South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa's Durban and Johannesburg branches combined resources and skills to provide all technical production - including rigging, sound, lighting, AV and sets - required for the high profile launch of Emirates Airline's new non-stop service between Durban and Dubai.

The show was produced by Emirates with support from The Event Production Company and staged at the Inkosi Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre in Durban. It was project managed for GHSA by Durban branch operations manager, Stuart Andrews, who comments, "Emirates is a six star client and extremely precise in their requirements. Our local knowledge of the venue coupled with the fact that we could draw on expertise from other areas in the company to supply elements like the bespoke staging, enabled us to deliver these exacting standards."

The event was divided into thr

UK - The start of August 2009 saw the Heavy Metal fraternities descend once again on Knebworth. Spread over two days and four stages, Peavey's backline was out in force supporting endorsees and stages alike, especially on the Jägermeister branded stage for up and coming artists.

The Jägermeister mobile stage featured a full Peavey Versarray line array PA system consisting of four VR112s and two VR218 subs per side, powered by Crest Pro 9200 amplifiers for the tops and Pro 7200 for the subs. The system showcases the versatility of the VSX26 for handling crossover, limiting and system EQ duties.

Monitoring was handled by QW monitors again bi-amped using the VSX26. A Crest CV20 handled front of house and all monitor mixes.

Peavey endorsees were out in force at the festival too. Saturday saw the Apollo Stage headlined by Bullet For My Valentine using the 6505s,

Germany - Bürgerfest (Citizen Party) attracted 750,000 spectators to Berlin's Brandenburg Gate to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Germany's constitution. For this national event, Bundespresseamt, Germany's federal PR agency, hired Berlin-based Mediapool production company to provide also sound reinforcement, with a massive Meyer Sound system comprising 186 loudspeakers.

The system configuration was designed by IT Audio founders Til Schwartz and Ivo König with equipment supplied and operated by Emsdetten-based POOLsound (formerly known as Westfalen Sound). POOLlight provided lighting, with event planning supervised by POOLproduction.

The large crowd was captivated by a star-studded lineup split between two stages, including a political talk show hosted by journalist Sandra Maischberger and TV presenter Thomas Gottschalk of the popular Wetten dass..? The outdoo

USA - The San Diego Zoo recently partnered with Natural Encounters, Inc. (NEI) to present a bird-themed entertainment experience at the Zoo's Hunte Amphitheater. SOAR: A Symphony in Flight is scheduled to run for 17 months, and required the Zoo and the SOAR's producers to invest in permanent sound reinforcement for the show.

CBC Technical worked closely with Buck Tallman and Dave Brown from Quantum to design and install an extensive Electro-Voice sound system to provide high-resolution sound for the SOAR's atmospheric soundscapes.

Chris Batchelor, Sales Manager for CBC, comments: "We've been supporting summer shows at the San Diego Zoo on a rental basis for the last few years with a system built around an Electro-Voice XLD compact line-array system. This year the producer of this new, permanent show asked me to put together a system that could provide

USA - Crown CTs series amplifiers and PIP-Lite modules were deployed for the redesigned sound system at Camden Yards, in Baltimore, Maryland. Home to the professional Major League Baseball team the Baltimore Orioles, the 48,000-seat stadium, opened in 1992, has received consistent praise as one of the best ballparks in the country.

Sound integrator AVI-SPL performed the installation, which also included BSS Soundweb London signal processing devices. "When you're dealing with a project of this magnitude, you're constantly looking at the solution on a large scale. We need to know that the individual components will work together seamlessly and perform with the highest level of reliability. With Crown you know you're going to get that consistently," stated Will Parry, senior vice president, large product group at AVI-SPL.

"With the CTs series amps paired with the P

Equatorial Guinea - The RCF Forum 9000 digital conference system was chosen by The Makinen Venture Corporation for the Equatorial Guinea Parliament, located in the capital city Malabo.

The system is composed of 250 FMS 9411-S microphone sets, semi-flush mounted on the desks of the parliament. The consoles are enabled for voting operations, with the possibility to assign a different level of audio to every seat, and to enable simultaneous translation.

Four FDC 9900 dome cameras with high-speed movement allow camera follow to the microphone in use, displaying video images on to two large plasma displays routed via an FVM9844 audio/video-switching matrix.

RCF Acustica C3110 loudspeakers have been installed as the main audio system for the room, delivering a uniform and highly defined audio coverage.

The project and the system start up, which were configured on site, have been

UK - Adlib Audio supplied sound equipment and crew to the Latitude Festival for the fourth year running, this year taking over two new stages - the event's Uncut second stage, and the Sunrise Arena.

The other stages supplied by Adlib were the Lake Stage, the Film & Music Arena and the Cabaret Tent which also had an associated 'roving' sound system. The Adlib team of 14 was crew chiefed by Richy Nicholson.

Adlib specified and installed an L-Acoustics V-DOSC rig for Uncut, configured as two flown arrays of six elements, 12 SB28 subs on the deck and a combination of dv-Dosc and ARCs cabinets for in-fills and out-fills. It was all processed via Adlib's standard set up using Dolby Lakes.

Uncut saw some heavy hitting headliners in the line up including Gossip, Magazine, Bat For Lashes, Squeeze, Newton Faulkner, Spiritualised and many more in a demanding environment for sound requi

UK/France - For the first time in nearly 20 years, Nexo is exhibiting at PLASA in its own right, marking the recent strategic move away from third-party distribution to direct manufacturer support for the UK market.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, Nexo will be unveiling new mainstream loudspeaker products. This range of high-output high-versatility compact cabinets is designed for near-field portable and installed PA applications in clubs, houses of worship, theatres and A/V installations. As well as being an exceptional choice for stage monitoring at all levels of live performance, the cabinets will serve as fill-in complements for Nexo Geo and Alpha systems, says the company.

All the new products can be auditioned in the Piccadilly Room over the duration of the show. Nexo's technical director Francois Deffarges will be on hand to discuss the new design technology

Japan - MSI Japan is the latest PA rental company to join the L-Acoustics Rental Network and take delivery of a complete K1/Kudo system and LA-RAK touring rack fitted with LA8 amplified controllers.

The company has a long history with L-Acoustics, becoming the first V-Dosc partner in Asia in 1998. For more than a decade the relationship between the companies has flourished, and MSI has become one of Japan and Asia's leading sound companies. 11 years after their initial contact, MSI was contacted by L-Acoustics founder Dr Christian Heil and invited to France for a meeting about K1.

"I flew over to France with MSI vice president, Nishio Motoshige and listened to the K1 system at L-Acoustics," says MSI director Fujii Shuzo. "The moment I heard the system, I immediately knew I would be buying it, and we were given the opportunity to become part of the pilot programm

USA - Crossword Christian Church in Riverside, Calif. recently upgraded its sound system on a massive scale, replacing the systems in its sanctuary, courtyard, and children's wing with an assortment of Electro-Voice equipment from CBC Technical.

Crossword's new sanctuary system comprises five Phoenix PX2152 boxes in a flown left-centre-right configuration (including a central cluster of three) with two Phoenix PX2181 subs on the ground at stage left and right, with Dynacord VL262s compact double-six-inch, two-way loudspeakers as delays. The system is powered by EV's CP4000S amplifiers.

Chris Batchelor, sales manager for CBC, comments: "This is a Gospel church, and the system they had in there could not keep up with the volume they required. We came to the conclusion that Phoenix was the best option to get the SPL that the church was looking for, with dual drivers on each

UK - With little more than a month to go until the PLASA Show, organiser PLASA Events has confirmed over 40 exhibitors new to this year's event, as pre-registrations look set to match 2008's record levels. Pre-registration for PLASA09 is still open, with a 50% discount for online bookings (see website below).

New & Returning Exhibitors
Exhibitors new or returning to the show include Adam Hall, A.T. Industries, All Access Staging & Productions, Ambient Lighting, Artistic Licence, Avid Technology, Bestlight, Bison Produkter, Coemar S.p.A, Entertainment Equipment Supplies, Flying by Foy, Gerriets, Indu-Electric Gerber, Klotz Audio Interface Systems, Laserworld (Switzerland), LumenRadio, MediaLas Laserproducts, NEXO, Picturall, Prism Media Products, Promoberg, Pyrotechnology, R K Sound Engineering, ShowCAD Control S

Downloads Down - There has been a slight drop - from 63% last year to 61% this year - in the number of young people illegally downloading music, a survey suggests. The UK Music-commissioned study, now in its second year, also found that 85% of those who downloaded illegally would pay for an unlimited download service. UK Music is an umbrella body that represents the British music industry.

Some 1,808 14 to 24-year-olds from across the UK were surveyed this spring by the University of Hertfordshire. Of the 61% of respondents who said they illegally downloaded music, 83% said they did so on a daily or weekly basis. Last year's survey research was based on 773 respondents. Of those who said they would pay for an unlimited MP3 download service, 77% said they would continue to buy CDs.And 78% of respondents said they would not pay for a streaming service, such as Spotify.

UK Music

UK - English Heritage and IMG have again been promoting their successful summer Picnic Concert series at London's Kenwood House and Audley End in Essex, retaining RG Jones to provide all the sound reinforcement and control throughout the festival season.

For the final weekend in Saffron Walden, featuring Back to the 80's, with an all-star line-up, followed by The Last Night of the Audley End Proms (headlined by Katherine Jenkins and featuring a Spitfire display) RG Jones assembled their own 'strictly '80s' technical line-up.

For acts like The Human League, Belinda Carlisle, ABC, Go West and Heaven 17, they had their own 'old boys' Jim Lambert project/production managing and Al Woods (both ex RG Jones employees from the 1980's) mixing all the bands on a Yamaha PM5D (with the exception of The Human League).

With the spectacular Audley End House providing a

UK - Tannoy's VQ Series has recently benefited from a welcome expansion to the range, maximising the potential of the product and making it a truly capable and modular high SPL sound reinforcement loudspeaker system. The newly expanded range will be given its first UK unveiling at the forthcoming PLASA show, within the innovative Red Square Audio Pavilion (more details on that to be released soon).

Initially launched last year, VQ Series is a range of loudspeakers designed for any application where precise directional control, outstanding sonic performance, and high SPLs are critical issues; such as large corporate AV systems, stadiums, large dance clubs, live concert halls, theatres, houses of worship and open-air venues. "Utilising precision engineering and design, the VQ series can produce enough power and clarity to be used individually, maintaining your building's aest

Italy - On Sunday 21 June, Pope Benedict XVI made a special visit to San Giovanni Rotondo, in southern Italy to pray in the Sanctuary of Saint Pio da Pietralcina.

The Pope celebrated Mass and recited the Angelus in the churchyard of San Pio da Pietralcina Church, which was packed with more than 50,000 worshippers coming from all over the world.

RCF's TT+ Touring and Theatre system had been chosen to amplify the sound for the event. Local rental company Sonika, which had organised the technical aspects of the celebrations and had also looked after many such events in past years, chose again to use the TT+ Series from RCF for this important day.

Apart from giving vast coverage, the system had to be flexible enough to amplify both the speech and the music, which was played by the Symphonic Orchestra of the Niccolò Piccinini Conservatoire in Bari. TT22-A and TT08-A were

Japan - Atsunori Abe, former general manager of Audio-Technica Corporation International Department (Japan) died on 10 July, 2009. Abe passed away in his native Japan and is survived by two brothers, a sister, his wife and their three daughters. Atsunori Abe (pronounced AH-bay) joined A-T in 1978, and in addition to holding the position of the general manager of Audio-Technica Corp. International Department, he also served on the company's board of directors. He retired in 2005.

During his tenure at the Audio-Technica Corporation, Abe helped the company grow internationally and was instrumental in launching groundbreaking products including the AT4033 Cardioid Condenser Microphone, the microphone that is credited as being the first high-quality, studio-grade microphone available at a price within the reach of the home and project studio market.

He was one of the key people who

UK - The two-site packaged acts festival is an embedded feature of the UK summer scene; take that model to extremes - as is only right and proper for metal music - and you get Sonisphere. Six sites across Europe saw a truly muscular line-up of bands visit Holland, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Finland, and culminated with a massive thrash at Knebworth Park in the UK.

The festival has learned well from its forebears: this is not a 'cram them all in a big field and gouge the wallet' event; two main stages, and two lesser venues give fans the chance to sample a broad cross section of world class acts as well as some up-and-coming bands.

For Britannia Row Productions Ltd (Britrow), charged with servicing three of the four stages, the demands were clear. "They needed the controlled release of power," said Bryan Grant of Britrow. "That's what these bands are all abou

Brunei The Jerudong Park Amphitheatre in Brunei has purchased an Allen & Heath digital iLive system, comprising an iDR10 MixRack and iLive-176 Control Surface.

The venue is part of the largest amusement park in South East Asia. In addition to various community services and events, the venue has hosted a long line of premier international artists and theatrical productions including Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Seal, Janet Jackson, Ronan Keating and Spirit of the Dance, as well as artists and prestigious Asian performers.

The venue wanted to migrate its FOH set up from an analogue to a digital system and approached Singapore installation firm, BCI. They recommended the Allen & Heath iLive system due to its distributed audio design and flexible architecture, making it an ideal choice for the large size of the venue and the variety of major productions hosted there.

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Germany - The Stadttheater Am Hagen, as the municipal theatre in Straubing is known, is an affiliate of the Landestheater Niederbayern (Lower Bavarian State Theatre). In 2003, the theatre was thoroughly renovated and now seats 330. To make it possible to stage lavish musicals and other musical productions in future, it was necessary to reequip the auditorium with new sound equipment. TRE Professionelle Audiotechnik, which is based in Parkstetten, was entrusted with the installation. It was supported in this task by Thomas Sterling, PI sales manager at Bosch Communications Systems' Support Centre (South).

The centrepiece of the theatre's new sound system comprises - for the first time in Europe, Africa and the Middle East - the new Electro-Voice Expandable Vertical Array (EVA) system. This system, which was specially designed for fixed installation. The full-range, passive system

USA - Located outside the gates of Fort Benning, Georgia, the National Infantry Museum honours the oldest and largest branch of the US Army. The signature attraction at the new museum, called The Last 100 Yards relies on Renkus-Heinz Iconyx steerable array loudspeakers in its portrayal of 234 years of infantry history.

The exhibit, which acts as an entryway to the rest of the museum, is a gently sloping, 100-yard ramp featuring a chronological multimedia journey through eight key battles from the Revolutionary War up through the current War on Terrorism. According to Major General Jerry White (ret.), president of the private National Infantry Foundation, which operates the museum, "The Infantryman's mission is best portrayed by having visitors fight with those soldiers over the last 100 yards of major wars from the Revolutionary War to the present. The music, the gun

USA - With Adam 'MCA' Yauch recovering from recent cancer surgery, the Beastie Boys were forced to cancel their Day 2 appearance at this year's Lollapalooza. In their place, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs agreed to take the stage at the very last minute, sending lead singer Karen O scrambling through wardrobe for suitable stage attire to complement an equally electrifying set list.

Once onstage, O commandeered visual attention with a fluorescent outfit featuring a headdress and cape shaped from cloth cut-outs of multicoloured human hands. Delivering her sound to the crowd using a handheld Shure UHF-R wireless transmitter sporting an SM58 capsule, the colourfully-clad Ms. O couldn't stop smiling throughout the entire set. Drummer Brian Chase and guitarist Nick Zinner cut loose musically with equal panache, bringing the night to a close with a hot energy factor matching the day's earl

Serbia - With over three million judges tuning in to select the winner of the Serbian equivalent to American Idol, singer Darko Lazic turned to AKG's vocal system to help him stand out as the Grand Star of Zvezde Granda. The final night of competition, which was held on 20 June at Belgrade Arena in front of a live audience of 18,000, was sponsored by production vendor Studio Berar and fully stocked with AKG's sound systems.

Auditions for Zvezde Granda began in September, with judges and producers visiting locations throughout all of Serbia. By June, the TV audience had narrowed the competition to seven contestants, all of who competed for the grand finale using AKG WMS 450 wireless microphones.

"This year, they had the highest watched show in Serbia on Saturday nights," said Alfred Reinprecht, AKG's vice president of marketing and product

The Netherlands - As a further extension of its successful L-series of products, Alcons is now shipping the LR7Bass, a bass-system, designed as la ow-frequency extension of the LR7 micro pro-ribbon line-array system, in both permanent and portable applications.

Featuring a single 12" long excursion woofer with Neodymium magnet structure in bandpass loading configuration, the LR7B delivers high output bass response from a micro-sized and weight efficient package, measuring only 3 CD's wide by 3-CD's high.

The extended frequency response of the dual tuning enables the LR7B to be used as mid-bass reinforcement (80Hz-160Hz), full-range bass extension (45Hz-160Hz) or subwoofer (45Hz-75Hz); All in both flown as well as stacked application.

Main attention was paid to the concentric band-pass configuration, consisting of 4 + 1 individual reflex vents in circular configuration,

Spain - Multi-media/audio provider Focus, S.A. was recently contracted to furnish sound reinforcement for Pride Barcelona 09, a huge GLBT event attended by an estimated 15,000 people. The event was held 28 June at Avenida Maria Cristina in Barcelona. Focus turned to EAW for loudspeakers and processors for the night's main stage concert, which featured several live musical artists and DJs performing well into the early hours of the morning.

The main P.A. system consisted of 16 EAW KF760 Line Array Modules (eight on each side of the stage), eight EAW KF730 Compact Line Array Modules (four on each side) and 16 EAW SB1000z Large Format Subwoofers, all processed by EAW UX8800 Digital Signal Processors.

Onstage sound for the bands was accomplished with eight EAW JFX260i Compact Full-Range Loudspeakers, and for stage monitoring for the DJs, FOCUS used two side-fills formed by

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