Fringe Records - The Edinburgh Fringe has broken last year's box office record by selling almost two million tickets. The three-week long arts festival sold 1,955,913 tickets, up more than 5% on last year. Festival organisers calculated that there were 40,254 performances of 2,453 shows in 259 venues across the city.

Fringe Society chief executive Kath Mainland said: "Edinburgh is without doubt the world's leading festival destination." In addition to official venues, the Fringe High Street Events team registered 662 acts from street performers to buskers and Fringe a

UK - Surrey-based QuiteLoud Pro Audio has completed a series of Fohhn PA system installations in UK churches. A range of the German manufacturer's loudspeakers, amplifiers and remote control hardware and software has been installed in Sunfields Methodist Church Blackheath, St James's Church Muswell Hill and Christ Church Tunbridge Wells.

At the recently re-built Blackheath church, QuiteLoud worked alongside architects during the construction process to ensure that the PA requirements were successfully accommodated.

"Fohhn loudspeakers were specifically chosen for their interior

UK - Extreme water sports came to the gentle seaside town of Harwich in the form of the UK's National Powerboat Championships, using Electro-Voice sound reinforcement systems for a beachfront concert stage as well as a kilometre-long 100V line of ZX1 full-range speakers, one of the longest set-ups of its kind.

Offshore powerboat racing in the UK is both challenging and highly competitive. The sport is administered by the Royal Yachting Association, which this year encouraged the incorporation of a music festival into the annual national championship event. The day's racing was rounded

USA - Located in Charlotte's Music Factory entertainment district, Butter NC is an 8,300sq.ft space that has taken the Charlotte club scene to a new level, with lush design concepts, superior service, and a sound system that envelopes up to 400 guests with an upbeat mix of electronica, hip-hop and top 40 music.

Local design and install firm Eye Dialogue chose Turbosound TCS speakers to pump up the volume and provide distinctly different vibes on Butter's two levels, each with its own DJ.

"It's a total visual experience; they pulled out all the stops in designing this space,&quo

Italy - RCF's new 4- coaxial transducers feature a lightweight neodymium magnetic structure, excellent linearity and high efficiency. The design is powered from a large-sized single neodymium ring magnet that provides a high flux density and BL factor. The new hyper-vented aluminium basket and magnetic assembly design provide an excellent heat dissipation and lower power compression, says the company. Special air-forced ventilations are provided for voice coil, magnet assembly and basket.

All the models, except the CX12N351, feature a 2.5" voice coil combined with a fibreglass fo

USA - Justin Bieber is in the midst of a whirlwind tour, playing cities across the continental US.

Back in February when tour preparations were in negotiations, monitor engineer Tony Luna staked his claim on a DiGiCo SD8-24. "The budget dictated that we had to use a smaller console than on previous tours and the SD8 had all the features and power that I was used to in the SD7. It was pretty much a no-brainer that that's what we were going to need on this tour. I had first mixed on one at the NAB convention this April and had a cool experience on it. Plus, the audio quality was ex

Qatar - Doha International Tennis Court in Qatar recently hosted the acclaimed Indian Bollywood pop singer, Sonu Niigam.

Maestro Sound & Lighting Company located in Bahrain, was the provider of sound, lighting and video backdrops for the major force of the Indian music industry, with the help of tour manager Vincent Rodrigues and event manager Shafiq of Regency group, who helped coordinate the event.

Maestro achieved "excellent sound quality" at the Doha International Tennis Court, which holds approximately 10,000 people. The venue was not originally designed for outdoor m

UK - Baldwin Boxall will be demonstrating a VoIP solution (VIGIL VoIP) for the first time on its stand at PLASA 2010. The products, developed in conjunction with Archean Technologies, add further flexibility to our VIGIL2 systems.

Using an existing Ethernet network, the products provide a flexible public address system with many facilities. Text-to-speech, live paging, stored messages, timed message, timed volume adjustment and realtime log (including fault reporting) are just some of the functions available. There is also a facility to communicate with passenger information display (

UK - Australian Monitor will showcase a host of products at PLASA 2010 including its AMD series of mixers and power amplifiers and the new Revolution Series DSP.

The AMD series of mixer and power amps represent "a significant step forward in connectivity, controllability and flexibility for constant voltage amplifiers", allowing integration to third party control systems, PC enabled control and remote control panels. The optional on-board DSP processing provides EQ, dynamics, delay and level control to completely customise any setup.

Revolution series DSP has been over fou

UK - PLASA 2010 will host the European début of the latest products in the expanding IC Live family of digitally steerable array loudspeakers - with a 'world first' from Renkus-Heinz, in the striking shape of the new IC2, or 'IC Squared'. Also new to Europe is the CF/CFX Modular Point Source Array, a groundbreaking solution for today's small and mid-sized venues, including auditoria, night clubs, theatres and houses of worship.

IC2 combines the control and flexibility of Iconyx digitally steerable technology with the power and focus of a point source loudspeaker, creating the w

UK - Console manufacturer Midas is actively seeking to recruit new R&D talent, doubling the size of its current team of engineers.

More than 20 hardware, software, DSP and FPGA design engineers are being sought for positions in Kidderminster and Manchester.

The announcement comes just six months after the acquisition of Midas Klark Teknik by the Music Group. The move follows a declaration at the time of purchase to invest substantially in Midas product development.

"I am incredibly excited about the way that we can now develop the company, thanks to the Music Group," say

Italy - ChiMiama has recently opened at the former Mercedes Headquarters in Piazza Kennedy, not far from Milan's Trade Fair Center, Fiera Milano. ChiMiama is a new restaurant stretching over a wide open space where Proel was called in to design and install a professional audio system.

It is not only a restaurant, rather a "new and revolutionary concept". Four gastronomic islands offer specialties from different cuisines and various happenings are staged throughout the day. The necessity imposed by the aesthetic choices combined with the need for quality sound led to the requ

UK - The Bryant DTL MiniBlox range of distribution and conversion modules can solve many integration problems with one small, reliable standalone unit, says the company. The range is designed as the quick fix to get things running whilst still at full broadcast specification.

"Our customers find these units essential to have on hand when an installation isn't running quite as smoothly as hoped," says a spokesman. Suitable power supplies and racking systems are available to order separately.

The most popular palm sized fixes are: 4206 1x6 3G-HD-SD Re-clocking Distribution A

Denmark - City Kirken in Arhus has undergone a major refurbishment. One of the church members Peter Rasch reports, "The church completely renovated the building within which it lives. The main worship room was always intended to bring a fresh modern feel and the church members all agreed that we should employ the equally modern technologies of communication, sound, light and video, but with sensitivity. This is not the place for Iron Maiden, but it is a place where people should be excited by what they see and hear."

The Church Committee sought Rasch's advice, "My caree

UK - Entec Sound & Light supplied sound and lighting equipment plus 19 crew for a non-stop get-in, show and performance marathon Night of Bliss, the biggest ever Christian Conference in the UK - for the Christ Embassy Church at the O2 Arena.

The event featured various Christ Embassy ministers who delivered blessings, prayers and sermons to the crowd. Speakers included Pastor Anita and Pastor Chris Oyakhilome. A live worship band and a choir of over 1000 voices accompanied them. The whole event was also recorded for DVD.

Entec's heavy schedule demanded some nimble logistics, s

Germany - Running from 5-8 August, this year saw the second edition of the Burghauser Konzertsommer mini-festival, featuring four evenings, four genres,and the backdrop of Burghausen Castle. With acclaimed performances by jazz star Roger Cicero and his band, Austrian bard Peter Cornelius, German Volksmusik charmer Hansi Hinterseer, and the similarly well-received Night of Musicals gala, it was a formula that proved successful once again this year. Despite the wet and cold weather, organizers Creative Concerts were welcomed 5,000 visitors.

This year as last, the festival'

UK - Soundking Group, parent company of Cadac Holdings, Studiomaster and Carlsbro, has announced the appointment of Patrick Almond as marketing manager Soundking Group Europe.

Almond, formerly head of marketing for Studiomaster, assumes responsibility for the marketing of the three brands throughout Europe with immediate effect. Almond's new role will see him oversee the group's promotional activities across the professional audio, live sound, theatre sound, AV and event production and MI sectors.

The new position is "a key aspect of group strategy", as Cadac establishes i

UK - The new Biamp Vocia system is a range of products designed to work together as a networked paging and voice alarm system compliant to the new EN54-16 standard.

Vocia offers a high degree of scalability, from simple overhead paging applications to advanced paging systems spanning multiple zones and structures, says the company. With decentralized processing and page routing, Vocia's smart units use network technology to distribute intelligence - eliminating the potential for a single point of system failure. As the first US manufacturer to earn EN 54-16 certification, Biamp built

Vietnam - ARX, the Australian based manufacturer of USB, Digital & Analogue interface and signal processors has appointed Pave System as its new distributor for Vietnam.

ARX managing director Colin Park finalised the distribution agreement at the recent Palme Exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City. "Pave's Jeffrey Lim, Robert Yeo our Singapore regional director and I finalised our distributor agreement during the HCMC Exhibition," says Park. "Pave Systems have been active

in Vietnam for 10 years and ARX is excited to working with Jeff and his team to develop the market for AR

Belgium - The Vlaamse Opera is an opera company based in Flanders with two venues: one in Antwerp and one in Ghent. The theatre in Antwerp is an amphitheatre, semi-circular in shape; it seats 1,180 people. It takes its cue from classical mythology, the ceiling painting in the auditorium depicts Rhythmus, one of the basic principles of all music: a man surrounded by nine female Muses.

During recent refurbishments, between 2004 and 2007, a completely new ventilation system was installed, the chairs on the ground floor and first floor were replaced, and on other floors they were repaired

USA - Jon Bosaw, whose career expands over 20 years in the professional audio field has taken the position of US sales manager for Adamson Systems Engineering.

Adamson is gearing to expand its US market share by strengthening its support for existing users, by building a strong national sales network and support body with a dedicated person at the helm, says the company.

Bosaw will be preparing the stage for the upcoming, and yet unannounced release date of Adamson's new product series, "expected to take the market by storm".

"First we let the products speak for the

Indonesia - Slash's world tour featuring Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge, is currently playing throughout Asia. On two recent tour dates in Surabaya and Jakarta, Indonesia, the sound reinforcement system consisted of Aero and Avant Series loudspeaker systems from Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.

Jakarta-based DSS (Don Sistem Suara), a music and sound equipment rental house that supplies much of the pro audio equipment to music, audio, and broadcast professionals throughout Indonesia, was contracted to provide sound reinforcement services for the two Slash performances. Donny Hardono,

USA - ESTA (Entertainment Services and Technology Association) has announced the finalists in the third annual Rock Our World Awards to be presented at the ESTA Annual Dinner & Awards Ceremony at LDI 2010.

The ESTA Rock Our World Awards were created to honour groundbreaking achievement by its members and to acknowledge the genius of both the creator of the technology and the designer or integrator who applies it in a real world environment. The finalists for the third annual Rock Our World Awards are:

Inverter Pac - Motion Laboratories Inc.

LightConverse 3D Show Plat

UK - QFlex, Tannoy's range of digitally steerable array loudspeakers first launched in 2008, has recently been updated with some major additional features designed to meet a range of industry needs. These enhancements give the product improved functionality and superior capabilities for integration within large scale PA/VA applications, says the company.

The new features that Tannoy has introduced on QFlex deliver more resolute safety and monitoring facilities, making it fully compliant in any life safety or mass notification environment. In addition QFlex has been weatherised for out

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