USA - Fulcrum Acoustic, creators of high-performance professional loudspeaker technologies, has greatly enhanced manufacturing capacity and flexibility to meet a growing demand for their products. Fulcrum recently completed work on a new 35,000sq.ft facility in Whitinsville, Massachusetts to house their loudspeaker cabinet manufacturing, final assembly, shipping and warehousing operations.

"This expansion has been a massive undertaking but it's very gratifying to see it all come together," says Fulcrum Acoustic co-founder and vice president of R&D David Gunness. "The new space includes a precision woodshop featuring a state-of-the-art computer numerical control (CNC) router, as well as dedicated areas for secondary operations, cabinet assembly, finishing and painting. By closely aligning Fulcrum's engineering and manufacturing functions, the new workspace further enhances our

UK - Following a year which featured a number one single and winning the Brits Critics' Choice Award, Rag'n'Bone Man has now established himself as one of the most exciting artists in the UK. As his popularity continues to soar, the soul singer has just finished a nationwide tour in which he visited venues across the country. With a strong reputation in concert touring, White Light provided the lighting equipment.

The lighting designer for the tour was Louisa Smurthwaite. She comments, "My role is to look after the visual aesthetics of the show. I have worked with Rag'n'Bone Man from his initial festival and one off performances. This tour has developed from these and it's been great to finally create a full-length touring show that as many fans as possible can see".

Louisa worked closely with Rag 'n' Bone Man, real name Rory Graham, to create a set-up that was suited for

UK - Meyer Sound Leo Family reinforcement systems lay down a rock-solid sonic foundation for two of the hottest musicals playing on London's West End, Andrew Lloyd Webber's brash and energetic School of Rock and the soulfully scintillating Motown: The Musical. Both systems were provided by London-based Autograph Sound with logistical coordination by Scott Arnold.

The sound design for School Of Rock was by Mick Potter, whose credits include Les Miserables, The Phantom Of The Opera, Evita, Cats, Miss Saigon and Sunset Boulevard among many other notable productions. For the London design, Potter tweaked the system template he created in 2015 for the still-running Broadway production, with both systems anchored by main left and right hangs each comprising 10 Lyon-W wide coverage line array loudspeakers.

"The linear

South Africa - CODA Audio's South African distributors Tadco have sold the first AiRAY system on the African continent to leading rental company Virtual Productions. Virtual were already enthusiastic users of a CODA ViRAY system, which they have owned since 2013 and felt that the purchase of an AiRAY system was a natural progression. The South African market differs in many respects from that found in the UK, Europe and the US, in that there is no real established scheduled touring circuit. As a consequence, the challenges presented to Virtual Productions are highly diverse and demand a high degree of flexibility and adaptability.

Victor Van Graan, Production Manager Virtual Productions comments: "We provide every technical service to a very wide range of events and in terms of staging and lighting provision we felt able to cover every base. In terms of audio, we felt a little

UK - Hull UK City of Culture 2017 kicked off on 1 January with Made in Hull - a seven-day event that told the story of the city and its people over almost a century, brought to life with projection mapping across buildings and other sites around the city centre. Bluman Associates provided the technical production and projection mapping expertise to tell the story of Hull and its important contribution to UK culture.

Made in Hull took place over seven evenings and attracted over 340,000 people. The large-scale project included five sites throughout the city, including Queen Victoria Square and the Aquarium, The Deep. Bluman Associates collaborated with Ground Control and Hull 2017 throughout the feasibility and tender process. Working closely with the production and creative teams, an international team of 20 projectionists provided the technical expertise to project the conten

Europe - British metalcore outfit Architects have stormed through Europe in support of their critically acclaimed new album All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us, with Claypaky fixtures providing blast-beat perfect strobing and high-impact gobo projection to complement the band's exhilaratingly relentless sound.

The Brighton-based juggernauts, who were this year described by Rocksound magazine as 'one of the world's most exciting, vital bands', rounded off the tour by playing a sold-out show at Brixton's O2 academy for the first time.

Tour lighting designer Paul McAdams selected Claypaky Stormy CC strobes and an Alpha Spot HPE 1500, supplied by Colour Sound Experiment, to execute his high-impact concept, which is based around the band's stark album artwork depicting a lunar eclipse.

"The music itself is quite aggressive and the stage show reflects that," explains McAda

USA - In support of fostering the creative processes of young entertainment designers, global design software developer Vectorworks, Inc. is sponsoring awards at the Kennedy Centre American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF). Started in 1969, KCACTF is a national programme designed to celebrate college theatre in the United States, and help students develop their creative and technical skills.

Each year, KCACTF hosts eight regional festivals for college theatre students across the United States. Festival activities include workshops, discussions, regional-level scholarships and award programs, giving students the opportunity to showcase their best productions and receive feedback from professionals.

"The Kennedy Centre American College Theatre Festival provides a fantastic opportunity to showcase the diverse, emerging talent from around the country," said Frank Brault, prod

The Netherlands - Ampco Flashlight Rental, has employed the Allen & Heath dLive S Class digital mixing system from its hire stock for two major TV production series, Holland's Got Talent and Idols Holland.

For both programmes, the dLive system, comprising the flagship S7000 Surface and DM64 MixRack, was running the complete FOH setup. This included all of the contestant live acts and vocalists, as well as the shows' bands, which involved up to 40 channels. Commentary from the presenters and celebrity jury is also mixed through dLive.

Both programmes were produced by Blue Circle at the Mediarena TV studio in Amsterdam.

"The Ampco team involved in the shows are very happy with dLive's transparent preamps and sonic quality," comments Rogier van Ganzewinkel, project manager at Ampco Flashlight Rental. "The engineers particularly like the interface and flexibl

USA - The Entertainment Technician Certification Programme (ETCP) has announced the programme has now certified 1000 arena riggers throughout North America.

Since 2006, ETCP has issued a total of 2,350 certifications held by 1,978 individuals in the areas of Rigger - Arena, Rigger - Theatre, Entertainment Electrician and the newly developed Portable Power Distribution Technician. ETCP has provided an easy to use search function to find one of our Certified Technicians within your area. You can search by Name, Certification, City, State, or Union Affiliation: http://etcp.esta.org/cert_technicians/search.php

Bill Sapsis, ETCP Arena - Rigging SME chair says, "Congratulations to ETCP on certifying its 1000th arena rigger. Not only does this mean that all of our hard work writing the exam is being put to good use, but also having that many qualified riggers in the work force me

The Netherlands - Audinate is running its popular Certification Programme as part of this year's Dante AV Networking World for ISE 2017. Now in its seventh year, AV Networking World is the one of the most popular education events at ISE, showcasing the benefits of audio networking for commercial installation.

The programme includes training for new and advanced Dante users, a general session covering emerging trends pertinent to the future of Audio over IP networking for professional audio systems, and Level 1 and Level 2 Dante Certification.

The all-day event, which takes place on 6 February in Rooms G104 and G105 at the Amsterdam RAI, will adopt the two-track format successfully introduced this past year at InfoComm, ensuring valuable training and education benefits for both novices and experienced Dante customers.

Upon conclusion, all attendees are invited to reconv

USA - Jonathan Huff is accustomed to dealing with harsh winter weather. As CEO of Alaska Universal Productions in Fairbanks, which was ranked by USA Today as "the coldest city in America", he has had to contend with more than his share of frigid temperatures and blinding snowstorms. However, even by Fairbanks standards, conditions were extreme when he installed three Ovation E-260WW IP fixtures from Chauvet Professional outdoors for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Centennial Celebration.

Huff and his team had to contend with gusty winds, temperatures that fell to more than 10 degrees below zero, and swirling snow when they positioned the outdoor LED fixtures at sites around campus, including the roof of the gleaming new 6-story engineering school building. Soon after they completed the installation, a second more severe storm hit, dumping 16 inches of snow on Fairbanks.

Ecuador - The statue of Panecillo's Virgin, World Heritage site, is located on the Panecillo hill, just outside the city centre of Quito and represents the city from the 18th century. Last October the municipality, according to the MTE (Empresa Mantenimiento Técnico Especializado) and the electrical enterprise of the city required a dedicated lighting project.

Monica Velasco and Miguel Salom

UK - Award-winning technical event production company Hawthorn has recorded a 25% increase in turnover to £18m in its last financial year (July 2015-June 2016).

Since the acquisition of technical production house Anagram in 2013, the company has embarked upon an ambitious five-year growth plan to increase its turnover from £11.3m to £20m by July 2018. Hawthorn is on track to achieve this in 2017 - its 30th anniversary year - one year ahead of target.

To support this growth, the company has seen a significant investment in its people and training, with a 16% increase in employees, rising from 129 in June 2013 to 162 in June 2016; by 7 December 2016, the employee count had already risen to 187.

Key factors contributing to the company's continued expansion since 2013, says the company, include:

Investment in the in-house sales and marketing team and

USA - The start of the New Year heralded Bandit Lites Annual General Meeting, where Bandits came together to discuss future company goals, honour those who displayed excellence in service and banner anniversaries, in addition to celebrating the previous award-winning year for the company. Bandit won Pollstar Lighting Company of the Year Award for 2016 along with the Parnelli Award for Lighting Company of the Year in November.

During the meeting, Bandits who had landmark years with the company were bestowed with service awards including Jeremy Sinicki, Cody Cheatham, Jonathan Houle and Michael Stanley for five years, Aaron Swetland, Jacob Tickle and Rick Herndon for 10 years, Chris Barbee and Jeff Vogt for 15 years and Cori Link celebrated 20 years with Bandit Lites.

Performance awards were presented and included Bandit's prestigious Rock Award, gifted to those who went abo

Belgium - PRG Belgium has recently received a large batch of ProLyft Pro controllers, which will instantly be deployed on productions. After a thorough selection procedure, Prolyte was selected to supply PRG Belgium with its high-end control systems. Investing in 30 12-way control units is the first step in further professionalizing and renewing their rigging department.

PRG's segment advisor rigging, Stef De Raet and Michiel van der Zijde, product manager ProLyft, met during the STEPP contact days, with the leading leitmotiv of "Lifting above the public". Both entirely dedicated to making rigging as safe as possible, discussing about rigging, regulations, and how the market will develop towards the future, they shared their common vision on how safer products can contribute to improve work floor safety, an obvious concern for all involved in rigging. "Whenever you're ready -

UK - Audio-visual equipment supply company LSH Events (part of the London Speaker Hire family) has been an enthusiastic supplier and promoter of Shure equipment over the last 10 years, and was closely involved with testing the mic manufacturer's technically ground-breaking dual-diaphragm KSM8 even prior to its official launch in January 2016. Throughout the microphone's launch year, LSH supplied KSM8s to many high-profile artists and engineers, and even helped it to play an important part in the setting of a new world record, as LSH managing director Grant Turner relates.

"Since we opened our event and band rehearsal facilities in East London, LSH Spaces, we've been involved with a lot of current high-profile bands and their technical support staff," explains Turner from LSH's London HQ. "We put some KSM8s in one of the rehearsal rooms there alongside the usual SM58s, and peop

UK - Hull launched its year as the 2017 UK City of Culture with Made in Hull, a week of innovative and engaging mixed media sound, lighting and visual installations telling the story of the city and its people over almost a century. Audio specialist tube uk joined in the excitement, specifying, rigging and fine-tuning audio systems for six separate interactive works around the city centre.

Made in Hull was designed to thrill, excite and intrigue the public and was created by the core creative team of Sean McAllister, Ala, Lloyd, Rupert Creed, Durham Marenghi, Dan Jones and producer Niccy Hallifax, working alongside numerous artists. The installations ran for seven days from 1-7 January.

tube - based in Manchester and London and known for its penchant for invention and thinking 'out-of-the-box' was working closely with BAFTA and Ivor Novello Award winning soun

Mexico - TV Azteca, the second largest mass media company in Mexico, has invested in Robe Pointe moving lights which were specified by head of lighting Miguel Osorno and lighting manager Manolo Toledo.

The fixtures reside at TV Azteca's main broadcast complex in Ajusco in the south of Mexico City which has seven studios and are used there and on another 11 studios at their other main site across the city in Tlalpan. TV Azteca broadcasts two networks - Azteca 7 and Azteca Trece - and 10 cable channels covering a wide mix of programmes, including news, soaps, quiz shows, music, reality, etc.

Lighting for all the programmes utilizing the studios is designed and co-ordinated by Manolo and Miguel - the department is working sevendays a week - and there are outside broadcasts on top of that.

TV Azteca owns a large quantity of lighting equipment. Manolo, who also LDs for outs

Guatamala - Colegio Americano de Guatemala (The American School of Guatemala) is a private K-12 college preparatory school located in Guatemala City, Guatemala, and is one of the biggest schools in the country. Modelled after the educational practices and methodologies of the United States, Professional that has changed the look dramatically.

With a vision to offer students a better environment in which to put on their performances, the school asked audio, video and lighting integration company Aviitec to reviethe school includes a 500-capacity theatre that recently received a lighting upgrade of LED fixtures from Elationw their situation.

The initial focus was to improve the audio quality of the venue and consequently Aviitec presented the school with a proposal for a new microphone, audio and automation system while stressing to them that a lighting upgrade was also need

UK - Truss UK is one of the few remaining British manufacturers of load- bearing aluminium trussing products; they design and manufacture structural aluminium products for the entertainment industry as well as other specialist industry sectors worldwide.

Having recently launched their new aluminium space frame product, Truss UK have announced that they have supplied the National Theatre (NT) with a large OBLIK system.

OBLIK is a modular space frame system consisting of only three main component types, the largest of weighing in at less than 16kg. The system is lightweight, compact for transport and storage and simple to erect using conventional fixings (nuts and bolts) to create complex aluminium structures that are extremely strong.

Truss UK director Paul Jordan says, "The OBLIK space frame system was deployed in the grid of the NT's Lyttelton theatre and is suspended

UK - Forming part of University of Surrey, The Guildford School of Acting aims to teach students the fundamental skills that will enable them to make a career in the performing arts industry. GSA's courses contain a mix of theory and practical work giving students the chance to hone their skills while allowing time to critically reflect on their work in a professional working environment.

GSA prides itself on offering the very best vocational courses, so when Mig Burgess, a technical theatre tutor, attended a free seminar at the 2016 Olympia PLASA show for the new MA dot2 lighting console, she was very impressed. The desk was exactly what Burgess had been looking for, as she explained:

"I've always wanted to let my students practise with the MA platform, but MA2 consoles are a little beyond our budget. The dot2 solves both of these problems, as not only is it a financially

UK - 2016 saw another busy year for Ambersphere Solutions, culminating in a move to a new larger facility in West London. On 25 January, they are hosting an Open Day, inviting everyone to come and take a look at what's new at Ambersphere.

The new building is twice the size and offers better truck access, larger warehousing, showroom & training facilities. In addition to an increased stock of all fast-moving products and spare parts, the larger facility has enabled Ambersphere to build a custom showroom and demonstration area.

The new showroom is already crammed with new products from all of their manufacturing partners. There are the newest Scenius and Unico moving lights from Clay Paky, 7 new visual LED innovations from Ayrton, new LED theatrical products from Robert Juliat and the newest industry leading control software from MA Lighting.

There is also a new and expa

Germany - Following a construction period lasting 10 years, the long-awaited moment came on 11 January 2017, when the Norddeutsche Rundfunk (NDR) Elbphilharmonie Symphony Orchestra under its principal conductor Thomas Hengelbrok opened the spectacular Big Concert Hall in Hamburg's new landmark building with a musical journey from the Renaissance to present times.

The concert was recorded and broadcast by German public broadcaster Norddeutscher Rundfunk (situated in the North of the country) from an audio control room in the same building as the performance - using a Lawo mc

Canada - GLP Inc has increased its North American presence with the appointment of a new Canadian distributor.

GLP Inc president Mark Ravenhill has confirmed that Montreal-based AVL Media Group will take on distribution with immediate effect.

The company was founded by Steve Kosters, and is headed by experienced MD Andrew Hope, who has 30 years' experience in the world of live entertainment.

"Andrew leads a strong and passionate team at AVL, who have been serving the Canadian market for many years," stated Ravenhill. "We look forward to working closely with them and introducing more of the Canadian market to the full GLP range of products and solutions."

"We are delighted to have GLP as part of our distribution portfolio," responded the AVL MD. "Their unique LED solutions have become highly specified items and we look forward to a long and fruitful partnership betw

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