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UK - Star Events supplied the infrastructure for creative communications agency krow's spectacular Fiat 500x illusion at the Copper Box Arena in East London, which saw superstar magician Dynamo turn a 3D blueprint of the new car into the physical vehicle with the "Power of X".

The Star Events team worked to a brief from production company Lodestar. It required a complex rigging element throughout the venue and over 1,100sq.m of multi-level terracing, ramps and stairways to form the stage, an auditorium for 1,000 people, VIP and technical areas.

The whole set up was constructed on a sub-floor, laid not only to protect the Olympic standard sports surface, but to spread the significant loads generated by the event production, which included a small crane, squeezed into the venue to assist with the build.

Gavin Scott, Star Events' project manager, said, "Establish

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Croatia - The Arcus Cafè and Night Bar have a long and enviable reputation as one of Čakovec's premier hot spots for entertainment. Situated in northern Croatia, the town and its surrounding area serve a population of nearly 45,000. The club itself has been open since 1998 and has recently undergone a thorough refit. The owner, Mr Ivan Steficar, knew he wanted a top quality sound system to maintain and grow the level of customer satisfaction; so he turned to Davor Files from ELTEL, the sales partner for d&b audiotechnik's Croatian distributor, Sunflower.

Files explains the rationale behind the choice of loudspeaker, "The Arcus Cafè is quite an intimate space; in total no more than 90sq.m. The performance space for the DJ is in the centre of the room so we opted to incorporate the subs into the plinth itself. The choice there was for 18S-SUBs from the d&b xS-Series. T

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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France - Founded in 1368, the Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France, or BnF) is one of the country's highest profile institutions, holding copies of virtually everything published in France. Nowadays one of largest and most modern libraries in the world, a Yamaha QL5 digital mixing console has been entrusted with supporting the BnF's programme of cultural events.

The library currently holds around 14m books and printed documents, manuscripts, prints, photographs, maps, plans, scores and many other artefacts. As well as acting as a hub for researchers, it also hosts exhibitions and cultural events in various spaces. A compact, easy to move mixing console was needed for these events, but the Yamaha QL5 also delivered much more.

Installed by Coulommiers-based MDS Audio, besides its size and portability, another key factor in choosing the QL5 was its combin

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USA - American rock favourite Phish recently played a string of dates at Miami's American Airlines Arena to ring in the New Year. The prolific band wanted to make a statement for the shows that tied in with their iconic imagery.

Enter DMDS7UDIOS, brought in to projection map the building's huge curved exterior with custom content using Ai and its new headline feature, Autoblend. The feature has been lauded by DMD principal Scott Chmielewski as "unbelievable" for its speed and accuracy in making a perfect blend on a difficult surface that looked to threaten the success of the project.

DMD are the first company to have been allowed to projection map on the AA Arena, and as Scott Chmielewski explains, "The arena is a complex building with very unusual throw distances and angles."

In order to accomplish the task, DMD used eight 40k Barco projectors to create

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South Africa - Lighting designer Francois van der Merwe will present Vectorworks Training during March at DWR Distribution, Johannesburg. There are four different courses to choose from, all of which will include training notes and lunch.

A Basic One Day Training course takes place on 9 March. Subjects include Basic Fundamentals, Layouts, Pallets, Basic Tools, Classts & Layers.

The Intermediate Two Day Training will be hosted on 10-11 March. Topics include Preferences, Workspace, Basic Spotlight, Basic Renderworks and Intermediate Tools. The cost is R1 500.00 incl. VAT.

The Advanced Two Day Training will be held on 12-13 March. Subjects include Working Planes, Advanced Modelling and Advanced Renderworks.

Alternatively, delegates may prefer attending all of the above-mentioned dates for Full Vectorworks Training Week held from 9-13 March.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - GLP could hardly have picked a more auspicious event than the Halftime Show at Super Bowl XLIX in Glendale, Arizona for its new X4 Bar 20 LED batten to make a spectacular North American debut.

For the duration of the 12-minute segment, at which Katy Perry headlined, experienced LD Bob Barnhart (of Full Flood) used 12 of the new X4 Bar 20, as well as 16 of another recently introduced fixture, GLP's large format impression X4 XL.

For Barnhart, who has used various generations of the impression at other high profile events over the years, this was his 17th outing at the Super Bowl Halftime Show.

GLP US's president Mark Ravenhill recalls his early conversations with the LD when he introduced the new X4 Bar 20, GLP's new zooming and tilting batten unit. "Bob was looking for something new for the upstage portion of one of the stages - a low profile fixture that would ad

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South Africa - Avolites Titan One Training will be hosted at DWR Distribution, Johannesburg, on 24 February 2015. Gareth Chambers will present the course.

The Titan One has proved to be a cost effective solution for lighting applications. It offers fast and intuitive control of intelligent lighting, dimmers and LED effects from one on screen console.

"The Titan One is a small but powerful lighting solution," commented Nick Britz from DWR. "Gareth Chambers hosts regular training sessions which are well received by the industry. He has a great knowledge on lighting and control, having formally worked in the rental market. He is also very passionate about sharing this knowledge."

"Once delegates have a better understaind of how the software works, it helps build confidence when running shows," added Britz.

Delegates are requested to provide lapto

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World - Engineering and automation specialists Wicreations is supplying flying and rigging solutions to the Ice Age Live - A Mammoth Adventuretour produced by Stage Entertainment Touring Productions, which continues to enthral audiences worldwide now on its latest third leg of an extensive touring schedule that started in 2012 and is currently scheduled until 2017.

The show, directed by Guy Caron and Michael Curry, combines ice skating, aerial arts, puppetry and film, offering a new story based on the first Ice Age film.

WIcreations has a long standing working relationship with Amsterdam based Stage Entertainment, and has been involved with various specialist rigging aspects of the Ice Age Live project from the start.

For this phase of the tour, the WIcreations team - project managed by Hans Willems - redesigned a ground support and 42m tracking system for the large upstage

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UK - Philips Entertainment has been announced as the main sponsor of The Fresnel Lecture - a special free event organised by the Society of Light and Lighting (SLL) that will take place on Tuesday 10 March at the Royal Institution of Great Britain.

The talk is to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Augustine Fresnel's Wave Theory of Light, which also coincides with UNESCO's International Year of Light 2015. Fresnel's findings are the basis for the lecture, which will discuss: '200 years of Fresnel: Why everything we light and look at today depends on what he said' and will be presented by Peter Phillipson.

"I am delighted that the Society of Light and Lighting Fresnel Lecture is being sponsored by Philips, alongside the International Association of Lighting Designers," says Phillipson. "Thanks to their support it means that 200 years of Fresnel's wave theory wi

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The Netherlands - The Royal Concertgebouw is expanding its Meyer Sound inventory by adding two Meyer Sound CAL 96 column array loudspeakers in the Main Hall (Grote Zaal). Amsterdam's architecturally resplendent and acoustically magnificent concert venue, The Concertgebouw now joins two other world-renowned orchestral venues, Vienna's Musikverein and Konzerthaus Berlin, both of which have installed Meyer Sound CAL systems within the last year.

"Here at The Concertgebouw we have been planning for some time to install a state-of-the-art permanent system for speech reinforcement," states Wouter van Poppel, head of technical services at the venue. "After listening to CAL demonstrations here on site and at the Musikverein in Vienna, we were extremely impressed with the system's clarity, speech intelligibility, and configuration flexibility."

The new Meyer Sound s

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UK - Collecting together his experiences working with technology as a programmer, writing about old technology in his Classic Gear column for LSi, and trying to save some of that technology with the Backstage Heritage Collection, Rob Halliday will be talking about the history of computers in entertainment lighting at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley, near Milton Keynes on Thursday 12 March. Bletchley Park is perhaps most famous for hosting the World War 2 code-breakers. The National Museum of Computing houses a collection of historic computing equipment; perhaps in time it might provide a home to some of the Backstage Heritage Collection's historic memory lighting controls! Rob's talk is one of the museum's regular series that covers everything from the history of visual effects at the BBC to ultra-high resolution digital photography. He'll be focussing mainly on the

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USA - Following its successful run on Broadway, Rodgers+Hammerstein's Cinderella has also taken to the road, launching a new production that is now touring the USA.

To refine the lighting rig to the practicalities of touring, budgets and equipment availability, lighting designer Kenneth Posner and associate lighting designer John Viesta made some changes to the New York design for the road, switching the side ladder moving lights from Martin MAC 2000s to Vari-Lite VL3500s and replacing the overhead VL2500 Wash lights with LED par cans.

As ever with changes like this, the lighting data in the console show file no longer produced the correct lighting on stage, since each fixture type responds differently to the same DMX data. In this situation what is needed is clear, precise, accurate information about what the lights did in each preset focus and in each cue in the origi

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Saudi Arabia - An array of Showline's LED luminaires have lit the launch of a national Saudi employment initiative following Riyadh-based event producer Maestro's investment in Showline stock.

The award winning company purchased Showline SL BAND 300 RGBW, SL STRIP 400 (both RGBW and Tunable White) SL BAR 520 and SL BAR 620 luminaires. The units were employed to deliver stunning lighting for the function, which was attended by members of the ministry, members of the Shoura Council and top executives from the companies involved in the scheme.

"We came across the Showline products at Prolight and Sound last year, and were extremely impressed," says project manager Nawal El Masri. "We decided to purchase them as the quality was so high - the standard we offer our clients."

Maestro has an impressive portfolio, with experience managing a broad range of events f

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Australia - Video services and expertise from TDC (Technical Direction Company) wowed audiences across the world in Visions of Vienna - a multi-media artistic collaboration between the Vienna Tourist Board and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra live in concert was combined with visuals celebrating the artistic and musical heritage of Vienna from Ample Projects and projected onto the roof or "sails" of the Sydney Opera House and broadcast to music lovers across the world in a live web-stream. The event took place on Wednesday, 4 February 2015.

"Having worked with Michael Hassett and his expert projection design team already back in the 90's we knew we could turn to TDC again for another unforgettable visual spectacular. TDC are a dream-team to work with," enthused Astrid Mulholland-Licht, director of the Austrian National Tou

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USA - Furniture building isn't the only demanding aspect of Ellen's Design Challenge, a four-week-long HGTV reality show produced by Ellen DeGeneres, which began airing in the USA in January. In addition to the six competitors who are trying to make it to the end - using saws, drills and welders, among other noisy tools, to complete the weekly tasks - the audio team faced the daunting task of providing clear, crisp audio that is not interrupted by the hum of the machines. The solution was found with DPA d:screet 4061 Omnidirectional Miniature Microphones.

Selected by the show's sound supervisor, Daniel McCoy, CAS, a long-time DPA supporter, the d:screet 4061s are used by the entire 16-member cast, which includes a host and three judges as well as six designers and the carpenters with whom they are partnered. "I've had a lot of experience doing build shows," he e

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World - Kylie Minogue recently completed the first leg of her Kiss Me Once tour, which included stops throughout Europe. The second leg of the tour begins in March 2015 with five shows in Kylie's native Australia. Following the successful tour of Europe, lighting designer Rob Sinclair and lighting director Louisa Smurthwaite provided insight into the creative processes behind the tour's extensive lighting design, which prominently featured fixtures from Martin Professional

Very early in the process, even before the new music was available, Sinclair had a meeting with Creative Director William Baker and Set Designer Alan Macdonald, during which it was decided that 'precise geometry' and 'Bauhaus aesthetics' were to be the key themes for the set design, inspired by the lines of the set and the early costume ideas. Baker then created a very detailed and instructive style gui

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Venezuela - Operating in the Latin American market, Venezuela-based PROmontaje, a leading provider of technical resources for events in Venezuela, needed a solution to host large outdoor events and concerts. The company owns a large event site, just outside Caracas, which they plan to use for a range of outdoor concerts and sports events.

Jean Paul Gaspard of Audio Concept, Prolyte distributor in Latin America, put PROmontaje in contact with Prolyte. "I knew Prolyte was the only truss manufacturer I could trust to deliver a structure of the size and capacity my customer was looking for," comments Jean Paul Gaspard, "PROmontaje already owns an ARC roof and barriers from Prolyte, and they are very happy with the quality of those products and the ease of use".

The structure PROmontaje was looking for needed to have enough loading capacity, paired with a large

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UK - Continuing their long-term working relationship, XL Video supplied video solutions including LED screens and camera system for the final show of Basement Jaxx's recent UK tour supporting their latest album, Junto.

Working with tour and production manager, Tommy Winstone, XL Video project manager, Connie Glover specified the package for the massive show at London's O2 Arena.

The unusual LED screen set up used XL Video's Pixled F-12 LED housed in XL's custom touring frames, and featured a combination of 2 square on-stage LED screens displaying playback content, and two tall portrait IMAG side screens - a change from the more commonly seen landscape IMAG screens. This set-up allowed the portrait IMAG to display full-length images of the band as well as split screen set-ups of multiple band members. LED for the tour was managed by Gareth Manicom and Joe Makein.

Glove

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USA - Artcoustic Loudspeakers have been chosen by Roc Nation, the American entertainment company founded and owned by Jay-Z, for their New York offices. Spitfire 24-12 are installed in the vice president's office and the main boardroom.

"Everyone wants to book the main boardroom as they're all so impressed with the system installed in there," says the office receptionist.

Founded by Jay-Z in 2008, Roc Nation is a full-service entertainment company, inclusive of artist management, music publishing, touring, merchandising, film, television and an independent record label. It has an impressive roster of musicians and sports stars signed to either the record label or management services, including Rhianna, Kanye West, Kylie Minogue, Rita Ora, Matthew Dear, HAIM, Santigold, Shakira, Timbaland, Calvin Harris, Deadmau5 and Frank Ocean, as well as Jay-Z himself.

(Jim Evans

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Europe - Californian band, Of Mice & Men, recently supported Linkin Park on the European leg of the Hunting Party arena tour, with Allen & Heath GLD-80 mixers performing both FOH and Monitor duties.

This was the first experience of using GLD for both FOH engineer, Dave Nutbrown, and monitor engineer Ian 'Squid' Walsh, who needed a system that could handle large arena shows whilst keeping to a compact footprint.

A GLD-80 connected over Cat 5 to AR2412 and AR84 AudioRacks provided 32 XLR inputs for stage sources and delivered five in-ear mixes, side-fills and a pair of centre wedges. Both GLD-80s were fitted with Dante cards and mic preamp signals were split digitally via Dante over Cat 5 to FOH. The analogue gain was set at the start of the tour, with the engineers using the consoles' digital trim (+/- 24dB) to independently make adjustments during the shows.

Ian 'Squid' Wals

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Germany - For decades, the name Sennheiser has been synonymous with high-quality products, "true" sound and numerous innovations that have set new standards in audio technology. This year, the audio specialist is celebrating its 70th anniversary. It remains a family-owned and -operated enterprise, now headed by a third generation of the Sennheiser family: Today's CEOs, Daniel Sennheiser and Dr. Andreas Sennheiser, are the grandchildren of the company's founder, Prof. Dr. Fritz Sennheiser.

The list of product innovations from Sennheiser is as extensive as it is impressive. Sennheiser has made a significant impact on the evolution of audio technology over the past seven decades, from the world's very first open earphone, the HD 414, and the wireless stage technology pioneered by the Digital 9000 system to present-day innovations such as MobileConnect, an inclusive audio-

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UK - Theatre consultancy, Theatreplan has been appointed as the theatre consultant on the major redevelopment project at Glasgow's historic Citizens Theatre. Built in 1878, the Grade II listed theatre has seen a number of small-scale refurbishments and extensions, but the current scheme is the most comprehensive in its history.

The project has been earmarked for funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, Glasgow City Council, Creative Scotland and Historic Scotland that go a long way towards financing the transformations, which are far-reaching.

Mathew Smethurst-Evans, who is leading the Theatreplan team, explained, "This is a major project that incorporates significant improvements to the environment for both visitors and staff. Visitors will benefit from much improved public spaces to create a venue where they can experience much more than a theatre show. There will be pur

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USA - CREC Public Safety Academy opened their modern new facility in Enfield, CT, in September 2014 with audio systems that support the school's career-oriented education for grades 6 through 12 in law enforcement, fire sciences, emergency medicine and other safety and security fields.

The school's large and attractive new facility serves 700 students and includes classrooms equipped with the latest technology, a gymnasium and fitness centre, a cafeteria and multipurpose room along with a theatrical auditorium.

Jorge Guillén of Guillén Technology Consultants provided building technology, AV, audio systems and safety and security consulting services for the new school. The building's many different spaces presented Guillén with numerous challenges in his audio system designs. The school's goals included intelligible voice paging and high-quality sound reinf

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The Netherlands - Dutch rockers BLØF have an enthusiastic and eclectic fanbase as well as earning serious respect for the musical integration of sounds, styles and genres from a diversity of cultures into their work, so the ability to 'paint' with light when constructing their live shows is key to evolving the look and feel of the visual environment.

For BL°F's recent show at Amsterdam's 17,000 capacity Ziggo Dome lighting designer Patrick Kramer did exactly this ... with a little help from over 200 Robe moving lights including 26 of the new BMFL Spots.

Patrick cut his professional lighting career teeth in the theatre and has always liked to work as part of a creative team. On this one, he collaborated with set and video designer Bart van Rooy and between them, the concept of building geometric shapes, squares and rectangles evolved. These were based on a Layher sca

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