USA - At the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre(CST), a Meyer Sound M1D line array loudspeaker system is optimised to provide audio support for everything from Shakespearean dramas to contemporary, high-energy musicals like Follies, Sunday in the Park with George, and Gypsy. Designed to meet specific architectural challenges, the system was supplied by long-time Meyer Sound dealer TC Furlong, Inc. of Lake Forest, Ill., with logistical coordination by Jeff Cech.

The 18 M1D loudspeakers in CST's 500-seat Jentes Family Courtyard Theater replace an aging, point-source centre cluster. "The Courtyard was designed like the Swan Theatre in London, with very high surrounding balconies and a deep thrust stage," explains James Savage, head of sound at CST. "The system also has to cover the room's 270-degree spread."

The new centre cluster of eight M1D lo

USA - The summer Broadway season is heating up and the Tony Awards are just around the corner. Both long-running shows and new productions are getting accolades for their incredibly ambitious and striking lighting designs that are created with the latest technology. In every show on Broadway, ETC equipment plays a big part in accomplishing the awe-inspiring lighting creations, especially ETC's trusted lighting control systems, which can be found in nearly every Broadway house.

ETC's Eos control family - made up of Eos Titanium (Ti), Gio, Ion and Element desks - is the most prevalent on Broadway. The family was developed to be both designer- and programmer-friendly with its powerful software and direct programming syntax. "Most desks are designed solely for the programmer," explains ETC Eos product manager Anne Valentino. "We paid attention to what the lighting des

USA - The 1,500-seat Worship Centre at the Centerville Campus of Fairhaven Church in Ohio has been in the process of renovation for the past few years. Installed just in time for this year's Easter services by Scenic Solutions was a 135-panel Elation Professional EPV6 LED video screen with high resolution 6mm pixel pitch.

"We chose to go with an LED wall due to our desire to 'future-proof' the Worship Center and set us up for the next decade or more visually," explains Mike Rall, who heads a full-time video staff at Fairhaven

"The debut of the LED wall at our Easter services provided an incredible visual experience for the nearly 8,000 attendees that weekend as we were able to create custom in-house videos that spanned the entire length of the wall, really tying in the themes of our songs and other special elements together well."

Dan McLaughlin, a partne

USA - GrooveBoston stages some of the most legendary dance parties in the US, and each year produces a college campus tour taking their unique, fun-loving atmosphere on the road for the full enjoyment of their enthusiastic audience. A massive part of creating that "electro-awesome" experience is ensuring that production values are high and that the design and technical elements of the show are equally as spectacular and memorable as the music!

Nathan Almeida from East Coast Lighting & Production Services (ECLPS) has had the honour, for the past eight years, of ensuring that all the energy and magic coming from the stage reaches right out and touches everyone in the audience... and this year he had the help of some Robe moving lights for the GrooveBoston Vitality tour.

This year's Vitality theme embraced life, liveliness and the general feelings of being in a natural

UK - The organisers of what promises to be the best ever Farnborough Air Show yet which takes place on 19-20 July, have called on Showhire, one of Europe's leading public address and communications hire companies to provide the public address and communications system for the site. For this enormous project, involving literally many miles of top quality cable, Showhire turned to VDC Trading and the prestigious Van Damme range.

Showhire director Nick Chubb explained, "We specialise in the sports and corporate events market, providing services to a massive range of events throughout the UK and Europe, and have a substantial portfolio of customers across the spectrum of outdoor, indoor and corporate events. Farnborough is not only a massive flying display, the Airshow's trade expo is also the biggest outdoor exhibition in Europe. There is really no time for replacing faulty ca

Australia - Entech Connect has announced a session that gives attendees "unprecedented access to international experts who actively influence what is coming next in lighting technology".

A panel of key lighting industry stakeholders from both design and manufacturing sides of the business will discuss the latest advancements in industry technology, and how it is influencing the industry.

Facilitated by Joseph Mercurio from University of Melbourne, the esteemed panel includes: LeRoy Bennett, Seven Design Works; Steve Brown, NDY Light; Todd Hensley, Schuler Shook; Josef Valchar, Robe; Paul Collison, eleven Design; Peter Johansen, SGM.

"This session will be an exclusive insight for the industry, with access to the opinions of many influential stakeholders. I will be asking them about a diverse range of topics such as future light sources and the impact of energy

USA - Getting into Mamajuana isn't always easy. On weeknights the upscale club is packed with New Yorkers dancing to the hottest Hip-Hop, Top 40, Bachata and Salsa music. On weekends it may be an international Latin star like acclaimed Bachata artist Raulin Rodriguez who's packing them in. Still, the owners of the popular club did not want to rest on their laurels, so they revamped Mamajuana's look recently, giving the chic nightspot a new colour palette, not with paint, but with the Legend 412 LED moving head from Chauvet Professional.

"Essentially, we have 're-colourized' the club," said LD Jason Ayala of Jason Blends (New York). "We went away from the traditional heavy club colours that were used before, to more elegant purples, cyans and blues. These more rounded colours better complemented the carved wood architectural elements that a very talented designer,

UK - Pixels has supplied and configured 30 BrightSign HD players for the London Film Museum. Creative Technology, working on behalf of the museum, commissioned Pixels to supply, configure and support the media players.

Audio video is central to the concept of the museum. The reception area is filled with a 4m, 12-screen video wall and screens throughout the exhibition show information about the films featured as well as clips from the movies themselves. These screens provide a highly effective backdrop to the exhibits.

Jonathan Sands, founder and chief executive of London Film Museum, says, "Ultimately, when it comes to ensuring the public is well-informed, everything has to be as simple as possible in terms of the journey and the experience. The minute you walk in, everything's visualised - you're never in the dark."

The London Film Museum regularly hosts private

Sweden - Audio technology provider Dirac Research has announced that they have reached a licensing agreement with Pioneer Corporation. Pioneer plans to utilize the Dirac HD Sound technology to "deliver superb audio playback from their next generation of loudspeakers".

The first speakers to utilize the technology is the Pioneer Desk Live series, a lineup of powered speakers with a sleek, modern form factor slated for desktop computer applications as well as audio enthusiasts seeking high performance from smaller, stylish loudspeakers.

The objective of the new product line is to deliver high resolution and precise staging from a near field design using engineering innovations from Pioneer combined with Dirac's award-winning digital audio processing. These technological advances have enabled Pioneer to deliver unprecedented accuracy and musicality from an attractive lif

Slovak Republic - Founded in 2010, Stone Post Production is based in Bratislava, Slovak Republic. Offering full video and audio services, with a main focus on television and advertising projects, a new Yamaha Nuage installation has radically enhanced one of the facility's sound studios.

Founder Tomas Zavarsky has over 15 years experience in post production and as a director of TV commercials and promos. He opted to radically improve the company's audio workflow by replacing a mouse and keyboard with the much faster, more flexible and intuitive control solution offered by Nuage. The installation also included a Dante audio network, using the Nuage PCIe card and interfaces.

"We have been using Steinberg Nuendo in audio post production for about seven years," he says. "We knew that one of the best ways to make our audio DAW work most cost-effective is to control it

UK - Downtown Bristol was buzzing with great music and vibes last weekend for the third Love Saves the Day Festival, a multi-stage event in Castle Park in the heart of the city. Headliners included Annie Mac, SBTRKT, Jamie xx, Eats Everything and many more.

For the first year, lighting and visuals rental specialist Fineline - also based in Bristol - was asked to supply lighting equipment, LED screens / media server control, rigging and a visual production design for the Main Stage ... which seriously upped its production values from 2013 in line with the profile of the festival which sold out its 12,000 capacity on both days.

Fineline's MD Rob Sangwell commented, "We were delighted to be asked on-board by festival organisers, Team Love, as we are really committed to partnering on locally based shows and events. We presented two design options for the stage from which they

UK - FOH engineer, Dave McDonald, selected his favoured Allen & Heath modular iLive system for the US and European tour of Broken Bells, an American indie rock band composed of artist-producer Brian Burton (better known as Danger Mouse) and James Mercer, the lead vocalist and guitarist for the indie rock band, The Shins.

McDonald, whose clients include Adele, Air, Frank Ocean and Florence & the Machine, chose an iLive-112 Surface with iDR10 Mixrack, with the addition of a Dante network card delivering up to 64 channels to a recording rig.

The tour will continue into the autumn and is in support of the band's first studio album. McDonald is utilising many of iLive's renowned built in FX to emulate the band's recorded sound, including the Symphonic Chorus, ADT Doubler and Echo Chorus.

"There's so much going on with the band's vocals - it's very 'Beatles-esque' and psyched

Brazil - In Sao Paulo, the first edition of Miss Supranational Brazil was held recently. All 26 Brazilian states participated in the contest with their respective representatives in order to win the national title.

The contest was held at the Shopping Eldorado, Sao Paulo. Rental company Barella Eventos provided a wireless CRMX Nova DMX system containing one single universe DMX transmitter and multiple single universe DMX receivers to control the lighting rig throughout the show.

Explaining the choice, Barella Eventos founder and general manager, Giancarlo Barella said the decision was based on reliability and the need for a time effective setup. "When you are working with beauty contests of this magnitude, every moment of the night is special and crucial. Everything needs to happen at exactly the right time, so there is no room for any delays. A live broadcasted event exp

Europe - London based projection specialist The Projection Studio worked as a consultant for live communications agency Wasserman to activate a pan European large format video projection campaign for the Vodafone Firsts initiative.

This took place via a series of giant projections in key cities across Europe through which Vodafone inspires and engages people to do something remarkable for the first time using mobile technology.

Projection Studio's Ross Ashton and his team were asked on-board by Wasserman's Production manager Mark Bustard after seeing their work in the same capacity for Jack Morton Worldwide at London's New Year Eve celebrations and festivities along the South bank of the River Thames. The projections then were onto the Shell Building.

The latest project involved conducting comprehensive site surveys in all eight cities - which included Budapest Sapientia Col

USA - DPA Microphones recently joined cello-rock group Break of Reality as advocates for the importance of music education in schools. In conjunction with its tour schedule supporting its latest album, TEN, the group hosted a month-long Music Education Tour, making its way to at 10 school districts across the US.

At these stops, students attended workshops and performances hosted by the quartet to learn about the art and appreciation of music. In an effort to provide music programmes with the opportunity to experience quality technology, DPA Microphones donated three d:vote 4099 Instrument Microphones to Edmond North High School (ENHS), in Edmond, OK, deemed by the band to be the school in greatest need for an audio solution.

"Next year, we will be kicking off our Strolling Strings programme, the first of its kind at Edmond," said Peter Markes, orchestra direc

Poland - Lighting designer Sebastian Pachciarek used a variety of Clay Paky fixtures in his rich lighting design for the celebration concert of the late pope Saint John Paul II at the Divine Mercy Sanctuary in Krakow, Poland.

Pachciarek put together an elegant lighting design for the large outdoor stage that was careful to complement the show's large LED video element. Inspired by the colours and architecture of the church, the classic design captured the attention of hundreds of local and international pilgrims that had come to Krakow to celebrate the sainthood of the late pope.

"It was important to remember that this was no ordinary show," explains Pachciarek. "This was not a jazz or pop concert but a celebration of huge importance to those present, so the lighting had to be exactly right. In addition it was being filmed for broadcast, so in addition to it bei

UK / Brazil - The recent AES Expo in Sao Paulo provided an opportunity for pro-audio UK brands to test the water in one of the world's most vibrant and rewarding markets - Brazil.

Under the umbrella of the APRS / UKTI national booth which branded itself as the 'GREAT British Audio Embassy', companies from the pro-audio, live sound reinforcement and broadcast sectors shared a single space at the AES Expo and Convention. It attracted a steady flow of new customers and existing clients cementing over £750k of immediate business, plus a catalogue of future deals that are making the prospect of South American trips increasingly alluring.

Brazil offers an enormous domestic market but is also seen as a gateway to the entire South American continent.

The success of these exploratory trips, which have enjoyed considerable government support, has encouraged the APRS, the MIA and

UK - The historic Royal Opera House (ROH) in London's Covent Garden has worked closely with the lighting division of A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd - an official UK sub-distributor for the High End Systems product range - to seamlessly upgrade their Wholehog III house video control desk to the flagship new Hog 4 console.

AC-ET's senior technical sales executive, Ben Taylor, was invited by Gareth Shelton, deputy manager of the ROH's sound & broadcast department, to demo the Hog 4 console in-situ to the venue's technical team.

Gareth comments, "Our department looks after all aspects of video projection on main stage shows. Specifically, we use our console for video projection programming with our media servers, so it was really important to ensure that the upgrade would provide a more powerful console capable of satisfying the venue's increasingly ambitious pro

France - The Zenith de Strasbourg recently played host to a magnificent cine-concert of the first film of Disney's hit Pirates of the Caribbean series, The Curse of The Black Pearl. The film was screened in front of 6000 people to the accompaniment of the Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra complete with a 24-strong choir who brought Klaus Badelt's magnificent soundtrack to life.

The Zenith de Strasbourg, which is the biggest indoor arena in France was packed to the rafters for this spectacular one-off event. Strasbourg-based rental company, Lagoona, were brought in to supply the PA system, and Lagoona in turn, called on digital audio networking specialists, Espace Concept, to supply and manage the FoH console, microphones and networking. For the very first time, Espace Concept used an mc256 console from Lawo.

The suggestion came directly from Lawo's Hervé d

Chile - The Vina del Mar International Song Festival (Spanish: Festival Internacional de la Canción de Vina del Mar) is a music festival held annually since 1960 in Vina del Mar, Chile, and considered one of the most important musical events in the Americas.

Staged at the Quinta Vergara Amphitheatre, the festival features a song competition with two categories (pop music and folk songs), interspersed with performances by international music stars from around the world, encompassing a diverse mix of genres like rock, multi-lingual pop, merengue, salsa, reggaetón, bachata and many others.

To deal with this variety in the music lighting designer Luis Pastor trusted in a highly flexible lighting control - the grandMA2. In total he used an MA System comprised of two grandMA2 full-size, two grandMA2 light, four MA NPU (Network Processing Unit), six MA 2Port Node and two MA VPU plu

Spain - YCD Multimedia has announced its participation with Coca-Cola in creating the Coca-Cola lounge at this year's CineEurope 2014 convention in Barcelona, Spain, June 17-19 2014.

Working in close cooperation with Littlebit Technology, as well as NEC Displays Solutions and Intel, YCD brings a rarely seen immersive digital signage solution to the Coca-Cola lounge. Coca Cola is the main sponsor for this year's CineEurope show and "it was important for us to help Coca-Cola showcase a complete digital signage solution for cinema complexes," said Eran Sharon, VP product management for YCD Multimedia.

From box office ticketing, concessions, future film promotions and wayfinding, each solution shown addresses today's Cineplex needs and business goals while incorporating immersive and experiential elements to enhance the movie-going experience. Content will be presented i

UK - Contemporary UK folk band Bellowhead celebrated their 10th anniversary with two high profile shows at London's Royal Albert Hall and Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, for which lighting designer Emma Thompson created an eye-catching scheme which included Robe CycFX 8s, Pointes, LEDWash 600s and LEDBeam 100 moving lights - all from Robe's Robin range.

Emma has been working with the band for the last three and a half years. They tour regularly each year in autumn and spring and she is also a big fan of Robe products. The lighting design for these two special shows referenced that of the last tour but on a vastly expanded scale, with a big increase in the amount of kit used, most of which was supplied by Southampton based rental company, GLS.

"I've always used Robe fixtures in my Bellowhead shows," says Emma. "It's great technology, very solid and there is always

UK - Engage Production Ltd, specialist in interactive technologies for branded environments, has supplied technology and technical expertise to the world's first Bloomberg Hub, which has been unveiled at London City Airport. Engage supplied a digital display, media wall with audio distribution, as well as all the hardware necessary for technical integration.

The Bloomberg Hub provides "timely and relevant news, data, and information within a visually-compelling, technology-driven space". Engage's electronic wizardry, along with Bloomberg's rich content and design, all combine to create an interactive, energetic, and functional space devised "to make the business traveller's journey more productive, more efficient, and more enjoyable".

"It's a great privilege to be asked to work with Bloomberg again, particularly on such a big project and a world's firs

USA - When Sound Designer Darron L West and associate sound designer Charles Coes were looking to create a dazzling audio experience for William Shakespeare's fantasy play The Tempest, they turned to Masque Sound, a leading theatrical sound reinforcement, installation and design company, to provide a custom audio equipment package.

The Tempest is a co-production between The Smith Centre for the Performing Arts in Las Vegas and the American Repertory Theatre (A.R.T.) in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The play premiered under a big top tent in Las Vegas on 1 April and is now playing at the A.R.T's Loeb Drama Centre.

The Tempest tells the story of shipwrecked aristocrat Prospero and his daughter Miranda who wash up on the shores of an enchanted and strange island. They find themselves immersed in a world of trickery and amazement, in which Tom Waits' and Kathleen

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