Ireland - Production Services Ireland (PSI) supplied lighting, trussing and rigging for the 2012 Live At The Marquee event in Cork, which ran for a month, offering a diverse line up of international artists - from Justice to Christy Moore, Jedward to Jessie J - and many more to cater for all tastes.

It's one of Cork's largest annual events and the second year that PSI has been the lighting supplier, after delivering such a smooth and successful package last year. It was project managed for them by Ciaran Tallon, with the equipment coming out of the company's Dublin facility.

UK - Allen & Heath has launched the ZED60-14FX, a highly compact analogue mixer that is designed for small bands and venues. ZED60-14FX is a companion to the ZED60-10FX launched earlier this year, employing the same 60mm faders but with the addition of an extra four mono/mic channels.

Two of the eight mono channels have high impedance jack inputs that can take a normal line level or a low level input from a guitar pickup, so guitars can be plugged straight into the mixer without the need for DI boxes. These inputs have been crafted to recreate the sound of a classic tube preamp in a c

UK - LS-Live has added Nick Howard into its growing team as head of sales. The stage, set and studio specialist in West Yorkshire has recruited Howard full-time to oversee sales across the business, particularly focusing on its staging equipment rental operation.

With a diverse background in retailing, Howard was previously marketing manager at international sports event management company Byrom Plc, which is responsible for all aspects of logistics, ticketing and accommodation packages for the World Cup and the Ryder Cup events. He has also worked in design and marketing for global m

UK - Wannabe rock stars from schools across West Yorkshire got a taste of stardom at the weekend thanks to an initiative from West Yorkshire Police, in association with Backstage Academy and LS-Live.

The second annual Battle of the Bands event saw nine student bands battle it out in a professional live environment in front of their peers and a judging panel that included Jude Abbott from Chumbawamba, on Sunday 15 July.

Horbury High's group Uneven Symmetry were crowned the winners of 'Best Original Song' and St Wilfrids' group Mongoose in the Pumphouse won 'Best Performance'. The ban

USA - Music Group has announced the appointment of Steve Young to the role of vice president, installed sound. In his new role Young takes overall responsibility for Behringer's Eurocom line and will oversee all product, marketing and market development activities aimed at installed applications worldwide.

"Steve comes to us with what I would consider an ideal background in installed sound, spending nearly 16 years as a sound contractor designing and installing systems before serving 12 years at Atlas Sound, most recently as VP sales & marketing," says Costa Lakoumentas, sen

UK- XL Events supplied audio and video equipment for two of the Škoda display areas at the recent 2012 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Chichester, West Sussex.

One was in the Moving Motor Show where approximately 40% of visitors entered the event, and the other was at Škoda's Pavilion stand in the main exhibition area. Commissioned by A1 (Events & Exhibitions), based in Milton Keynes, XL Events was asked to provide video screens for both the inside and outside walls of the main Pavilion.

The main challenge when specifying the LED for the outer wall was to identify a

Turkey - Music fans in Turkey have been treated to a series of online 'unplugged' concerts during the first half of 2012, with performances by five of the country's brightest up-and-coming bands broadcast online by promoter Hafifmuzik. Each watched by 8-10,000 people, the sessions were mixed by engineer Cagan Tunali on a DiGiCo SD8.

The bands - Melis Danismend, Malt, Büyük Ev Ablukada, 123 and Multitap - were chosen as the most suitable for the target audience of young Internet users who were looking for quality music. High profile Turkish engineer Cagan was asked by the project's o

Russia - The city of St. Petersburg welcomed the long-awaited premiere of City Lights an original ice show based on the famous 1931 Charlie Chaplin film. Produced by Russian ice dancer Ilya Averbukh, City Lights is a grand production that features Martin lighting effects and no less than seven Olympic and 11 world figure skating champions.

The performance demanded the highest quality lighting and Ilya Averbukh invited Alexey Mastryukov to create the impressive design. "A show by Ilya Averbukh is definitely a terrific and top quality project so of course you expect t

Germany - HK Audio's has extended its Elements series with the introduction of Elements Plus and Elements Install.

The Elements Plus E 835 is a mid/high unit that "provides even greater flexibility and power than its older brother (the E 435) when you want to set up bigger systems". Loaded with eight speakers, it can handle 300 watts at 8 ohms' impedance. The E 835 and E 435 mid/high units' design and tuning are identical, so combining them is easy.

The new E 210 Sub AS system subwoofer comes with two 1,200-watt amps in its engine room. Power amp number one drives the two

UK - Allen & Heath has released a major firmware and driver update for its recording console, the GS-R24. The new firmware includes integrated support of the HUI protocol for direct integration with DAW applications with HUI MIDI control presets, such as ProTools and Reaper, and users also benefit from a range of enhancements to the FireWire interface driver.

HUI, which synchronises DAW software and connected hardware devices, is now emulated by three virtual MIDI ports in the GS-R24's new firmware, tunnelled over the mixer's FireWire connection. This means that for GS-R24M mixers equ

USA - Anne Minors of Anne Minors Performance Consultants will be one of four panellists to present a session at NATEAC 2012. Entitled Efficient Design Ideas for Theatres: How To Do More With Less, the session will explore ideas around how to maximise design efficiency in projects with modest budgets.

Minors will bring her knowledge and experience of 27 years of design - during which time she has designed over 100 rooms for concerts, opera and theatre - to the table, lodged in the AMPC quality trademarks which have earned the company its well-deserved reputation and numerous awa

UK - South London-based production and audio rental company ARC Sound has recently invested in a package of Coda Audio stage monitors.

Comprising 20 Cue Two and Cue Four monitors, they are the first Coda products that ARC Sound has added to its inventory. Managing director James Dougill was introduced to Coda products by UK technical sales manager Gareth Jones, who says, "I have known James for many years and I know that he is a real stickler for quality and attention to detail. I was sure that he would appreciate both the features and performance of the CUE-Series monitors."

UK - Lift Turn Move has announced the appointment of Dan Holme to director of the Entertainment Division.

Lift Turn Move are a lifting company with two main markets: Industrial & Entertainment and over the past few years Dan Holme has been spearheading the growth of the Entertainment Division. Over these years, LTM have seen a steady increase in the number of enquiries coming from theatres, venues and other fixed-installation projects, which is a change from the touring market that they were used to.

John Jones & David King credit this shift to the introduction of the LoadGuard hois

On Tuesday 11 September, Lighting Designer Durham Marenghi and Associate LD, Tim Routledge will present 'A Triumph of Illumination - The Diamond Jubilee Concert' as part of the International & Major Projects sector of the PLASA Professional Development Programme.

Durham first got his hands on a lighting desk whilst still at school back in 1974 - all ten channels of it! Things have moved on a little since then; the range and diversity of his CV is second to none. From Roger Waters' performance of 'The Wall' that celebrated the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the closing ceremony of colonial

UK - In response to rider requests, rental company SSE Audio Group has recently added a significant quantity of Audix microphones to its hire stock, which will be in use on stages across the UK throughout the summer festival season.

Distributed in the UK by SCV London, Audix microphones are rapidly gaining in popularity. SSE has purchased a number of D6s, OM7s and TM1s, which will be in constant use over the coming months.

"The D6 is becoming a very popular kick drum mic, which many of our clients have been requesting. They are turning up on almost 50% of the channel lists of b

UK - Professional audio technology specialists HHB Communications has been appointed by digital console manufacturer DiGiCo as its broadcast dealer in the UK and Ireland.

DiGiCo's introduction of a broadcast specific feature set for its range of digital consoles has put the power and flexibility of their innovative console architecture and advanced software into the hands of broadcast engineers.

DiGiCo MD James Gordon explains that the appointment was a perfect fit - "HHB is a highly-respected company in the professional broadcast audio market and a trusted source of expertise

UK - Chauvet has announced its sponsorship of Knight of Illumination Awards, held in London on 9 September 2012.

The awards ceremony, organized by STLD, ALD as well as Clay Paky, is an opportunity to recognise outstanding achievements in lighting design by lighting designers in three main categories: television, rock events and theatre, as well as one special category for lifetime recognition.

It's a wonderful chance to support and award outstanding work in lighting design where both established and new designers are acknowledged," said Darren Jackson, national key accounts man

Austria - Robe moving lights and LED fixtures - around 135 in total - were again specified by lighting designer Helmut Krammer to illuminate the 2012 Summer Night Concert, staged by the Vienna Philharmonic orchestra in the sumptuous setting of Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna, a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The seminal cultural event was attended by over 100,000 people and beamed live by national broadcaster ORF2 and 3sat to approximately 60 other countries.

The Robe fixtures were used to light four key areas in Schönbrunn Palace's extensive and very beautiful gardens - the main an

Austria - MEB Veranstaltungstechnik is the first Adamson Metrix partner in Austria. They are located in Leondig in Upper Austria near the city of Linz. This small format sound and lighting hire company established by Martin Lang and Markus Six about 10 years ago employs freelancers as needed.

Their main engagements are business and corporate events, design and installation services for permanent installations, and live performances for audiences as small as 100, up to a few thousand people.

MEB first heard the Adamson Metrix PA at a demo which took place in Munich, Germany. Adamson'

UK - Shure Distribution UK (SDUK), the distributor for leading pro audio brands including Shure, QSC, DIS, Sound Devices, Radial Engineering, Monster Cable and myMix, has announced the end of its long-standing UK distribution contract with Taiwanese company Phonic, manufacturer of compact audio mixers, amplifiers, processors and other pro audio equipment for the MI, pro audio and installation markets.

"In January we alerted Phonic of our intent to end our 18-year long distribution agreement in the UK and Ireland," explains Shure Distribution UK's managing director Peter Jame

South Afrfica - Keith Pugin has joined the team at DWR Distribution where he will assist with Prolyte, manufacturing, sales, installations and Prolyft motors.

Seven years ago, Pugin joined Electrosonic SA. He worked in the systems department and did lighting installations including the manufacture and design of lighting bars, custom steelwork and motor controllers. He became a product manager for CM Lodestar & Litec Trussing, providing sales and technical support.

"Over the last two years, I planned to start my own business," said Keith. "Then I decided to come on boa

UK - PLASA has announced the shortlist of nominees for this year's prestigious Gottelier Award.

Named in honour of Tony Gottelier, the designer, innovator and industry commentator who died in 2006, this prestigious annual presentation aims to recognise "the product designers and developers who have made a significant and sustained contribution to the development of the equipment and tools that enable our entertainment technology practitioners to continually push the boundaries of event production, presentation and installation".

This year, a panel of 20 people, all with li

Olympic Countdown - Spectators who attended a preview of the Olympic Games opening ceremony have been urged to keep the details secret and not spoil the surprise for others. Thousands of people who attended a rehearsal on Monday were asked not to circulate images or videos. Danny Boyle, the ceremony's artistic director, reportedly addressed the audience to "save the surprise".

About 62,000 are set to attend the opening ceremony at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, east London, on Friday. The event is expected to be watched by an audience of billions worldwide. Olympic organi

There is an ever increasing demand for sound level measurements and control in the pro audio business. Knowing what to measure and the difference between various measurement types, will simplify daily life for sound engineers, venue operators and concert organizers alike.

In this presentation, Jacob Navne FOH engineer, and inventor of the 10 EaZy sound level measurement system, will provide a brief overview of measurement methods and pitfalls, their application and impact on the same source material, all presented in a very unscientific manner. The goal is to enable attendants to take part i

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