UK - To promote their latest album, March saw Irish pop-rock trio The Script undertake its biggest UK headline tour so far, taking in 12 shows in most of the major arenas in England, Scotland and Wales. Sennheiser UK supported audio provider Adlib Audio for the band's microphone and monitoring requirements.

The tour took in arenas at Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bournemouth, Cardiff, Glasgow, Liverpool, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham and Plymouth. A highlight was the two London shows - one at Wembley Arena, the other at The O2.

"As the band's first tour of big venues, the first thing we discussed was in-ear monitors," says Richy Nicholson, the band's front of house engineer. "We contacted two of the major manufacturers and Phil Cummings from Sennheiser got straight back to us. He and Mark Saunders came to one of the early rehearsals and they were also really

USA - Sensaphonics recently held the first of three scheduled 2011 Golden Circle seminars, educating audiologists with the specific skills and knowledge needed to work with musicians, audio technicians, and in-ear monitors.

The two-day Golden Circle seminar uses personalised, small-group instruction and includes a tour of the Sensaphonics custom manufacturing lab in Chicago. Another highlight is a trip to a local recording for a live music session, which is used to demonstrate the basics of PA systems, stage monitoring and in-ear systems from the artist's perspective.

"Musicians are totally different from any other client an audiologist is likely to see," notes Michael Santucci, AuD, Sensaphonics president and founder. "The Sensaphonics Golden Circle members are among the few who have the specialised knowledge to serve these clients properly, whether in the offi

Switzerland - A recent rebuilding and upgrading project to a regional Swiss venue has effectively provided a new entertainment and exhibition facility in the town of Thun, just south of Bern. An integral part of the project was installing new induction loops, with Ampetronic chosen for the job.

The project cost 24m Swiss francs and saw the main Schadausaal hall at the Kultur und Kongresszentrum Thun (KKThun) completely revamped while an additional hall, the Lachensaal, was added along with a large new foyer.

"We have installed a lot of induction loops before, every time using Ampetronic products, and have had nothing but good experiences with them," says Rolf Aegerter, technical project manager at Kilchenmann.

The existing induction loops in the Schadausaal's two small balconies were re-used, driven by a newly-installed Ampetronic ILD500 loop amplifier. Meanwhile,

Germany / UAE - The beginning of June will see a reassignment of responsibilities at Bosch Communications Systems. To date, as sales director pro audio export, Klaus Seitz has been responsible for the pro sound sector (Electro-Voice, Dynacord) in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), whilst Kamil Swobodzinski has been responsible for the marketing of broadcast and intercom equipment (RTS, Telex) in the same three regions. Henceforth, responsibility for both the brands and the sales regions will be differently assigned between the two. The duties of the existing export sales managers, however, will remain unchanged.

From 1 June, Klaus Seitz, as sales director MEA, will be responsible for the marketing of both pro sound and CCS products in the Middle East, Africa and Turkey. To be closer to the customers, Seitz will relocate from Straubing to the Robert Bosch subsidiary in Du

UK - The 12th annual Classic Brit Awards took place on 12 May at London's Royal Albert Hall. Hosted by Myleene Klass and in the presence of the Duchess Of Cornwall, the award presentations were interspersed with performances by Il Divo, Katherine Jenkins and the cast of Les Misérables.

Despite the extensive technical demands of a complex and sometimes unpredictable event, the production proved the capabilities of the design and engineering crew. The audio side was handled exclusively by Britannia Row Productions who deployed a 30-element Outline GTO system flown in three 10-deep columns, each with three Outline Mantas under-hung for near-fills. The two side-hangs comprised 10 Outline Butterfly elements each, and the whole system was driven by Outline T-Series amplifiers run from Dolby Lake system controllers.

The Midas XL8 at FOH was operated by engineer Colin Pi

UK - Sennheiser UK is to host two seminars, which have been developed from last year's successful event in the stunning environment of Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh. This year's venues are no less impressive, with the first of the two days taking place on 7 June at Ashton Court near Bristol and the second, two days later at Knebworth House in the Hertfordshire countryside.

"The seminar will be along the same lines as last year, although the content has been refreshed and updated," explains Ken Morrison, business area manager at Sennheiser UK. "The accent is still on providing information, education - and a little entertainment - for our installed sound, AV and live sound colleagues in the industry."

The choice of venues reflects Sennheiser's desire for the seminars to make a lasting impression, says the company.

"Last year, we decided that, rather t

Recycling Sets - Theatre companies can now advertise and recycle old sets and costumes on a new Freecycle-style website specifically designed for the sector. With the tag line "giving your unwanted set a new home", Set-exchange.co.uk has been launched with the aim of encouraging production companies to share unwanted sets, costumes and props with other theatre organisations across the UK for free. Companies including the Royal Court, Glyndebourne and the Lyric Hammersmith have already pledged their support to the website.

Set-exchange was set up by lighting designer and production electrician Peter Harrison. He told The Stage, "The idea came from me working with some of the small companies as well as the big companies and seeing waste in one and scrimping and saving from the other, so it came out of trying to share resources."

Set-exchange is structu

UK - London-based sound rental company, Capital Sound Hire has invested in an Optocore optical fibre system for the first time to maximise signal transport and flexibility on the current Take That Progress Live 2011 stadium tour.

Project manager Martin Connolly confirmed that in order to eliminate sight-line issues caused by traditional loudspeaker delay masts, this tour would feature a distributed 'ring' delay system with loudspeaker arrays hanging directly from the stadia structure.

"We will be placing clusters of amp racks around the stadiums, picking up AC power locally," he states. "We considered a copper based signal distribution system, perhaps using AES3, but because of the distances involved and the need for electrical isolation we soon realised that an optical system was the correct solution.

"With a project of this magnitude we felt that

UK - Liverpool based Adlib kicked off the 2011 music festival season in style - supplying sound systems to three stages and lighting to Radio One's Big Weekend at Carlisle Airport in Cumbria.

It was the fifth consecutive year that Adlib has supplied equipment and crew to the event, and their team was headed by James Neale on site and co-ordinated by Dave Jones in the office.

The stages were In New Music We Trust (stage 2), unashamedly rocked on Saturday night by headliners the Swedish House Mafia, ahead of their upcoming tour for which Adlib is also providing sound; and stage 4, The BBC Introducing Stage which showcased some of the hottest new talent.

On INMWT, Adlib's new CODA Audio system made its Big Weekend debut, configured as two flown left and right main hangs each comprising 10 CODA LA12 speakers, together with 16 LA8s for front- fills and 16 ground stacked SC

UK - Capital Sound has carried out a complete overhaul of its Martin Audio W8L Longbow inventory in preparation for the Take That Progress Live 2011 tour, which opened at Sunderland's Stadium of Light on 27 May.

Once Martin Audio's line array system had been chosen by the band's FOH sound engineer, Gary Bradshaw, the rental company took the unusual step of having its entire W8L Longbow fleet (including complementary WS218X subs) finished in black, to create stage uniformity; at the same time they purchased eight further enclosures.

All of which received unconditional approval from Gary Bradshaw. Two days into the show, the sound engineer reported, "It is still early days but I'm very pleased with the results we have been getting with the Martin Longbow system, which is very smooth but very powerful."

Since Production decided to dispense with large delay towers in f

UK - The weekend of 20 - 22 May saw the inaugural edition of the Friends Of Mine festival held against the stunning backdrop of Capesthorne Hall near Manchester. FOM Fest boasted an impressive line-up for a first-time festival. Organisers had no hesitation in drawing from the rich pickings of the Mancunian music scene over the years with acts such as Kid British, Badly Drawn Boy, The Buzzcocks, The Fall, Dutch Uncles, Bad Lieutenant, Wakefield's The Cribs and of course the inimitable Charlatans amongst many others.

The weather might not have been too kind, but it didn't dampen the spirits of festival goers who braved the elements to support the cream of the crop of 'local' bands who, for once, were all playing in their own back garden. Paul Nicholson from Red Square Audio / Midas ProSound handled the audio requirements across the festival's four main stages, including a fleet of

UK - Ethix Management has announced the expansion of its digital mixing facilities with a 70k investment in a SoundCraft Vi6 desk. Thanks to swift competitive finance from Azule Finance, Ethix Management, who have regularly worked in Trafalgar square, this year alone on Chinese New Year, St Patricks Day, Holland House and Vasahki as well as several festivals lined up this year, will use this mixing desk in the forthcoming festival season.

Paul Jones, owner and director of Ethix Management comments, "The SoundCraft Vi6 has an excellent reputation in the industry as an intuitive digital mixing desk. It is incredibly quick to re-patch and its user friendly interface makes it easy for any sound engineer get on board and start mixing, which is vital at festivals due to the sheer volume of artists and engineers using any one deck. Azule Finance's understanding of the production i

Russia - Situated in the In far Siberian city of Yakutsk, located just 450 kilometres south of the Arctic Circle, a new entertainment complex known as Europe opened this spring.

The complex is set over five floors and the technical infrastructure was designed and installed by MS-Max - drawing heavily on components from the EAW catalogue.

Above the ground floor pub and sports bar, are an Italian restaurant, a billiards room and café; the Striptease nightclub spans floors three and four (along with a Karaoke bar) - and up on the top floor are bowling lanes.

MS-Max supplied a punchy EAW dance system in the form of the purpose designed Avalon Series. This consists of a pair of enclosures, complemented by 10 rectangular UB82, eight BH760 bent horn subwoofers, four LA212 monitor speakers, four FR129z 12in LF and four SM129z compact single 12in speakers. EAW's CAZ Series amp

UK - Queen recently celebrated their 40th anniversary in spectacular style with Stormtroopers in Stilettos, a major retrospective exhibition held in London. Celebrating the band's first five albums, the exhibition took place at the Old Truman Brewery with Genelec 8030A 2-way active loudspeakers playing album tracks in the background in separate, themed areas.

Created by Island Records, Universal Music and Marmalade London, a design and production agency, the exhibition takes a comprehensive look at the early part of Queen's career, from before the band's formation in 1971 right up to their spectacular free gig for over 250,000 fans in Hyde Park in 1976. The large 1250ft² warehouse space was split into five zones, with graphics and music to match each stage in the band's career. Supplied and set up by Source Distribution, 30 Genelec 8030A loudspeakers were used in all are

Italy - For its new complex in Villorba, in the province of Treviso, Benetton Group chose a Proel PA system.

The building, which hosts an exclusive event centre and the Museum of Racing Cars, now features a PROEVAC2 audio system, selected by Barzon & Dainese from Ponte S. Nicolò (PD), a company that operates in the field of industrial and civil electrical systems.

In detail, they installed a 10-zone PROEVAC2 system with 20 speaker lines - two lines for each zone - for a total load of 4000 W.

The whole system is located in the control room and controlled by a centralised rack with microphone console from which all vocal announcements and, if necessary, pre-recorded evacuation alerts are delivered.

Every room and area of the building features EVAC speakers, positioned and interconnected using redundancy logic (line A+B).

The EN60849-compliant evacuation system, which is n

UK - Adam Hall has signed a distribution agreement with FaitalPRO.

Faital S.p.A was established in Milan in 1958 as a small family run business, over the following 50 years they became a leading European manufacturer of loudspeakers for the automotive industry. The new millennium led to the diversification strategy for Faital that resulted in the development of the FaitalPRO brand.

Flavio Naggi, overseas sales manager for FaitalPRO comments, "We are definitely proud of this agreement that is certainly a step forward in our distribution scheme; working with such a prestigious partner as Adam Hall consolidates the European spread of our high-end professional loudspeakers and represent the beginning of a solid and very promising co-operation for both companies."

Andrew Richardson, managing director of Adam Hall UK adds, "FaitalPRO is a fantastic addition to our p

UK - APG's line array system, Uniline, was deemed a resounding success after its first outdoor UK appearance at FOM Fest (The Friends Of Mine Festival) Manchester over the weekend of 20-22 May. Uniline was in the company on the main stage with the Charlatans, the Buzzcocks, Bad Lieutenant, The Cribs, The Fall, and many more over the course of the three days. APG was also specified for stage monitoring using a combination of SMX15 and DX15 monitor wedges plus TB118 subs and M3000 side-fills.

All of the audio requirements for the festival were handled personally by Paul Nicholson from Red Square Audio/Midas ProSound, and APG's Mathieu Delquignies assisted with the Uniline system tuning.

"It's great to have such amazing support from the manufacturer," commented Nicholson. "We were particularly pleased to have Mathieu with us on this occasion, firstly because it's t

UK - Sennheiser UK reports that it has made some significant improvements to its Service Department, including the launch of an Online Spares Ordering function for its professional audio division and new additions to its workshop, aimed at further upgrading levels of customer support.

"Our emphasis is always on serving the end customer and improving the support we give to them," says Tim Sherratt, Sennheiser UK's engineering and technical services manager. "Initially, the new Online Spares Ordering section will serve three product areas: MKH Wired Microphones; Evolution Wireless; and Pro Audio Headphones. The site provides a quick and efficient way for customers to order spare parts. We will be adding more items and information as we progress this part of the site. We have also introduced a new online Service & Support centre which features an FAQ section, online

UK - The derelict Battersea Power station on the bank of the Thames in south London recently played host to a major corporate event when drinks brand Jägermeister, through experiential marketing specialists Lucid UK, held a massive rebranding party within the building's towering walls. RG Jones Sound engineering provided Synco PA and stage monitor systems for Jägermeisters' Ice Cold Event at Battersea Power Station, which featured Alice Cooper appearing in holographic 4D.

"We couldn't resist this," says Alice, "Working with Jägermeister to appear as holograms on the other side of the Atlantic is the ultimate experience, a cutting-edge conjuring trick that celebrates the future and our history."

The event was hosted by DJ Zane Lowe, who played an exclusive DJ set at the event; with live performances from Jägerband The King Blues; and further sets from XF

Germany - There was much praise throughout Europe for what Germany achieved in this year's Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) finals in Dusseldorf. "Bearing in mind this was staged in a football stadium the sound was outstanding," said Ola Melzig, production manager for the ESC since the year 2000.

For the team at d&b audiotechnik, the challenge of the Esprit Arena was sheet metal, nine hectares of it to be precise. "The roof structure is enormous, all corrugated metal," said NDR's head of sound for the live event Jochen Jensen.

"With a reverberation time of six to eight seconds it was absolutely critical we keep sound energy from hitting the roof, or reflecting off the floor up to it. My first thought was, who are the specialists who can help me with this? I called Ralf Zuleegat d&b audiotechnik and asked if he could help. It will require a bigcommitment f

Cyprus - The latest upscale addition to Cyprus nightlife, the Little Buddha bar in the island's capital Nicosia, is one of the stars of a list of recent installations by Renkus-Heinz distributor S&V MegaSound. With two club installations, a cathedral and a conference centre completed and more in progress, the company is having, said owner Stelios Petrides, a "hectic" time.

Music is a famed part of the Buddha Bar experience and features Latin/oriental lounge beats that gradually move into more upbeat house tunes as the evening progresses. With sound quality central to its enjoyment S&V MegaSound were called in to design a system capable of delivering exceptional fidelity and precise directional control - along with the ability to deliver flawlessly night after night.

The system is specified as 16 TRX81 two-way full range loudspeakers and four PNX112 subwoofers, powere

UK - Late April saw Paul Carrack play three nights at the Royal College of Music with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, where a trio of Yamaha digital mixing consoles helped the venue's sound to be mixed, while also being recorded for DVD release.

Having recorded his latest album A Different Hat with the RPO, Carrack squeezed the entire ensemble into the confines of the Royal College of Music's 400-capacity Britten Theatre. Playing three such intimate shows meant that space was at an absolute premium, so a pair of Yamaha M7CL48-ES consoles handled front of house and monitor sound, while an 02R96VCM was used to track the show for a DVD recording.

Using three Yamaha SB168-ES stage boxes, the house system was extremely compact but maximised the show's all-important sound quality. With the orchestra generating plenty of acoustic sound, the key to mixing the show was ensurin

USA - This year's InfoComm Convention will be a busy time for Renkus-Heinz. The company will be sponsoring a full calendar of events and demonstrating a wide range of equipment throughout the show's three-day run.

The Renkus-Heinz booth will host a Technology Theatre throughout the show, with regular informative seminars on a wide range of topics given by presenters including Bruce Olson of Olson Sound Design; Stefan Feistel of Ahnert Feistel Media Group; John Murray, principal of Optimum System Solutions; Doug Fowler of Fowler Audio Services; Rik Kirby and Jim Mobley of Renkus-Heinz, and still more to be announced.

The booth will also host a 'geek bar' with ongoing demonstrations of Renkus-Heinz products and technologies including SysTune, EASE, EASERA and RHAON.

The Renkus-Heinz demo room will offer detailed demonstrations of a selection of the newest Renkus-Heinz loudspea

USA - Over the past year, Neon Trees has cemented its reputation as one of the top up-and-coming indie rock acts in the US, with a chart topping single, a featured performance at this year's SXSW festival, and a tour with My Chemical Romance. With a number of one-off fly dates punctuating the tour, stage manager and monitor engineer Mike Bangs and FOH engineer Neal Duffy selected a pair of Allen & Heath iLive T112 consoles to meet the band's needs.

Neon Trees is a straightforward rock band, with two guitars, bass, keyboard and drums along with four vocals. "We are using 24 inputs," Bangs notes. "We are sharing preamps between monitors and FOH and doing a digital split from the monitor console's iDR-32, so our FOH snake is just one Cat 5 cable.

"The second iDR-32 MixRack is currently being used for the FOH console's DSP. That will change when we start headli

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