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UK - Penn Elcom has expanded the capacity of its specialist cable and 19 inch rack manufacturing facility in Hastings, east Sussex, UK, with a substantial investment in new cable cutting and stripping machinery from market leaders Schleuniger. This will bring the cable technology and production up to the highest levels.

A bespoke built laser etching machine has also been designed and installed for adding logos, letters, numbers and other customisations to aluminium and steel rack panels, giving Penn the ability to offer further flexibility to its clients.

The move is in response to an increased demand for both standard and bespoke cable and rack manufacturing products and services after the launch of the Penn Elcom Online global web portal in January of this year. A boost in international business is seeing cables, leads and racks being shipped worldwide.

"We want to e

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USA - Country crooner Frankie Ballard is out on tour bringing his classic country sound to fans across the nation. The Sunshine and Whiskey singer is known for his vintage style on tour, something Bandit Lites lighting director Patrick Sieg focused on continuing.

"There was no direction on design or concept from the camp or management when I first came on, so I studied the show, watched previous live concerts and pretty much threw ideas at the wall until something stuck," said Sieg.

Using a Bandit supplied GrandMA 2 Ultra-Lite console, he worked to carefully accentuate Ballard's four-piece band, a component Sieg calls a major part of the performance. "I wanted the audience to visually perceive the band and take notice of their involvement without highlighting a clear focus on the stage," he said. "I use a lot of saturating backlights on the band to achieve this, and

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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Puerto Rico - Salsa, cumbia and contemporary North American pop all swirl together harmoniously in Christian Daniel's lively vocal style. Describing his captivating blend of music as "tropical pop", the Puerto Rican-born artist has attracted a passionate fan base throughout the Americas as evidenced by his string of hits, including the chart topping single Me Vuelvo Un Cobarde.

At a recent sold-out concert at San Juan's Centro de Bellas Artes de Santurce, lighting designer Lara Alsina of Entertainment in Motion captured the uplifting mood of the artist's genre transcending music with a celestial-like lightshow that featured a collection of floating overhead cubes glowing with the warm white light of Nexus Aw 7x7 LED panels from Chauvet Professional.

Alsina flew eight of the large cubes 20'-25' over the stage, suspending them on motorized cables mounted on trussing.

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Turkey - Renowned Turkish PA company, Playback Music, has invested in three dLive digital mixing systems from Allen & Heath. Comprising the flagship dLive S7000 Surfaces with DM64 MixRacks fitted with Dante networking cards, the systems have already been put to work at Ata TV studios for the popular O Ses Turkiye programme, a local version of the reality singing competition, The Voice.

The monitor DM64 MixRack manages 60 channels of analogue inputs from the band, plus the commentator and competitor mics, which are shared via Dante to the FOH and Broadcast dLive consoles. The systems also manage multi-channel recording with a Mac DVS.

"All of the sound engineers and musicians involved in the show are very happy with dLive's transparent preamps and sonic quality. The engineers particularly like the interface and flexible workspace of the dLive Surface, and the

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New Zealand - EM Acoustics' distributor for New Zealand, Showtechnix, has recently made their first HALO-C sales in New Zealand, selling two systems in less than three months; the first to the Forum North cultural and entertainment centre in Whangerei for their Capitaine Bougainville theatre, and the second to sound production and hire specialists, BounceNZ, who were brought in by Showtechnix as advisors to the Forum North project. BounceNZ owner and prominent live sound engineer, Glen Ruske, was so impressed by HALO-C that he decided to buy a full system for his own company.

Forum North needed to replace the old, outdated system in the Capitaine Bougainville theatre and had been on the lookout for a system that would offer the outstanding audio quality they required and see them well into the future as well as meeting their budget requirements. Forum North technical manager,

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Latin America - Avolites, the British manufacturer of intelligent media control solutions for the entertainment industry, is expanding into South and Central America - further to a significant sales and training tour in the region.

Avolites sales engineer Javier Pastor has just returned from a successful, whistle-stop tour of seven countries in just four weeks. Following a rigorous schedule packed full of meetings, TV and radio appearances, presentations and training sessions, Pastor met with Avolites' key audio-visual equipment distributors in each state: Integraled in Mexico, Layset in Peru, Rojo Audio e Iluminaci

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USA - Heavy metal rockers Slipknot have been out on the road again, thrilling audiences using Elation Professional hybrid Platinum SBX moving heads with visuals projected across a large LED wall made up of Elation EPT Series video display panels.

In a sensory-overload show, a massive projection screen made up of EPT6IP LED panels flashes a mix of chilling imagery while Platinum SBX hybrid moving heads keep the mid-air visual look electric.

Production and lighting design is by Trevor Ahlstrand of Ahlstrand Productions with lighting supply by Gemini Light, Sound & Video, both of whom have worked with Slipknot on several tours.

Known for their aggressive style of music and energetic live shows, Ahlstrand was looking for a combination beam and profile fixture that could keep up with the band's hard driving show. "The SBX were chosen for their output to punch through the ba

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Europe - With over 1,000m of Mojo's touring barrier supplied across 201 tour dates, this summer saw Mojo Barriers' European business consolidate its position as a global partner to artists touring UK and Europe.

Stanley Jilesen headed up Mojo's summer tours in Europe, supplying enough specially designed touring barrier to cross from France to England across the English Channel.

Featuring on five of the summer's biggest tours, Mojo supplied all 42 European tour dates of The Red Hot Chilli Peppers' The Getaway World Tour, 28 European dates of Bruce Springsteen's The River Tour 2016, including his open-air concert at the Malieveld in The Hague, 33 AC / DC dates featuring Axle Rose on vocals, 23 European tour dates of Rihanna's The Anti World Tour and 50 European tour dates of Muse's The Drones World Tour.

All the tours benefitted from Mojo Barriers' stage barriers, with s

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Japan - Newly-formed Japanese audio distribution company, Rewire Inc., has added Adamson S-Series loudspeakers to their inventory, bolstering their sound reinforcement support in the region.

The Yokohama-based company, which opened its doors in 2016, is spearheaded by CEO Mack Miyamura, a long-time veteran of the Japanese professional audio market. "There is much potential for E- and S-Series products in our region," explains Miyamura. "Adamson products come highly recommended by western sound rental companies and are very competitive in the Asian market. We are looking forward to expanding their presence in Japan."

Rewire invested in a turnkey S-Series demo system powered by Adamson E-Racks loaded with Lab.gruppen PLM amplifiers. Packaging the S-Series with the E-Rack, guarantees an efficient system with rock-solid performance and reliability. Rewire will also utilize Ada

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Europe - LumenRadio has announced that Martin Professional and ChamSys have chosen to add support in their respective control software for the CRMX Nova USB TX dongle to give their users easy access to reliable wireless DMX control directly from the console.

"We have added support in M-PC for the USB dongle transmitter from LumenRadio. We think it is a great way for our users to get access to reliable wireless technology without the need for using cables to connect a transmitter to the controller. M-PC will offer one full universe of DMX for free using the LumenRadio transmitter." says Matthias Hinrichs, product manager at Martin Professional.

Hinrichs continues, "We are also planning to add support for the Nova USB TX driver to our range of M-Series consoles in the near future."

British console manufacturer ChamSys also decided to add support for the CRMX Nova USB TX

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USA - Robe is ready to rock the LDI 2016 expo at the Las Vegas Convention Center October 21-23 on Booth 1715 where the featured product will be the new Spiider LED wash beam luminaire - the next big thing - from Robe, which has just been launched worldwide.

Much anticipated, the Spiider will be the visual centrepiece of the large booth with a special lightshow running at the top of each hour.

Bob Schacherl, CEO of Robe America comments, "We are extremely pleased with how well the North American market continues to embrace our brand. Lighting designers have been very complementary on the performance of our luminaires and the rental companies are thrilled with their reliability. It doesn't get much better than that! We look forward to introducing our clients to the latest Robe innovations at LDI 2016."

Robe lighting s.r.o CEO Josef Valchar confirms, "Spiider is really so

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UK - Moonlite Productions, based in Aylesbury, has recently taken delivery of the X-Line Advance X2, the latest line array from Electro-Voice.

The system consists of the high-performance X2-212/120, a two-way vertical line-array loudspeaker element providing 120-degree horizontal coverage; and the X-Line Advance X12-128 subwoofer, which, Moonlite says, produces "the greatest low-frequency impact and performance EV has ever developed".

"The state-of-the-art compact cabinet delivers more LF output in a smaller footprint than other subwoofers available today. Naturally, all powered by TG-7 amplifiers and controlled by IRIS -NET," the company says.

Moonlite is amongst the first in the UK to receive one of these highly acclaimed systems. Moonlite's owner James Iyengar, a live sound perfectionist and veteran of many headline tours, was simply blown away by it, when he first

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USA - Thousands gathered at the National Mall to take a breath from divisiveness, hate and despair at Together 2016, an event whose mission was to "come together around Jesus in unified prayer, worship, and a call for catalytic change". Bandit Lites provided the lighting for the 16 July non-denominational event, where Hillsong United, Lecrae, Crowder, Michael W. Smith and Kari Jobe performed.

With the bulk of the performances taking place during the day, lighting designer Mark Carver thoughtfully chose fixtures that would pop in the daylight and shade.

"Logistically, this was a very large space and open to the public," said Carver. "Our goal for the stage was to create an atmosphere that matched the scale and allowed for flexibility for all the various artist participating in the event. We tried to utilize a forced perspective to create depth."

The stage rig consisted

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Germany - Lleyendecker, the event technology service provider, has expanded its inventory by investing in 120 X4 Bars from GLP. These are now available for hire from their 4,000 sq.m warehouse.

Stated Jasper Hülsmann, head of the lighting department at Lleyendecker, "For over 20 years GLP has stood for high-quality lighting technology, and of course we already have many of their LED spotlights in our inventory. Now the X4 Bars are increasingly appearing on tenders, and so this investment became a logical one in order to meet customer demand.

"Because of their versatility, the X4 Bars can be used for many different projects - and we were further convinced by the fixture's colour spectrum and perfect dimming performance. The customers that have already used these fixtures have been thoroughly satisfied with the result. We now look forward to the realization of other project

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Brazil - Airstar, the inventor and manufacturer of balloon lighting solutions, was once again involved in what is arguably the most important sports event of the year, The 2016 Rio Olympics.

For the 2016 milestone sporting event, Airstar do Brasil deployed a total of 34 Flex lighting balloons - 12 Flex 4K and 22 Flex 1K - in the legendary Copacabana area. The lighting solutions were installed around the field of play at the Beach Volley Arena (BVA) and the Triathlon Stadium (FTC).

The installation and lighting of both venues was a joint effort between Brazilian companies Fast and ROHR. It was André Stoll, the engineer in charge of electrical installations for the Fast/ROHR consortium, who selected Airstar. Praising the French manufacturer, he comments, "Airstar really did a great job for both the BVA and the FTC Olympic sites, we are really thankful for their profes

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UK - For the third consecutive year, Matrix provided the full service solution to Clearscape Communications on the Attitude Awards 2016. This included all production management, sound, set, projection and backline equipment.

The annual event was hosted by Alan Cumming and saw many famous faces in attendance including Robbie Williams, Geri Horner, Myleen Klass, David Furnish and Fearne Cotton.

Guests enjoyed a champagne reception and pre-show DJ session by Gok Wan followed by a formal dinner, awards and performances by artists Beverley Knight and MNEK. After the ceremony guests retired to a new room and enjoyed the after party with DJ Marvin Humes on the decks.

Annie Bracken from Clearscape Communications comments, "Attitude Awards has now been running for five years. Every year it gets bigger and better, we thoroughly love this event. Working with Matrix makes it easie

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India - New Delhi-based Modern Stage Service (MSS) recently supplied all technical production, including sound, trussing, LED wall - and PR Lighting fixtures - for a major concert by one of the world's leading DJ/producers, Hardwell. This took place at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium sports arena in New Delhi.

Appearing on his I AM Hardwell tour, the Dutch electro star performed before a sold out crowd of 15,000 people with many others waiting outside the arena.

MSS has been representing PR Lighting in the sub-continent for the past decade, and the company provided lighting designer, Dinesh Verma, with 20 of the popular XR 200 Beams. These were used on the main stage and succeeded in creating "an amazing effect" according to Sahil Wadhwa, director at Oneup Productions (MSS' production company).

Looking for a tight, powerful parallel beam from a low wattage source, Sahil said,

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UK - Based in Essex and formed in 2009, Spotlight Sound provides event production across Essex, London, Hertfordshire and Kent as well as providing installation and service across UK for sound and lighting systems.

As they have grown, Spotlight needed an audio system to improve their hire inventory as both the amount and scale of jobs increased. Director Sam Dimond and his team decided that an ES System would be the best way to move forward.

Like other rental companies who rely on ES, the ability to take a small number of compact cabinets to cover audiences upwards of 1,000 people made the decision a no-brainer.

Spotlight took delivery of an ES System comprising of two ES 1.0 mid/hi enclosures, four ES 2.6 2x15" subwoofers and the dedicated amplification and control EPAK 2500R's and it has already begun paying dividends.

Sam comments, "We were looking for a scaleab

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USA - First-time fans at a Mutemath concert sometimes find it hard to believe that a group of four musicians can create such a big, diverse and complex chain of live sounds. The group makes good use of samples and backing tracks, but beyond that, these New Orleans-based musicians have become masters at melding a diverse range of musical influences into a sound that becomes larger than life.

The Grammy-nominated band's soon-to-be-concluded Vitals 2016 tour in support of its album of the same name started on 16 September, 2015 in Minneapolis and runs through the end of October in New Orleans. The band was direct support for 21 Pilots on 47 dates in arenas and amphitheatres all summer.

From February through August, the tour's lighting rig featured ÉPIX Strip fixtures from Chauvet Professional. Lighting designer Jeff Lava of 44 Designs (Nashville) used the linear LED fi

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USA - Current four-time CMA nominee Dierks Bentley is known for hosting sold-out crowd and amphitheatres throughout the country on his 2016 Somewhere On A Beach Tour. The "notorious road warrior" (Rolling Stone) has been crowd-pleasing everywhere from Dublin to Kentucky, in support of his critically acclaimed album Black. His current tour, named after the platinum multi-week No.1 summer anthem has been an outstanding success, not only due to the entertaining stage presence and musicality of Bentley, but also due to the talent backstage.

James Pugsley McDermott, FOH engineer for Bentley and system engineer for VER, spoke about the sound on tour at Bentley's recent show at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California. McDermott has been doing sound professionally for almost 27 years, and has been with Bentley for 11 years. On this tour, he chose to outfit Bentl

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USA - The Verizon Amphitheater in Alpharetta, Georgia, recently hosted Live Nation's I Love The 90s concert, to the delight of more than 11,000 fans. AEE Productions, based out of Atlanta, Georgia, provided a EAW KF line array system to reinforce the sold out show.

"AEE started in the industry back in the 80s," explains Tracey Towne, production manager for AEE. "At that time AEE built an excellent reputation for supporting dozens of national hip-hop and R&B tours. Though it was before my time with the company, I remember AEE being known as the 'low end' guys back then, so it was no surprise that they called us for a show like this."

The Verizon Amphitheater sports a distinctive fan-shaped roof, comprised of a translucent cloth-like material, suspended over a steel-framed structure. Located on 45 acres of land, the venue seats 7,000 under the roof and another 5,000 on the l

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World - FOH engineer Jim Ebdon has been piloting for three-time Grammy Award winners Maroon 5 for nearly the last two years on their world tour which has so far passed through North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, Oceania and South America. Ebdon has been tweaking the arrangement of the L-Acosutics K1/K2 system's components, finding little tricks that are making "an already great-sounding system perform even better".

Ebdon and the band began the tour back in February 2015. At the time, Ebdon, who has also mixed front-of-house sound for Aerosmith, Annie Lennox and Matchbox Twenty, discovered that the L-Acoustics V-DOSC system that he had come to count on wasn't available. "The V-DOSC was simply still so popular that one wasn't always available - bands and production managers loved it," he recalls. "That first six months on the road [without L-Acoustics] was 'an interesting exper

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USA - On Tuesday 11 October, the secretary of ANSI's Board of Standards Review issued notices that three more ESTA standards had been approved as American National Standards. They are now published and available on the ESTA website. In alphanumeric order, the new standards are:

ANSI E1.4-1 - 2016, Entertainment Technology - Manual Counterweight Rigging Systems, is a revision of the old standard for manual counterweight systems. The E1.4 project has been broken into three related parts. The other two parts are for dead-hung battens and manually powered winch systems.

ANSI E1.22 - 2016, Entertainment Technology - Fire Curtain Safety Systems, is a revision of the 2009 edition to better align it with the requirements in the current NFPA 80. The standard describes the materials, design, fabrication, installation, operation, testing, and maintenance of fire safety curtains and s

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USA - When the house lights dimmed at the iHeartRadio Festival 2016, the lighting system, designed by Tom Kenny, included one of the largest rigs of Solaris Flares ever: 222 of the popular 1 kilowatt LED fixtures, with a maximum potential output of over 7m lumens.

Taking place in the new T-Mobile Arena on 23-24 September, the sold out show made music history once again. With performances by artists such as U2, Sting, Usher, Sia, Ariana Grande, Twenty One Pilots, Tears For Fears, Britney Spears, and many more, it was an event that made way for some of the most exciting live music of the year, in a visual setting enhanced by stunning lighting and effects.

The Solaris Flare was originally introduced four years ago as the industry's first 1,000 Watt LED fixture. The Flare has been widely used on many of the world's top shows and tours, from Kenny Chesney to Beyoncé, and

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