UK - DJs is a newly opened 350 capacity pub / club venue in Ilfracombe Devon, which has just received a major technical upgrade designed and installed by S+H Technical Services, which is based nearby.

S+H MD Terry Murtha was approached by DJ's new management to help create a visual scheme to make the space a vibrant nightspot. The premises had been empty for a year and before then had been a sports bar.

"It's a great brief to have almost a blank canvas and be asked to produce something original and imaginative," comments Murtha, who decided on a fresh visual approach based around using LED screen and video content as the main lightsource.

"I thought video was a great medium to produce a versatile environment," he explained, "It is excellent for creating mood, and used correctly, the dramatic contrasts between bight and dark really enhance atmosphere, especially in an i

UK - Former InfoComm president and founder-director of Paradigm AV, Greg Jeffreys has announced the next chapter in his career, with the formation of a new company, Visual Displays Ltd (VDL). Based near the former company's Bedford HQ it will have "a completely new structure designed to introduce more efficiencies to the business via a faster-to-market policy".

Greg states that while VDL's mission of offering best practice to a wide client base of audio visual professionals and their clients will remain the same, the company will offer a more direct approach with regard to sales, specialist consultancy and installation architecture.

"The new structure has been designed to liberate much more of my time for working with clients and developing new display IP for them," he stated. "I had a life-changing experience on the board of InfoComm and at the same time developing ANSI S

Europe - The 2016 European tours of Santana and Grimes are using ImageCue in their designs.

Michael Ledesma, LD for Santana, is using ImageCue with LED panels in a "V" configuration on either side of the stage. The video director controls the central imag screen, but Ledesma controls the "V" visuals from the lighting console allowing him greater coordination between the lighting and video effects.

Lighting and video designer, Michelle Sarrat, is using ImageCue this summer on the Grimes tour with a background video wall. The tour is hitting many of the festivals throughout Europe.

Michelle says "I've been very satisfied with the ImageCue so far - it's been very helpful on all these festivals." ImageCue LLC is based in Running Springs, California with a European office in Dietlikon, Switzerland.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Leading trade-only distributor of technology solutions, Midwich, has recently hired 30 new employees across the Group in a variety of locations and roles. Ranging from Brand Campaign Manager, Logistics Coordinator, Solutions Specialist and General Sales Manager, the new employees highlight Midwich's ongoing investment in its people and in the areas of operation.

Midwich is constantly investing in its staff to continue to service its channel partners to the highest possible standards, the company says. All new staff will be involved in induction weeks as they are welcomed to Midwich.

Iain Campbell, Sales Director at Midwich, said: "We are delighted to be able to announce so many talented individuals joining Midwich. Our employees are the expertise in this business and they are crucial to our success. We are always looking to invest in our existing workforce and to brin

Italy - Panasonic has used ICOM Milano 2016 (International Council of Museums) to showcase its visual and security solutions aimed at enriching the visitor experience in the museum sector.

The highlight of the conference is the presentation of Ancient times seen through a modern lens, a collaboration on how to enrich the visitor experience using today's technology, with Moesgaard Museum and CAVI (Centre for Advanced Visualization and Interaction).

On the booth, Panasonic showcased its hybrid lighting projector, the Space Player, which allows the creation of stunning micro mapping attractions and Light ID technology, which enables simple sharing of content via a mobile app for information, entertainment, guidance and advertising, using the transmission of Light IDs from LED display technology.

Hartmut Kulessa, European marketing manager for projector products, sa

UK - For the Euro 2016 finals, Hyundai Motor UK and The Brooklyn Brothers created "the world's first fully immersive fan zone experience". Taking place in a 20 x 40m dome structure in Kings Cross, London, the Hyundai FanDome presents a 360° audio-visual experience that evolves in real time, completely surrounding fans with the action through live game feeds and special effects, putting them at the heart of each match.

This one-of-a-kind experience is live for the whole five weeks of the competition and has been created by Kings Cross-based event-makers and placemakers PRODUCE UK. Nine months in the making, the project was commissioned by Hyundai Motor UK to host 45,000 guests across 45 games. With the content reacting in real time to the action in live matches with everything from goals scored, red and yellow cards, penalty shootouts, national anthems and even injury time

Norway - The Norwegian Olympic Museum in Lillehammer, Norway was opened by H.M Queen of Norway at a prestigious ceremony in February 2016. The Museum is a showcase for adventurous video installations, curated exhibits of cultural and historic artefacts and Olympic memorabilia.

What makes the Norwegian Olympic Museum a must-see attraction for all is Lysgaardsbakkene roughly translated as 'Jump Hills'. It forms the centrepiece; a large-scale circular raised-platform interactive model measuring 3.5m in diameter, the Olympic jump hills. Local systems integrator Bright Norway achieved a true to life interactive presentation using AV Stumpfl Wings Engine Raw uncompressed 4K media servers and Wings VIOSO calibration software to manage and warp native video content across 4 edge-blended projectors.

Bright Norway was also responsible for multimedia and presentation equipment for la

UK - With the festival season under way, the team at PRG XL Video is in full swing supplying a wide variety of festivals with event technology. Continuing its long-term relationship with live event production company LarMac Live, with whom it also works on the country's largest EDM event, Creamfields, PRG XL Video supplied live video technology including outdoor LED screens and camera system for Field Day.

The two-day event takes place at Victoria Park in East London, and featured an eclectic line-up including Air, John Grant, Anna Meredith, The Avalanches, and headliners James Blake and PJ Harvey.

To ensure the capacity audience of 30,000 had the best view of the main stage, PRG XL Video were called in to supply an IMAG package which consisted of three HD cameras and Panasonic AVHS-450- based PPU system, together with two high resolution LED side screens each measuring 5.

UK - Panasonic has created a virtual museum in order to showcase its technology for the museum and heritage sector, entirely in the cloud.

The museum has four distinct zones, each highlighting how audiovisual technology can be integrated to create engaging, modern exhibits.

Panasonic product experts guide visitors through the museum and provide an insight into how Panasonic products and solutions can enhance the museum environment, creating an engaging visitor journey and, importantly, helping generate additional revenue. They will also be on hand, live, to answer any questions visitors may have.

'Experiential projection' combines laser projection, edge blending and ultra short throw lenses to demonstrate how large scale, high brightness, high resolution panorama projections can be created within the museum environment.

The 'informative display' zone looks at how d

China - UK-based 7thSense Design has united once more with its reseller and integrator partner for China, Wincomn, to create a new and visually stunning series of experiences at the Nanchang Wanda Cultural Tourism City in the capital of China's Jiangxi Province.

The brand new Wanda Cultural Tourism City includes an indoor theme park (Nanchang Wanda Park), shopping mall with an indoor ocean park (Nanchang Wanda Ocean Park), entertainment attractions, hotels and dining districts. The attraction is quite literally the size of a city at 200-hectares and Chinese conglomerate Wanda are behind it all.

7thSense supplied uncompressed, high frame rate and extreme resolution media serving technologies to three experiences inside the Nanchang Wanda Park; The Flyover Jiangxi Flying Ride Theatre, VASE (the Flying Theatre pre-show) and the 12-metre fulldome auditorium at the Nanchang Wan

USA - The new 4.8 mm pixel pitch VIP F4 Video Panel from Chauvet Professional is equally at home in the rental and integrator markets. Featuring cable-free magnetic LED modules and a removable control/PSU box, the new video panels are fully serviceable from the front or rear. The panels can be removed easily from the front using an MT-03 tool, making it practical to install the F4 flat on a wall in permanent installations. At the same time, the ruggedly designed panels also come with road cases for touring applications.

Running Chauvet Professional's VIP Driver 43Nova Novastar Controller, the F4 offers user-friendly convenience, whether it's used at a permanent installation or on a tour. The Novastar feature takes video input and outputs it over an Ethernet control system. This allows the video wall to be mapped without a computer. The Novastar protocol can be used to scale vi

UK - 7thSense has expanded its media server portfolio with the addition of the Nano-SDI Media Server from the Delta Media Server range. The product, an entry-level media server, is a highly affordable way of introducing uncompressed media playback into workflow for fixed installations, says the company.

John Harding, senior electronics engineer at 7thSense explains, "Users of Nano-SDI will benefit from incredibly easy content management and seamless playlist operation. We developed this as a solution primarily for theme parks, museums, science centres and attractions - venues with a lot of content, a lot of displays, and a need to quickly and easily deliver media without compromise on quality. Already, we're seeing significant interest from those who had previously used media format-specific HD playback servers that are no longer available."

A key feature-set of the new Na

USA - The OCA Alliance, the AV industry alliance promoting awareness and adoption of Open Control Architecture (the Audio Engineering Society AES70 standard), has announced the membership of three new member companies. 1602 Group, Archwave, and TOA Corporation have all joined the alliance following its exhibiting at InfoComm16, where it featured a powerful live demonstration of AES70 interoperability on its booth.

Citing the opportunity "to contribute to a more open and efficient transfer of control data between products", Duncan Crundwell, 1602 Group Systems Architect and director, stated, "1602 Group is excited to be part of the OCA Alliance. Starting out in the late 1960's controlling musical instruments we were, as part of Solid State Logic, a founding member of the MIDI specification and have experience in working together with other organizations to improve the end user

Belgium - Barco has announced the departure of its chief financial officer, Carl Peeters, who has decided to pursue a new professional opportunity. Ann Desender, currently vice president finance & control will succeed Carl as CFO for Barco. This change will become effective as of September 2016.

Ann Desender joined Barco in 2008 and has been leading Barco's global finance team since 2010. She will succeed Carl Peeters as a member of Barco's Core Leadership Team and will report directly to the CEO.

Carl Peeters joined Barco in 1987. His initial roles were in business development. He took up his first senior finance role as CFO of BarcoNet in 2000. He was appointed group CFO of Barco NV in 2010.

Eric Van Zele, CEO of Barco and Jan De Witte, CEO designate, commented, "Carl has been a long term senior manager with Barco and throughout his career has played an important rol

UK - Event technologist FIX8Group has been busy developing FIX8Studio: a fully supported visualisation and training space at the company's Stockport headquarters, which gives visiting production companies, studios and creatives direct access to the latest digital content control and interactive resources.

Although the studio has been used internally by the group for some time, it came into full existence as a rentable space late last year, in response to increased demand from theatre, corporate, music, TV studios and arena shows which have complicated and large scale digital content requirements.

As production director John Montague says, "We offer advice, modelling, digital content management and animation creation that exists on the cutting edge of this new world - but also one which can draw on the global experience of FIX8Group as a whole."

FIX8Studio works with th

UK - As part of a continuing programme of improving its inventory, PRG XL Video is upgrading its inventory of Barco projectors. This process offers greater flexibility of use across all the market sectors PRG XL serves. The upgrade sees HDX-W14 14K projectors transformed to HDX-W20 Flex units, and HDF-W26 26k projectors becoming HDF-W30 Flex units.

The stock of 14k projectors was purchased in early 2015, and the units were partly selected because they were upgradable. As the demand for higher brightness projection increases, work has begun on unlocking the units' Flex capabilities.

The upgrade process involves unlocking the units via a license key. This then enables the power to be increased to the lamp to achieve 18,000 lumens output. The second part of the upgrade process converts the projector to a Flex unit, which means it can be locked off to a specific light output l

Europe - Dave Crump, CT's CEO Europe & Middle East, has announced the creation of a new CT department specialising in technical event infrastructure, led by Sid Lobb, CT's director of integrated networks.

Dave comments, "We have been developing the ideas for this new service for some time. We have started with a small and highly focussed team, but see this as a key growth area for the future. We're optimistic we'll see rapid expansion and broadening of the service offering in the future."

CT will now offer clients a bespoke technical solution that integrates and distributes video, audio, IT and comms signals over a reliable Fibre/IP network infrastructure.

Sid notes, "The new technology can massively increase the flexibility we offer in signal distribution architecture. We're moving away from the traditional point to point way of doing things where you lay a cable and

UK - The D&AD New Blood Festival kicked off in Shoreditch, London on 5 July with creative technical production expert Hawthorn on hand to deliver technical production for two of this year's events.

The festival provides a series of programmes for new creatives, offering them inspiration, learning and insight on how to best break into the industry.

The use of projection and projection mapping, a technique that uses specialist software to warp and blend projected images on to any surface including buildings and interior walls, is becoming increasingly popular at events due to its high visual impact and immersive experience. Proving that this technology can be used effectively in any type of event, no matter what the budget or setting, Hawthorn put their own creativity to the test, working on the D&AD New Blood Award ceremony and Adobe's muchly-anticipated fringe event, their

USA - API reports that Mount Olive High School in Flanders, New Jersey, has purchased a Vision console for their forthcoming recording studio and audio production programme.

Mount Olive's new audio programme will add to the school's already outstanding curriculum, including a top notch television production programme, an award-winning robotics team, and a music programme touting a 60-piece orchestra.

Superintendent and music enthusiast Dr. Larrie Reynolds brought in consultants who were up to the challenge of creating a professional-level studio; record producer, engineer, and mixer Ron Saint Germain and record producer and recording engineer Tony Bongiovi have been hard at work on Mount Olive's studio since the fall of 2015.

Saint Germain collaborated with Trevor Campbell, who will head Mount Olive's audio production programme, to find the right console. After traveli

UK - Working with some of the biggest names in UK live entertainment production, VER kicked off the festival season delivering a range of equipment packages to both Glastonbury and the Electric Daisy Carnival.

For the second year in succession, VER was contracted by the Glastonbury Festival Pyramid and Other Stage production team to work with video production coordinators Production Network, supplying the main camera image screens to both stages, along with installed screens onstage to be used with associated control equipment for a mixture of artists.

On the Pyramid Stage, VER had a clean sweep of headline acts, with screens supplied via Video Design for Muse on Friday, directly to the act for Adele's Saturday performance and via Glastonbury Production for Coldplay's Sunday night set. The same screen gained further use in a variety of configurations throughout Sunday by a

USA - Universal Parks & Resorts has entered into a corporate partnership agreement with Christie, which will see Christie delivering the latest projection technologies to Universal Parks & Resorts as the official projection system provider. The agreement includes Universal Parks & Resorts' Theme Parks and CityWalk complexes throughout the United States.

As a Universal Parks & Resorts corporate partner, Christie will be the preferred partner for projectors ordered, purchased, and installed by Universal Parks & Resorts at all domestic controlled venues. Christie will also supply software and professional services in addition to projection technology to Universal Parks & Resorts, helping create customized projection solutions for future attractions.

"Universal Parks & Resorts continues to push the limits of technology and innovation, and Christie is honoured to have this long

UK - Coldplay's live-show video director Ben Miles chose to work with British manufacturer Avolites and Avolites' Ai media server distributor and technical specialist RES (Realtime Environment Systems) to design what he describes as 'the ultimate video system' for the Brit rockers' current world tour.

Crossing four continents, A Head Full of Dreams is a major stadium tour in support of Coldplay's seventh studio album of the same name. The Latin American dates ran from 31 March to 17 April. The European dates - including the band's seminal headlining of the Glastonbury Festival - were from 24 May to 6 July. On 16 July the tour moved to the US, where Chris Martin and his bandmates are playing 22 stadium and arena dates. It continues in December, with six stadium dates in Australia and New Zealand.

Coldplay's live shows are renowned for their high production values - requirin

USA - AIMS has announced that Riedel Communications is the latest of the world's leading media technology companies to join the alliance.

Founded in 1987 and headquartered in Wuppertal, Germany, Riedel Communications is renowned as a leading pioneer of real-time networks for audio video and communications applications; in particular, digital audio matrix systems and fiber-based real-time media network technology.

Their products and technologies, including MediorNet, the world's first fibre-based video network for integrated signal transport, are in common use throughout the world in broadcast, pro-audio, events, sports, theatre and security applications. These include applications in the staging of major global sporting events and within international sports governing bodies.

Commenting for the company on joining the alliance, Lars Hoehmann, product manager MediorNet,

UK - A.C. Audio, a sales division of A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd., is hosting Digital Wireless Days in association with Shure in August, to demonstrate the brand's wireless solutions, decode the jargon, and explain why the future of wireless is digital.

The free events will take place at the company's UK headquarters (High Wycombe) on Tuesday, 9 August, and Northern sales office (Leeds) on Thursday, 11 August 2016.

RF (radio frequency) spectrum for use by wireless microphone operators has changed a lot over recent years. From the digital TV switchover to the rise of mobile phone ownership, demand for clean spectrum is greater than ever.

As the airwaves the industry operates in continue to evolve, so must the technology that is used. Digital wireless systems have much to offer in securing a positive future for wireless microphones through spectral effic

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