UK - With over 91m passenger entries and exits between April 2010 and March 2011, London's Waterloo is easily Britain's busiest railway station in terms of passenger throughput.

With so many passengers to take care of, it's important that any announcements made to the public are both clear and concise and can be heard by everyone who needs to hear it, whether it is travel information or emergency information being issued.

Traditional transport hub structures and building materials meant that this station suffered from poor intelligibility, with the reflective surfaces such as marble and glass causing high reverberation times. However, passengers are now enjoying crystal clear audio thanks to a recently completed overhaul of the audio system, which included installation of Tannoy's new VLS Series. The major upgrade to the PA system was handled by Glasgow-based TG Baker who were

The Philippines - Adamson Systems has installed their first sound reinforcement system in the Philippines. The University of Santo Tomas in Manila celebrates its 400th year, and in honour of their anniversary they've constructed a multipurpose gymnasium aptly named the Quadricentennial Pavilion.

Replacing the university's aging sports complex, the new pavilion is not only home to the university's sports teams, but it also accommodates a dance troupe, fencing-, badminton-, judo-, and taekwondo clubs. The ground level is home to retail space for businesses such as banks and restaurants, the first floor houses a 2-level fitness center adjacent to a gymnastics room, while the third level features a two-lane oval track around the inside perimeter of the building.

The crowning feature of the Pavilion is a 5014sq.m gymnasium with gallery seating large enough to hold 5,792 people. The

UK - On Sunday 30 September, a full scale 'emergency' training exercise took place at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. The stands were filled by volunteers playing the part of the panicking crowds. Fake smoke, mock injuries and people looking for loved ones set up a challenging role for the Greater Manchester Firefighters and Police.

The VIGIL voice alarm system was activated, triggering pre-recorded messages to inform and guide the crowds. The systems emergency and fire microphones were used to broadcast live information ensuring everyone was up-to-date with the situation and how they should react.

Dave Unsworth, Northern sales person for Baldwin Boxall, was at the event and, seated in the control room, had a full view of the unfolding exercise and reports, " I took part in a staged major disaster at the Etihad Stadium home of Manchester City FC and can report that the

Serbia - Leading Serbian rental company Studio Berar purchased 50 new Robe Robin 100 LEDBeams initially to meet a spec by lighting designer Andy Hurst for maverick electro rockers The Prodigy, and their Main 'Warriors' stage headline performance at the recent Warriors Dance Festival.

The mega popular one day event was staged at the Kalemegdan Fortress in Belgrade, an exceptionally atmospheric location dating back to the first century AD.

Studio Berar provided full technical production for the Festival which also included the 'Take Me To The Hospital' stage and the 'Invaders Must Die' stage .... All featuring a stellar line up of international and national artists to sate anyone with a serious dance music habit.

Andy Hurst has been using LEDBeam 100's for Prodigy's 2012 summer festival world tour wherever possible, which kicked off at Download in the UK back in May, where the

USA - Free registration is now open for the PLASA Focus: Stamford 2012 Professional Development Programme, a two-day programme of free educational seminars and workshops, running alongside PLASA Focus: Stamford, on 12-13 November 2012.

The programme will give visitors a unique opportunity to broaden their specialist knowledge and take part in discussions about innovative projects and cutting edge techniques.

Technical editor, Richard Cadena comments, "It's always been a dream to host a show like this in the Tri-state area, and with so much talent on our doorstep we've literally been spoiled for choice when putting this seminar series together."

Media, sales & marketing director, Jackie Tien adds, "Sharing knowledge and expertise is vitally important to the development of technology, techniques and talent. We wanted to produce a program that features current, h

China - In celebration of Martin Professional's 25th Anniversary, Martin Hong Kong has been touring the company's latest innovative products across China with stops in Guangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

Stops in Guangzhou, Beijing and Hong Kong have already been held successfully with upcoming stops planned for the Prolight + Sound exhibition in Shanghai 11-14 October 11, and Chengdu and Wuhan in late October.

The Guangzhou seminar was held at the Guangdong Drama Troupe on 10 August with about 100 people attending from the entertainment, engineering, broadcasting and performance sectors. The emphasis was on two of Martin's award-winning lights - the MAC Viper Profile and MAC Aura LED wash light- along with the M2GO and M2PC lighting consoles. Dozens of Martin moving heads were installed on the Drama Troupe stage with a brilliant light show and music entertaining betwe

Kazakhstan - Astana Hz. Sultan Mosque is one of the distinguished buildings in Astana, capital of Kazakhstan. It features an incredible worship area of over 60.000m2 to allow for 10.000 people to pray at the same time. The main hall has one main and eight smaller cupolas, of which the main has a diameter of 28m and a height of 43m.

All floors are covered with specially woven carpets, resulting in a fair absorption on the higher end. Most surfaces expect for the floors are covered with marbles and encaustic tiles from Iznik, Turkey. This unparalleled beauty has a price to pay acoustically, making the halls extremely reverberant especially on the lower end, thus making the electroacoustical design the ultimate challenge.

A Complete structure was modelled in EASE4.3 and the exhaustive design process started, adding and removing lots of speakers so as to keep the intelligibility a

UK - The Avolites Media Sapphire Media Infinity video control system has been awarded the prestigious PLASA Award for Innovation.

During this year's PLASA show at Earl's Court in September, 47 products were judged, 'live' in front of show visitors, as an independent panel of expert judges toured the show floor, camera crew in tow, to view presentations about each product.

"Nominees are asked to demonstrate a new style of thinking, an improvement in technical practice, an aid to safety, energy-saving or sustainability benefits, or new technology, materials or techniques," explains one of the judges.

Designed and manufactured in the UK, Avolites Media's Sapphire Media Infinity represents the next exciting step in Media Server technology, says Steve Warren, managing director of Avolites Media. "The powerful unit contains an incredible 8 Full HD outputs and conven

UK - Chauvet is participating in three exhibitions produced by Stage Electrics this October in Manchester, Tyneside and Wales.

Attendees can see a wide variety of gear, suited for multiple applications. Fixtures on exhibit are: Chauvet Professional Q-Wash 436Z-LED and Q-Spot 360-LED moving heads, COLORado 1-Quad Tour, COLORdash Batten-Quad 6, COLORado Déco Quad-1 Tour and COLORado 2 Zoom Tour static wash lights, Ovation E-190WW and Ovation F-165WW LED-fitted theatrical fixtures, PiXPar 24 pixel mapping wash and LED Followspot 75ST. Additionally shown is the new trussing line, TRUSST.

The technical focus of the exhibitions allows manufacturers to show product that attendees can get their hands on and have their technical questions answered. The variety of products includes the latest technology in lighting, audio, video and trussing equipment for schools, theatres, broad

New Zealand - PA company, Tomcat Production Services, road-tested an Allen & Heath iLive-T digital mixing system on the first leg of New Zealand's Got Talent audition tour.

Comprising an iDR-64 MixRack and iLive-T112 Control Surface, the system managed all of the three FOH speaker systems, the main performance PA, the small distributed speech PA, and the judges' near field monitor system.iLive also took care of the stage monitor system - approximately two to sixsends - and Tomcat used it as part of the audio department shout comms system.

"NZGT's audition tour is an audio marathon, comprising 35-40 acts a day with practically no sound checks and you are dealing with anything from a 60 piece choir to a singing basset hound," explains Andy Tait from Tomcat Production Services. "iLive coped with everything I threw at it without a hitch and of course the snap

USA - "It's the first time I've used the Auras and they are spectacular!" Thus exclaimed lighting designer Susanne Sasic of Martin Professional's versatile MAC Aura LED wash light. Using a nearly all Martin rig on the David Byrne & St. Vincent Love This Giant North American tour, the LD, who also handles production design and lighting direction on the tour, has teamed the MAC Aura with Martin MAC 101 LED washes and MAC 700 series fixtures.

"I had heard about the Auras from other designers and programmers and speced them sight unseen," Sasic says, who uses them as floor fixtures set along the downstage edge of the stage as footlights, audience blinders, and to cast shadows of the performers on an upstage scrim and backdrop. "With a scant six fixtures the wide zoom creates a beautiful even field of color that fills the stage and covers all of the pe

Hong Kong - Following a demo of Martin Professional's MAC 101 and MAC 350 Entour LED fixtures, Charles Chau of Mella Club in Hong Kong, responsible for lighting design and decoration, was so impressed by the fixtures' rich and variant colors that he immediately placed an order.

Located in the heart of Hong Kong's central district, Mella Club is the newest resident in the city's busy Lan Kwai Fong nightlife scene. Opened in July, the club's focus is on design with an impressive dance floor light show courtesy of MAC 101 and MAC 350 Entour fixtures supplied by Martin Professional Hong Kong.

In a raised VIP room at one end of the club, customers overlook a spacious dance floor lined with compact MAC 101 wash lights.

Encircling the club's streamline bar counter, MAC 350 Entour LED profiles splash gobos and ever-changing colour onto adjacent walls and floor with the occasional pr

World - Stadia, arenas and open air venues across Asia, Europe, North and South America are hosting Madonna's 2012 MDNA World Tour with all featuring a large Sennheiser microphone and RF system. Madonna has six Sennheiser SKM 5200 mics for each show, which, as monitor engineer Matt Napier explains, get tested to the limit.

"The 5200s get a real battering. The whole first section of the show is highly stylised with an almost comic book aggression. There is, a lot of staged violence and the microphones get hurled around and are frequently being thrown to and from dancers and onto the floor," commented Napier. "We're going through a new microphone every 10 shows or so. But given that the 5200 is not a microphone designed for such abuse, I think they are standing up remarkably well. Of course we have a whole drawer of spares from Sennheiser," he concluded.

UK - Registration for the Panasonic System Communications Company Europe 2012 Visual Experience Road Show is now available. Road show attendees will be amongst the first to witness next generation innovative visual solutions from Panasonic.

A series of visits to major UK and other European cities has been announced during November. Solutions on display include the PT-DZ21K series projectors which debuted at the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony. Also on show will be the PT-RZ470/RZ370 series lamp-free projectors and the latest Digital Link connection and HDBaseT technology plus LED/Laser-combined 1-chip DLP projectors with 20K hours of lamp life.

Also on display will be TH-65PB1 interactive display and the full Panasonic education range including the UB-T880 interactive whiteboard - one of the most advanced IWB systems on the market.

(Jim Evans)

South Africa - Production lighting for the 2012 Splashy Fen Music Festival - staged in the beautiful foothills of the southern Drakensberg mountains, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa - was designed by Llewellyn Pieters from Durban based event technical support company, Black Coffee.

The rig involved a selection of Robe moving lights including Robin 600 LEDWashes and ColorSpot 575 and 1200E ATs, chosen by Llewellyn who was LD/operator for the event for the second year running.

He needed to make the stage as versatile as possible as a performance space for the popular boutique festival, offering the wide variety of emerging and established artists playing throughout the event their own distinctive looks.

So the lighting concept needed to be as dynamic as possible for the budget.

The lights were arranged across three trusses and on the floor. The back truss had four T-shaped bars

UK - Pearce Hire has confirmed its return to the Showman's Show (Newbury Showground 17-18 October) this month. A regular supporter of the annual exhibition, the team from Pearce Hire will be ready to share the news of their busiest summer ever and talk about their expertise in providing solutions for the technical challenges of any outdoor, or indoor event.

Comments Shaun Pearce, MD of Pearce Hire, "The Showman's Show is ideally timed as it offers a platform for us to catch up with our customers at the end of the hectic summer season. The challenges and successes of the season are still fresh in everyone's minds and it allows an opportunity for us to sit down and plan for next year. We can review what has happened over the past few months and then act upon it and build on those experiences in order to produce even better events in 2013."

It has been a non-stop summer

UK - As technology continually drives the improvement of entertainment systems, customer expectations rise exponentially. This is just as true at sea - in the cruise market - as it is on land, which is why the cruise liner Saga Sapphire has emerged from a recent refit with a comprehensive Sennheiser, DAS Audio, K-array and APart audio system on board.

Under previous owners the 30,000 ton vessel was named the Europa, SuperStar Europe, SuperStar Aries, Holiday Dream and Bleu de France. Given its third major refit at the end of 2011, the liner emerged as the Saga Sapphire with significantly upgraded facilities designed specifically for its owners' over-50s market. Major elements of the refit were brand new audio, lighting and A/V systems, specified and installed by Luton-based TEDAV.

"Our technical director Mark Morley had an extensive marine past and brought a lot of that w

Italy - For almost 40 years, a historically ancient Italian town in the hills of central Italy transforms itself for ten days each July. Perugia welcomes tens of thousands of visitors for the annual Umbria Jazz Festival, which has gone onto become one of the largest music events not just in Italy, but in the world.

With it come the challenges of hosting multiple stages in a mediaeval and architecturally sensitive town, where getting the sound right for critical ears is as rewarding as it is challenging. Umbria Jazz's technical partner is Angelo Tordini, who is perhaps better known as the owner of the Ancona-based cable manufacturer, Reference Laboratory. As the chorus confirms, Mr Tordini and his handpicked dream team are prepared to work like dogs in order to get the sound right for the artists, the audiences and of course, themselves.

"I normally spend three weeks prepa

UK - Training centre Backstage Academy reports a successful exhibit at its second annual PLASA Show, where it celebrated a year of growth with several initiatives.

The Academy took many enquiries for its Foundation Degree in Live Events Production, for which there are still places for this November. It also had a lot of interest from overseas companies wanting training delivered in their home country.

Said sales & business development manager Sara Gleadhall, "What was surprising this year was the number of enquiries we had from companies and professionals abroad who are desperate for us to take our training overseas.

"We are currently looking at developing packages of training in essential backstage skills and certificates to deliver in foreign countries."

The Academy launched a student competition to win a week's work experience on the set build of a major

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd's audio division has supplied one of Yamaha's CL5 digital mixing consoles - along with two Yamaha Rio I/O rackmount units - to Manchester based technical solutions company, Sterling Event Group (SEG).

As a single-source supplier for the corporate, commercial and private event markets, SEG specialise in providing creative, technical and production expertise and skills, coupled with all the latest available technologies.

SEG's project manager and head of sound, Ben Marshall explains that they already own several Yamaha digital consoles, which have been in constant use. When looking for a larger digital desk with more onboard features they were naturally attracted back to the Yamaha brand, explaining that they have found Yamaha consoles to be "extremely user friendly" and "reliable".

AC-ET was amongst the firs

Australia - Twelve ETC Selador Desire D40 Lustr+ LED fixtures have found a welcoming home at the Adelaide Festival Centre, which was the first of Australia's performing arts centres and is still acknowledged by audiences and performers as the best of its kind in the nation.

"We wanted a fixture that was robust and really an industry standard," explained Phil Haddy, head lighting technician. "The ETC brand is well known and respected which is why we looked to them first. Plus the Selador Lustr has the seven colours and is more theatre-orientated without sacrificing the energy efficiency and long life you expect from LEDs."

According to Haddy, the Selador Desire D40 Lustr+ fixtures have been performing well and responding beautifully.

"I really like that they offer a lot more colours than other units do and their output is really good," Phil added

UAE - A Solid State Logic AWS 948 Hybrid Console/Controller was chosen to upgrade the primary audio recording room, Studio 7, now named the SSL Studio, at the SAE Institute in Dubai.

As a part of the worldwide network of over 56 SAE educational facilities, the Dubai campus offers a variety of degree and certificate programs in media production, including audio engineering, 3D animation, multimedia, game design, digital filmmaking and music production.

SAE Dubai's audio programme revolves around seven studios, each having a different level of sophistication and primary application. The SSL Studio connects to the SSL Live Room, a moderate-sized room that can comfortably house a quartet of musicians. The acoustics of the room are designed for picking up the dynamic response of instruments, especially drum kits and loud instruments. Having a console that can match the acoustic sig

UK - This year's Reading Festival in the UK had some additional colour, courtesy of Colour Sound Experiment of London. Two weeks prior to the event the organizers decided to add lighting decoration to the general audience area. They called on Colour Sound whose design solution added 1500 metres and 1,500 lamps of TMB's IMS colour-changing festoon strings. The IMS (Intelligent Marquee Systems) rig was strung from an array of 6m high poles, suspended over the audience between the rear entrance and the main stage, arranged like spokes of a cartwheel. The individually DMX-controlled RGB IMS lamps were reminiscent of normal light bulbs hanging over the audience, but with each lamp acting as a low-resolution colour-changing 'pixel' for a dazzling display of video and graphics content. The system's 12 IMS Universe Drives were controlled with ArtNet using a Chamsys console.

"We cho

UK - Avolites' popular Pearl Expert lighting control console had provided a powerful, easy to use solution for a one off, career-defining Frank Turner gig at London's Wembley Arena.

Lighting designer Shaun Moore adapted his smaller music hall inspired lighting design for the Wembley Arena show. However this one-off gig presented a number of challenges as Moore explains, "The show was a one off, so it was load in at 5am and doors at 6pm. Programming was done over two days at Terminal Studios via the Avolites console using WYSIWYG. We also had a couple hours tweaking over night in my hotel room! Obviously I could have done with a production day, especially as the show was filmed for DVD. On the day itself we had just a few hours tweaking positions and programming."

Frank Turner, the Winchester based, folk/punk singer and guitarist, has been touring almost consistently

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