a keen interest in lighting and therefore also his stage lighting. "He has multiple ideas and knows exactly what he wants," explains McRobb, adding that Adams also

UK - No Saints, the leisure group set up by former Luminar Leisure boss Stephen Thomas, has added the Wonder brand to its growing portfolio, after acquiring four new sites in the south-east.

Known respectively as Wonder Lounge, Wonder Land and Wonder Years, the first fully-fledged nightclub (Wonder Land) opened recently in Sutton, Surrey.

Back in charge of the 900-capacity venue he once operated as Liquid, Thomas brought in Dakota House of Design (to work the Alice in Wonderland theme into an escapist nightclub interior), while Mark Damon of Cosmic Electronics renewed his company's long relationship with RCF to provide an end-to-end sound reinforcement solution.

"We have a long and successful track record working with RCF," he said, "and so we were 110% behind the idea of working with them on this project because we know their products are of high quality and

UK - Audio Light Systems staff have recently refreshed their Emergency First Aid at Work with St Andrews First Aid in the head office in Edinburgh. All 18 core staff members completed the day long course with Ann Marie Paterson and Ian Ridland from St Andrews First Aid. All staff also utilised first aid applications on their mobile devices to ensure regular updates.

"It is important to have all members of staff trained to a good standard and ensuring that everyone is first aid trained helps toward safer sites." Said Trevor Cross, project manager, Audio Light Systems.

(Jim Evans)

UK - A number of schools in the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham are in the process of being equipped with giant Supernova optical front projection screens from Danish manufacturers dnp.

This is designed to boost learning and provide better data referencing from sources such as Visualiers, computers and portable touch screen whiteboards, which provide the ability to control lessons from anywhere in the classroom.

The order for over 200 of the Supernova Core screens in 16:10 aspect ratio, placed with Supernova's UK distributors, Paradigm Audio Visual, was sanctioned by Sheyne Lucock, Education ICT Strategy lead for the council, after his Strategy team had reviewed all the options.

Paradigm AV supplied 105 of the 100" displays to the primary schools alone via project consultants and fit-out specialists, REDS10. All the ICT equipment is being fitted by RM Education,

UK - Over one million people descended upon Regent Street and Oxford Street this weekend for two days of festive shopping and entertainment at the annual Shop West End VIP Weekend 2011, organised by creative event production company Wilde Ones.

The Very Important Pedestrians (VIP) weekend sees the iconic London streets become traffic free for two days. Wilde Ones was reappointed by client New West End Company and worked closely with all stakeholders including Westminster Council, Met Police, Transport for London and over 80 retailers, to bring the streets to life and create a dynamic festive atmosphere.

The event featured a diverse range of entertainment to appeal to all audience demographics including Christmas-themed attractions located across six sites within the area. These included vintage buses, a traditional fun fair, large nutcrackers, a horse drawn Victorian bus ride,

South Africa - The first season of the new television musical competition, Varstrap, aired on KykNet (DSTV), has just come to an end. It is set in a cellar at Lourensford Wine Farm in Somerset West where contestants compete for the best boere orkes (band).

Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier designed the set and lighting, which had to be appropriate for television viewing. Travis Yeatman programmed and operated the show on an Avolites Tiger Touch. He flew to Cape Town every weekend where rehearsals were followed by a recording of the show.

Four bands competed every week. Two stages were erected on either end of the cellar with the judges and audience seated in the centre of the room. The lighting comprising of Robe Colorspot 575s, parcans, Philips Selecon Profiles and LED strips, was fairly simple and mostly to light up the props and create the warm, traditional type atmosp

UK - Ian Kirby turned exclusively to the SGM catalogue for all his automated beam effects for Wonderland.

The lighting needed to be sufficiently versatile to cater for an entertainment programme ranging from comedy to burlesque, contortionists and acrobats to high-octane dance within a multi-role venue targeted at a slightly older age demographic. At the same time guests needed to feel they were interacting within a TV reality-type set.

"I think this was one of the reasons Steve [Thomas]contacted us," noted Kirby. "We have worked extensively in TV studio lighting, and it's programmes like X-Factor that audiences these days are used to seeing. SGM heads are perfect because they are quiet running, fully featured and produce beams of saturated colour."

Leading the charge are 10 new SGM X-5 white LED strobes - a revolutionary break from the traditional

The Netherlands - Rotterdamse Schouwburg, which plays host to a wide variety of performances from every major Dutch theatre, dance and opera company, has recently increased its inventory of Robert Juliat zoom profiles with the purchase of 34 RJ 614SX 16° - 35° fixtures from distributor, LightCo, of the Netherlands.

The 879-seat venue's stock of aging profiles needed to be replaced so, knowing the Robert Juliat reputation for optical excellence, Joost van den Hil, lighting specialist for the Main Auditorium, organised a shootout and approached LightCo's Bas van Schelven who took along the RJ 614SX 1kW fixtures.

In addition to meeting the all-important optical criteria, the Robert Juliat profiles also excelled with their build quality and mechanical superiority: "The mechanics are solid, the shutters stay straight, even after long term use, and the shutter lock work

Germany - The total donated at this year's Wolkenschieber (Cloud Pusher) charity ball held in Bremen's Maritim Hotel & Congress Centre exceeded the record set by the 2009-event. Following a five-course dinner, the 600 generous attendees were treated to a sophisticated entertainment programme.

The high point of the evening's festivities was the Flash & Flow laser show put on by tarm Showlaser, in collaboration with the Extra Energy dance ensemble, under the artistic direction of Wolfram Lenssen.

The team presented an audio-visual interpretation of the evening's theme, illustrating the motivation and history of the Wolkenschieber initiative in a series of scenes involving varied moods and dark clouds that finally disappeared and were replaced by the sun.

The Wolkenschieber initiative was founded by Joke Event AG in 2007 and supports local charitable organizations and as

Germany - Hallescher FC is one of the most successful clubs in Germany's Regional League North. The club has great sporting ambitions - as can be seen also in the club's infrastructure. The best example of this is the club's new stadium, which was completed in September 2011.

The Erdgas Sportpark, as it is known, has a seating capacity of over 15,000 and includes eight boxes, 320 business seats and 30 places for the handicapped. After the first match in the new stadium, against Hamburger SV of the Bundesliga on 20 September, the club was able to report a full house. Three days prior to this, local inhabitants were given an opportunity to admire the city's new sporting landmark at an open door event to celebrate the completion of the project.

To compete in the highest leagues from the standpoint of sound technology as well, the city of Halle commissioned the construction compan

France - October and November 2011 saw the fourth consecutive successful International Festival of Dance & Performance Arts (IFDPA) and International Gathering of Scottish Highland Dance (IGSHD) at Disneyland Paris.

Both events, organised and managed by Yorkshire event company Take Us 2 The Magic, gathered more than 40 dance schools from around the world performing and competing in front of hundreds of people. In total, more than 250 acts per event performed on the main stage located in the prestigious Disneyland Paris resort.

Take Us 2 The Magic approached Rosco as they needed a transportable yet durable floor which can take any type of dance (tap, freestyle, Ballet etc). Rosco supplied 160m (enough to cover 20m x 12m stage area) of the Adagio Tour chosen from the extensive range of performance floors Rosco is offering.

Adagio Tour is a vinyl surface which is specially suit

USA - Open house receptions are nothing new at Gemini Light, Sound & Video. The Dallas-based lighting and production company holds them annually to showcase its inventory and services and educate its customers. But this year's event, held 16-17 November, was extra special for a couple reasons: it marked Gemini's 30th anniversary in business; and it gave many customers their first view of the company's recently expanded 76,000sq.ft warehouse.

Nearly 250 existing and prospective clients attended the two-day open house, which took place in a section of the warehouse set up to replicate a theatre.

"Back by popular demand, we set up a 'black box theatre' demo area to achieve an actual production space within our working warehouse," said Cassidi Cain of Gemini. This allowed customers to see some of the company's newer lighting and video products in action as they would app

UK - The Coemar Infinity ACL beam projector made an appearance on a recent edition of the BBC's Later with Jools Holland, backing the Mercury- and Brit-nominated band Friendly Fires for lighting director Chris Rigby.

"We gave the units a gentle run on Later, where they performed very well." Rigby comments. "The most striking thing about them, to my eyes, was the bright and vibrant colours they offered. They were more than bright enough for High Definition studio cameras. We liked the iris feature, which makes the Coemar unit more versatile than others in its class, and obviously we liked the gobo selection, which makes the fixture a lot less one dimensional. In short, we liked them."

The Infinity ACL is Coemar's moving-light re-invention of the classic, intense ACL beam effect. It offers CMY+CTO colour mixing plus a five-slot colour wheel that

USA - When Northern Kentucky University (NKU) decided to implement a school-wide 'green' initiative, lighting designer Terry Powell leapt at the opportunity, and worked with Adam Hayward at Vincent Lighting Systems to overhaul his lighting rig with 24 PL3 Wash luminaires from Philips Selecon and a Palette VL control console from Philips Strand Lighting.

"In the past, my boss and I had been talking about LED technology and all the benefits we would get by using it in the theatre," began Powell. "So when the University established a pool of money that was to be used for sustainability, we jumped at the opportunity to put together a proposal, and contacted our longtime friends at Vincent Lighting Systems to get the project going."

"Vincent Lighting is very proud to have been involved with NKU for a number of years," added Hayward. "We first beca

Singapore - Clear-Com is enabling flawless communications for the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay in Singapore's Marina Bay. The performance complex relies on Clear-Com's FreeSpeak and Tempest 2400 wireless systems to ensure smooth, reliable communications across its four major indoor venues and outdoor theatre, covering a variety of events, including theatrical productions, classical concerts and performances by pop and rock artists.

Clear-Com's FreeSpeak and Tempest2400 enable the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay to provide touring companies and other performers hiring the venues with the no-fail communications necessary for managing productions across its four major performance spaces.

These spaces include a 1,600-seat concert hall (the facility's premiere venue), a 2,000-seat theatre, a recital studio and a theatre studio. Although their existing legacy Clear-Com partyline

USA - A long overdue renovation of the lobby and atrium at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas, began shortly after it was announced that the Hilton Anatole would be the NFL headquarters hotel for the XLV Super Bowl.

R2W's Dallas office was tapped to handle the design and installation of a new sound system for the atrium as well as other system required by the renovation.

The renovation consisted of gutting the existing lobby of the 1,606 room hotel and creating a new 11 story high atrium that features a prominent water element and new Media Grill + Bar. The 11,000 square foot space required an unobtrusive, distributed sound system for music playback in the area.

The hotel design team placed 25 custom light fixtures throughout the area and allocated space within the fixtures for loudspeakers.

"Our job was to come up with a system that would provide the audio qua

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