Russia - The new 5 star Radisson Blu Resort & Congress Centre in Sochi relies on Bosch when it comes to security. The luxury resort, which celebrated its grand opening in time for the biggest event ever held in Sochi, is equipped with Bosch fire alarm systems, public address and evacuation technology and a comprehensive video surveillance system, all being integrated and centrally managed via the Bosch Building Integration System (BIS).

Being located close to the Black Sea coast, the Radisson Blu Resort & Congress Centre features more than 500 guest rooms, three restaurants, a health club & SPA and other amenities. With eleven conference rooms including the 1,500 m2 Premier Hall, the Radisson Blu also features one of the largest hotel-attached convention centres in southern Russia.

As the different parts of the building also have different safety requirements, Krasnoda based i

USA - Lime, the newest addition to the widely renowned Luxeon colour portfolio of LEDs from Philips Lumileds, enables lighting designers to take the next step in delivering the highest quality, tunable white light in bulbs and fixtures.

Luxeon Rebel ES Lime is the proprietary LED technology in the revolutionary Philips hue bulb, where it combines with Luxeon Rebel Red-Orange and Rebel Royal Blue emitters to deliver over 16m colour options -- all controlled from an iOS device. Philips hue can use colour tunable Light Recipes to help set mood and energy level in the home, office, retail, classroom and hospital environments.

"This really represents a new frontier in lighting, because Luxeon Rebel ES Lime emitters can be combined with other Rebel colour and white emitters to achieve higher CRI and R9 combinations than any previous generation emitters or arrays," said Rah

UK - VUE Audiotechnik's i-Class i-2x4.5 loudspeakers have been installed as sound-reinforcement for the world premiere of video artist Isaac Julien's seven-screen installation Playtime.

Installed by ArtAV, this ambitious new body of work at the Victoria Miro Gallery in London employs a special mix of sound and vision to create and sustain atmosphere in keeping with the work.

ArtAV have been working full-time with Isaac Julien for the past six years, creating sympathetic AV environments worldwide to house Julien's video pieces. They are only too aware of the precise nature of AV technology within visual and sonic art: choices play a significant role in the impact of the work. Lez Barker is confident that VUE have what it takes: "We have been searching for several years to find an alternative to the most premium loudspeaker brands, at a cost point that more of our customers

UK - Twelve years after their last concert tour, popular Scottish alt rockers Del Amitri reunited and hit the road for the first time in 12 years with lighting, sound and expertise supplied by Liverpool based rental specialist Adlib.

Adlib were "extremely proud" to be working with the band again for the hugely successful tour which played three weeks around the UK and Ireland, including an acclaimed sell out show at the new 8000 capacity Hydro Arena in their hometown of Glasgow.

Adlib's FOH engineer Dave Kay also mixed the last gigs they did back in 2002, and in the meantime he's stayed in touch with lead singer / bassist Justin Currie and worked on several of his solo projects. Kay was absolutely delighted to be asked back, "Great people, great music and it's been a lot of fun, " he comments.

The tour encompassed a wide mix of venues - starting in a pub

South Africa - The late afternoon sun casts a magical amber glow across the surrounding hills, the air is filled with pulsing rhythms; you can taste the fecund African soil on the breeze. At the end of a dusty farm track somewhere in northern South Africa a large group of people are ululating rhythmically to the beat.

"Most of the crowd are in their twenties," said Evert De Munnik. "And about all of them are metal heads." Not what you were expecting? No, but then Oppikoppi is not your run of the mill festival.

Oppikoppi, staged a few miles outside Northam close by the border with Botswana, is after 20 years, part of the South African music establishment. De Munnik works for Mango Groove, a big band full of voices, brass and laughter.

"Despite six separate stages, twenty thousand out of a total twenty five thousand attending Oppikoppi were at the Mang

UK - With less than three weeks to go until the ISCE (Institute of Sound and Communications Engineers) ISCEx2014 Exhibition and Networking Dinner in Birmingham, interest is running at a near unprecedented high.

According to the Institute's secretariat manager, Ros Wigmore, members have sensed the enormous networking value of the occasion as well as the opportunity to both see and exhibit next-generation communications systems in the era of EN54 compliance.

"We have had an amazing response to our networking dinner bookings," Ros confirms. "It seems that everyone prefers to meet up in a more informal setting before the serious business gets started."

The two-day event itself takes place on March 4-5 at the Holiday Inn in Birmingham City Centre, kicking off with the dinner on the opening night.

Accompanying a full programme of technical seminars will be th

Australia - ARX Systems has confirmed the appointment of Guangzhou and Hong Kong based ST Audio Technology Audio as its new distributor for China & Hong Kong.

ARX managing director Colin Park said, "ST Audio Technology are a well known and long established Company in the Chinese Professional Audio Industry.

"Here at ARX we're looking forward to working with the ST Audio team, they're very enthusiastic about the possibilities for the growing ARX product range amongst their extensive client network throughout China."

(Jim Evans)

South Africa - Two of the longest standing players in the South African technical services production industry came together this week to sign a landmark deal within the local event industry.

Gearhouse's 10-strong Group of Companies is widely recognised as the country's largest equipment rental supplier and services live events across a wide range of disciplines whilst Prosound is predominantly known for their system integration and design (permanent and temporary) along with their sales, distribution and services role in the pro-audio, lighting, AV and associated structures arenas. The Gearhouse and Prosound teams have a long history of working successfully together to service local and international events, each fulfilling different requirements for the same clients.

This strategic acquisition sees Gearhouse Group taking over Prosound's entire rental operation and establishe

USA - On Thursday, 20 February, 2014, Focusrite will showcase its acclaimed RedNet range of products at the Vintage King Audio Nashville MixRoom (which employs the Carl Tatz Design MixRoom concept), a recent recipient of a TEC Award for outstanding creative achievement in the Studio Design Project category.

Demonstrating RedNet's exceptional sounding audiophile design, and taking advantage of Vintage King Nashville's extensive installation network, attendees will be able to experience firsthand how RedNet can enhance their production workflow at this special event. Highly regarded by the Vintage King staff, the RedNet units are now a permanent component of Vintage King Nashville's audio setup and will be the subject of ongoing demonstrations in the future.

Demos will take place from 1:00 - 4:00 p.m., followed by a 6:00 p.m. evening mixer. RedNet product specialist Ted White, F

USA - Pin Point Lighting of Aston, Pennsylvania, has taken delivery of the first High End System's HedgeHog 4 lighting console distributed by Elation Lighting. Pin Point Lighting's owner, John Duncan Jr., said that the HedgeHog 4 was a logical purchase for his company and that the console fills the need to take care of small to medium size events his company sometimes handles.

Pin Point Lighting currently owns several larger format lighting consoles, which are used on large scale productions. John liked the fact that he wouldn't have to send out the larger format consoles for productions that could get away with 4 DMX universes. John also liked the fact that anyone familiar with Hog consoles could easily sit down and work on the HedgeHog 4 because it retains the same programming layout as its larger brother, the Road Hog 4. Another benefit was the ability to load showfiles from

UK - Organisers of the Event Production Show, Mash Media has hailed the 2014 Show a resounding success as exhibitor re-bookings stood at more than 40% whilst attendee footfall surpassed the record levels of last year.

Queues began forming early ahead of the show's opening on 11 February, as event organisers, promoters, brand managers and marketing agencies sought to discover the latest trends and innovations for live events as well as attend seminars, workshops and the renowned Access Sessions to hear from leading industry experts.

Figures released at the end of day one confirmed a 25% increase in visitor footfall, with the final numbers standing at almost 4000 unique attendees, surpassing the high number achieved in 2013.

Donna Bushell, event director, said: "Feedback on the show has been overwhelmingly positive. From exhibitor and visitor comments during the two days

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd has been appointed the exclusive UK distributor for the Luminex range of high-performance networking solutions designed for the entertainment industry. With immediate effect, Luminex will be available from AC-ET, who will provide support to their large customer base of entertainment technology dealers and end users.

With all sectors of both the entertainment and AV industries increasingly reliant on networking solutions, the Luminex GigaCore range is designed to offer the security of backup cabling for critical connections in a simple, robust, "plug and play" manner.

Offering both fibre and copper cable options, whilst providing support for industry standard sound, lighting or video protocols, the range offers a user-friendly platform for transporting large amounts of data with the speed and reliability that today's to

South Africa - For two weeks in January/February 2014 Simon Harris, user experience manager for media server manufacturer Green Hippo, travelled to South Africa to run seven days' worth of Hippo School training sessions in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town in association with South African distributor, Electrosonic.

The Hippo School course is designed to teach everything required to programme Hippotizer media servers for a show. Covering topics such as MediaManager, DMX control, PixelMapping, VideoMapping and Timeline Programming amongst many others, the attendees were given the chance to get 'hands on' with the majority of servers manufactured by Green Hippo. The Hippo School programme was highly successful in meeting everyone's needs.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Eric Prydz is taking the US by storm with his brand new EPIC 2.0 tour featuring 'freeform' lighting design, 3D holograms and giant, brighter LED-mapping surfaces powered by a mix of Avolites Sapphire consoles and Avolites Media Ai servers.

Lighting designer Jaz Bhullar used two Avolites Sapphire Touch consoles to create striking and original lighting for the shows - one live and one for backup.

"It was such a massive video show that we wanted to keep the lighting quite moody and subdued, only using it when necessary," says Bhullar. "The main reason we wanted to use the Sapphires is because rather than being a time coded show where everything snaps completely to the music, we wanted it to be freeform with an organic feel. Avolites desks are perfect for this, and the latest Titan v7 software allowed us to use all the new functions to do some really cool thin

UAE - RedFest, Dubai's biggest music festival of 2014, which drew to a close on the 14th of February 2014, proved to be a great success, both for the thousands of fans and for the Sennheiser Group, whose wireless systems, microphones and in-ear monitors were used by the festival's star-studded line up which included Jessie J, Rita Ora, Tinie Tempah, Connor Maynard, the Lumineers and other internationally renowned acts.

Mig Cardamone, director of sales and marketing at Sennheiser Middle East said: "The fact that our equipment was the first choice of the top performers in each of the many music genres featured at RedFest speaks volumes of its versatility and capabilities. Sennheiser systems regularly feature on the technical riders for many of the most famous artists in the world. With so many international acts now regularly performing in the Middle East, we are now seeing r

The Netherlands - Rotterdam-based Codarts is a university providing professional arts education in music, dance and circus performance. Their courses have an excellent reputation: with a staff-to-student ratio of around 1 to 3, the university attracts students from around 50 different countries.

With very high standards to maintain, when the establishment's composition department needed to invest in new loudspeakers for its classrooms and studios, they opted for Yamaha's CIS Series.

The music study programmes offer a broad range of study areas, attuned to the demands of the international professional field. Central to the composition department is the ethos of encouraging creative ability and a personal composing style.

To continue to allow students to study the details of their own and others' compositions in the greatest detail, up-to-date loudspeakers were needed in the d

USA - Luke Bryan has rolled out his That's My Kind of Night Tour, and Elite Multimedia Productions in Nashville is providing Clay Paky A.LEDA, Sharpy and Sharpy Wash lighting fixtures as Bryan once again takes to the road. The popular country artist's new tour is named after his latest single, which has catapulted to #1 in the country charts.

"We just concluded the Dirt Road Diaries Tour with Luke; his new tour is running from January 2014 to the end of October," says Tom Wilson, vice-president of event productions at Elite Multimedia Productions. "For this tour they've doubled the number of Sharpys and added Sharpy Washes. They've been really thrilled with the Clay Paky fixtures, which have been very durable with a really low failure rate. In 10 months on the road, there have been almost no failures. The only light we lost was due to a guitar player

Italy - XL Video provided a range of video solutions including 60m widescreen projection and control, cameras/PPU and crew, together with LED screens and general AV support for Cisco Live 2014 in Milan Italy, working for event producers George P. Johnson.

The four day event was staged in the MiCo Milano Congressi conference centre in downtown Milan, currently the largest purpose built congress centre in Europe. Cisco Live is the industry's premier education and training event for IT, networking and communications professionals.

XL's team was project managed by Nick Askew and Steve Greetham, who collaborated closely with Ben Hawkins, Dave Johnstone and John Carss from George P. Johnson. The team worked together to design the projection system for the 3,100 capacity plenary sessions and co-ordinate the logistics needed to make it happen. XL also supplied AV to 37 breakout areas.

UK - Robe once again sponsored the annual TPi Awards with the supply of over 300 moving lights for the 2014 event. Produced by TPi Magazine and Mondiale Publishing and staged at the Novotel West London in Hammersmith, the event honours the technical and creative achievements of the live production / event industry over the preceding twelve months.

The lighting equipment included 32 x Pointes, 82 x CycFX 8s, 28 x MiniMes, 90 x LEDBeam 100s, 44 x LEDWash 600s, 20 x DLF Washes, eight DLS Spots and 28 x MMX Spots - all from Robe's Robin range.

The stylish and appropriate lighting for the gala dinner, attended by over 1000 industry professionals and presented by Fun Lovin' Criminal's front man Huey Morgan, was designed primarily by Nick Valdez from rental company Siyan. Working alongside Nick, LD James Scott, of Times Design, programmed and operated on the night.

The 300 plus mov

UK - Brilliant Stages has won accolades at two of the industry's recent annual awards ceremonies. On Monday 10 February, they picked up the award for Favourite Set Construction Company (sponsored by J&C Joel) at the TPi Awards, held at Novotel London West. This year hosted by Huey Morgan, the TPi Awards recognised contributions across 27 categories. Over 1000 people attended from all corners of the live music business.

The evening incorporated a special tribute to Mark Fisher - a name synonymous with the evolution of live scenic event design over the past three decades. Tony Bowern, Brilliant Stages director, said: "Brilliant Stages and I have had the privilege of working with Mark and Stufish for more than 20 years, and we were pleased to host Cristina Garcia, Ray Winkler and a number of the Stufish team on one of our tables at the awards."

The following night at th

Indonesia - An Allen & Heath GS-R24 firewire recording mixer and Pro Tools 10 have been installed in SSR's teaching studio in Jakarta, Indonesia. SSR was originally founded in 1984 in Manchester, England, and was one of the first audio engineering schoosl in the UK. SSR Jakarta launched in 2011 and has built a reputation as one of Indonesia's best audio training facilities, running courses including the flagship Audio Engineering Techniques & Technology course.

"Our GS-R24 Studio provides a good and comfortable environment with a great acoustic design. Students have an ideal environment to learn the fundamentals of analogue signal flow, patching and digital recording," Jason O Bryan, head of the Audio Engineering Technic and Technology (AETT) programme. "GS-R24 integrates with Pro Tools and it's like having a dedicated HUI controller embedded in the analogue heart

UK - Since 1988, The Australian Pink Floyd Show has been taking the 'tribute act' concept to extremes by bringing the aural and visual spectacle of Pink Floyd's live shows to enthusiastic audiences around the world. The band's current European tour includes a month of UK dates, which start in mid February, for which Capital Sound Hire is providing the audio system.

The tour's venues are a mixture of theatre and arenas, so Capital is supplying a flexible Martin Audio MLA system, comprising MLA, MLAc and WS218x subs with LM front-fills. FOH sound mixed by Jonathan Brooks on a DiGiCo SD8, whilst monitors comprise a comprehensive package of Sennheiser G3 IEMs and Martin LE1500 floor monitors, mixed by Matt Coton on a DiGiCo SD10.

The Capital Sound crew includes MLA technician Marty Beath and monitor techs Robin Conway and Bheki Phakathi sharing duties over the tour's four legs.

Indonesia - Built in the disco era, Stadium Club is one of the largest and oldest dance clubs in Indonesia. For decades, the venue, located in Jakarta, has entertained hundreds of music and dance fans a night with the newest tracks and brightest lights for the ultimate night out. Stadium Club recently underwent a renovation to improve its facilities, which included the installation of numerous Martin Professional lighting fixtures by Monalisa Tunggal Jaya (MTJ).

"The newly installed fixtures significantly improve the environment and ambiance in Stadium Club," stated Zandy Jong, MTJ. "The lighting performance of Martin in the venue is highly trusted by the club's staff and continues to engage revelers every night." Twenty-two units of Martin MAC 350 Entour Profiles and eight units of RUSH MH3 Beam effects have been installed in Stadium Club.

MTJ also deliver

USA - California's East Bay Economic Development Alliance (EDA) has honoured Meyer Sound with the 2014 Award for Engineering and Design, recognising the company's continuing contribution to the area's culture of innovation. The awards ceremony was held at Oakland's Fox Theatre on 13 February, 2014, coinciding with the 35th anniversary of Meyer Sound's founding by John and Helen Meyer.

"Finalists in the Engineering and Design category apply local knowledge and skill to reach around the world with their work," explains Darien Louie, executive director of the East Bay EDA. "Meyer Sound is well-known as a global pioneer in advanced sound technologies. The independent industry judges were particularly impressed that Meyer Sound maintains all production at its Berkeley facility, creating nearly 300 local manufacturing and engineering jobs."

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