Turkey - HK Audio will increase its presence in Turkey significantly in 2015, after the German sound reinforcement firm signed an exclusive distribution deal with Yildirim Muzikhal.

The experienced Antalya-based distributor will be taking on the entire HK Audio product line-up - including the pro sound, install sound and MI ranges - in what is one of Europe's largest and fastest-growing pro audio markets from 1 January.

The relationship between the two companies began after HK Audio decided to make a strategic change of distributor in Turkey, and talks intensified when the two firms realized the vast opportunities working together could bring.

Florian Kunz, HK Audio's international market manager, said, "The decision to work together with Yildirim Muzikhal was taken after a comprehensive meeting in Antalya. Our future distribution partner has an outstanding history of p

USA - Symphony Centre, in Chicago's Loop district, is home to the Grammy Award-winning Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) and historic Orchestra Hall. Although the CSO traditionally performs acoustically, when visiting jazz and pop artists stop by for shows using amplified music, the venue now has a new secret weapon - DiGiCo's SD9.

Installed by The Sound Co-Op LLC, the same sound reinforcement company that also provides Symphony Centre's sound system for amplified performances, the SD9 is called into service when visiting artists perform both with and without the CSO, such as on a recent show by Washington, D.C.-based a cappella group Sweet Honey in the Rock.

Symphony Centre's new SD9 console includes the Rack Pack Tour (RPT) package. This combination boasts 72 mic/line inputs (64 being on stage), digital snakes, redundant power supplies (in both console and stage racks), 48 Fl

USA - How do you add extra bam to one of the hottest A-List after parties during the ultra-hip internationally acclaimed Art Basel art show? At Mansion Nightclub, the answer was obvious, sometimes blindingly so, as 38 Nexus 4x4 Panels from Chauvet Professional created a searing and intense design at the VH1 + Scope party.

"Lighting designer Joe Paradise and the VH1 Production team created an awesome design that took full advantage of the Nexus panel's intensity," said Jorge Tellez, who was lighting director for the Mansion/Opium Group at the time of the party. "The panels were positioned to create a three-dimensional effect using Mansion's current LED system. They were rigged in three different positions, on the stage, front stage truss and main room truss. The arrangement provided a very nice depth illusion and an interesting lighting effect. The panels were also

USA - A collection of roughly 175 COLORado 1-Quad Tour par-style LED fixtures from Chauvet Professional provided by Barbizon Lighting Company were used to help illuminate and enhance the more than one million lights at Busch Gardens Tampa's Christmas Town.

Most of the fixtures provided external lighting for the attraction's impressive 50' tall tree.

(Jim Evans)

USA - The Sheraton Houston Brookhollow Hotel is an all-purpose hotel that recently refreshed its meeting and banquet rooms with a dynamic lighting scheme that includes decorative colour looks from Elation LED Flex Tape, a high-output yet energy-efficient solution.

As with many hotels that keep a close eye on overhead costs, energy savings was at the forefront of the new design but because the hotel specializes in wedding receptions and cultural weddings, system designers Louis Kong Architects sought a product that offered more than just the typical ambient lighting.

Jay Cid of Elation rep firm PSLP (Professional Sound and Lighting Products) introduced Louis Kong Architects to Elation Flex LED Tape, thin and flexible RGB LED tape with 40mm centres that can be cut to any length and easily installed no matter the size or shape of the space. After Jay provided on site demos, Louis

UK - London-based large format projection specialist, The Projection Studio (TPS) created a stunning festive projection onto the central tower at Windsor Castle, which was enjoyed by all residents and visitors to the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, Berkshire, over Christmas 2014.

Ross Ashton and his Projection Studio team were approached by Windsor's Town Centre manager Paul Roach after the success of Ashton's works commissioned by LOCOG for the London 2012 Olympic Games, which saw the same tower on Thames Street illuminated, together with two others, a display that attracted over 85,000 visitors to the city centre.

Aston, who has also projected multiple times onto Buckingham Palace as well as numerous other structures and buildings worldwide, was delighted to be involved in the project. "It was an excellent piece to create in terms of imagination and style, it is

Norway - W-DMX by Wireless Solution Sweden AB recently joined legendary Norwegian alternative rock band Seigmen on stage for a three-day show in Tønsberg, Norway, lit with an impressive rig designed by lighting designer Petter Nilssen.

In total, five universes were run via W-DMX by Wireless Solution. Nilssen used W-DMX F-2500 G4 and three W-DMX BlackBox F-1 G4 MK2 units with 16 W-DMX Micro R-512 G4 receivers spread across 4 truss sections and the floor. The concert received "fantastic" reviews both in Norway and abroad.

Nilssen explained, "The reason for choosing W-DMX was to be able to not have several universes sent through the audience with cables, and to really test W-DMX in different situations. I used 5 DMX universes all sent wirelessly. The possibility to easily change the design without having to deal with a lot of cables that needed to change was

USA - The interactive Beatles tribute show, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah (Y3), made its New York appearance at 42West, a venue that served as a mid-town Manhattan parking garage, before being transformed into one of the city's hippest nightspots.

The low ceilings of the former parking structure created a special challenge when it came to lighting the group's performance. Lighting designer Ben Danielowski met this challenge in impressive fashion by utilising the zoomable prism on Legend 230SR Beam from Chauvet Professional.

"The club is a fantastic venue that's very popular in New York," said the LD. "However, as a former parking structure it does present some challenges when you're trying to light a rock show. With 12'-14' ceilings, and large support beams blocking most of my first choices of angles, it was difficult to get many of the great clean shots I was able to

Canada - Elation Professional's new SixPar LED multi-chip PAR colour changers are being used to colour several areas of Foresta Lumina, an illuminated night trail through the forest in Parc de la Gorge de Coaticook, a top tourist attraction near Quebec.

Wanting to attract a larger and more diverse group of evening visitors, the park commissioned media and entertainment studio Moment Factory to create a multimedia experience in the natural forest setting. Moment Factory's creative team took inspiration from the legendary characters found in folk tales from Quebec and around the world.

After dark, visitors explore the park's charms at their own pace, experiencing a scenography featuring lighting effects and video mapping accompanied by an original soundtrack. All along the 2 km 'garden of wishes' trail visitors meet fascinating beings that lead them into a fully immersive advent

Malta - Over 200 Clay Paky fixtures including the popular A.leda and Super Sharpy recently provided exciting lighting effects for the 2014 Junior Eurovision Song Contest held in Malta. Lighting director Nick Malbon and creative director John McCullagh specified the setup with stunning results.

The Junior Eurovision Song Contest (JESC) is an international song competition first organized in 2003 by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). The competition has many similarities to the wildly popular Eurovision Song Contest from which its name is taken. Each participating broadcaster sends an act, the members of which are aged between 10 and 15 years old. They must perform an original song to compete against the other entries. Viewers from the participating countries are invited to vote for their favourite performances by televoting and there is also a jury from each participating cou

UK - On a street that boasts the most famous front door in the world, it's fitting that the Downing Street Christmas tree is a vision to behold. Over the holiday period, the tree outside Number 10 appeared countless times on television news reports. So when Future Group Lighting Design was asked to do something a little out of the ordinary to coincide with the International Year of Light, Doughty Engineering was brought on board to provide some expert advice.

Peter Phillipson, award winning lighting designer and Principal at FGLD explained "Back in August we were asked to design something special for the Downing Street tree that signified the International Year of Light without looking like a corporate sponsorship. We considered many types of projection but went for backlit motifs resembling baubles in order that it could be left unmanned."

Turning to artist friend I

USA - The Masonic has been a landmark in San Francisco since opening in 1958 and is now operated by concert promotion company, Live Nation. The venue recently underwent a massive renovation that included the addition of a new concert stage, luxury VIP boxes and flexible, tiered open floor space for both general admission and seated shows-which brought capacity to 3,300.

Among the several major enhancements unveiled, The Masonic now features a new stage lighting system with more than 45 of Martin Professional's MAC Viper and MAC Aura fixtures.

Developed by San Francisco-based Impact Lighting, which began working with Martin Professional in 2003, the new lighting design was tailored specifically for the flexibility of the new space to ensure optimal lighting for every event held at the venue.

"Live Nation initially requested a state-of-the-art lighting system," said

USA - At the New Jersey Performing Arts Centre (NJPAC) 2014 Spotlight Gala presented by The Women's Association, attendees would be treated to a night of Tony Award-winners in a production entitled Nothin' Like A Dame. Behind the scenes, lighting designer Al Crawford of Arc3design was asked to create a complete lighting design that captured the full spirit of the leading ladies of Broadway. To do this, Crawford needed a lighting instrument that could offer him a wide array of performance capabilities so he turned to 4Wall New York who supplied him with VL4000 Spot luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite.

"This was my eighth year with the event and every year is a new story to tell," began Crawford. "When looking at the lighting tools to use, I first look at each event space and how to best tell this story through light. For the evening's performance, I needed a f

Poland - Aram was once again a supplier of multimedia and a part of lighting for the New Year's Eve stage that was built in Wroclaw, Poland. This time almost 400sq.m of LED curtains and screens and several hundred lighting fixtures from Clay Paky, Robe, Vari Lite and Fourlight were deployed.

New Year's Eve in Wroclaw city was, by all accounts, an amazing event. Leading Polish stars and foreign artists performed on the stage accompanied by finalists of The Voice of Poland. During the six hours of the show, the audience gathered on Wroclaw main square and viewers watching on TVP2 channel, enjoyed more than 50 "Greatest Polish and European music hits".

Aram was responsible for the multimedia and part of the lighting equipment. The set-up included the main screen, screens for the audience as well as the complete system to control lighting and multimedia based on f

Denmark - The Audio Engineering Society (AES) has issued a call for papers to be presented at its 58th International Conference on Music Induced Hearing Disorders.

This is the second AES conference on the topic, and will continue the important task of presenting and discussing advances in the state of the art in hearing loss diagnosis and prevention, as well as strategies, technologies, and devices related to safe yet impactful music production and reproduction. The event will take place at Hotel Comwell Hvide Hus in Aalborg, Denmark, 28-30 June, 2015.

Researchers from both the audiology and pro audio fields are invited to submit papers for presentation at the conference. Proposed topics for presentation include: Music versus Noise as an Exposure Agent; Hearing Exposure Measurement and Control Devices; Sound Level Management for Live Events; Active and Passive Hearing Protecti

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd. has announced their appointment as the exclusive UK & Ireland distributor for the GLP range of award-winning LED lighting solutions. The company has also confirmed its appointment as exclusive UK & Ireland distributor for the Dynamic Audio Device (D.A.D.) range of audio solutions.

The GLP agreement follows AC-ET's success supplying the innovative impression LED moving heads line-up and other GLP products to various entertainment sectors, and helping to strengthen the brand in the UK market.

GLP president, Mark Ravenhill, commented, "It's great to be working with AC-ET as our exclusive distributor. They have a highly committed team of people and we are looking forward to working with them all, to promote and grow GLP in the UK and Ireland."

AC-ET's UK sales director, Jonathan Walters, commented, "We're delighted

UK - Six high brightness Panasonic projectors will be used to light up King's College Chapel as part of the 2015 e-Luminate Festival in Cambridge.

Panasonic will once again sponsor the festival (11-15 February) and will team up with 3D projection expert Ross Ashton to project on to the iconic chapel.

Hartmut Kulessa, European product marketing manager at Panasonic said, "Digital mapping is becoming an integral part of how we celebrate at many public events. It is a relatively new and exciting way of engaging audiences, so we are delighted to demonstrate the best of digital mapping as part of e-Luminate 2015."

This year's festival is one of the UK key events to mark the United Nations International Year of Light celebrations.

Alessandra Caggiano, festival director and curator, added, "We have invited talented individuals from the Arts and Technology to collab

Korea - Through the diligent work of their South Korean distributor, Marshall Pro Sound, Inc., Amadeus speakers are now the centrepiece of sound for the Korean Congress in the general assembly hall within the National Assembly Hall building, located in the heart of the country's capital of Seoul. During the past 10 years sound requirements for the entire The National Assembly building have been managed by Marshall Pro Sound, Inc.

Because of the general assembly hall's environment, the new system required both large hanging speakers and very compact yet high SPL speakers at the podiums. Marshall Pro Sound felt the Amadeus DIVA XS speakers were the solution for the main hall, and Amadeus PMX suited the personal monitoring needs at each podium. The 28-speaker install at the National Assembly Hall is one of the largest and most prestigious in Asia for Amadeus.

Based in France, Ama

Germany - Astera LED Technology GmbH has announced that after many years residing in Rüdesheim an der Nahe, it will now advance to the wealthiest city in Germany; Munich. Being one of the most prosperous and fastest growing cities in Germany, Munich provides Astera with a greater ability to serve its German customers. Transport and infrastructure are much improved, impacting on logistics, product demonstrations and brand awareness.

The sales office will now be twinned with a technical office for immediate customer support, and overseen by Simon Canins, the R&D director at Astera.

Balazs Maar, financial controller at Astera, commented, "There are two main drivers for this decision, which we made after thorough analysis of various options for the location of our office. First, our Rüdesheim office was costly and too large for our needs. Second, moving to Munich will give

UAE - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises (NMK), distributor of Neutrik in the Middle East region for the live sound market segment, is awaiting the first delivery of digital, wireless audio network Xirium.

multichannel wireless network designed to replace analogue audio cables in situations where it could be difficult to run a cable, but where a stable connection and audio quality are needed. The system combines digital transmission and receiving lines in one system and delivers the highest sound quality, reliability and ease of handling.

Xirium has been launched and presented during the ongoing NMK Roadshow which begun in November 2014 in Qatar and is heading to Kuwait on 12 January 2015.

"Demand for Xirium is extremely high. We have already sold three systems within two weeks after product launch in the Middle East region. The system can be used in various app

Europe - Superstar producer/singer-songwriter Pharrell Williams made extensive use of Shure wireless microphone and in-ear monitoring systems on his first-ever headlining concert tour this Autumn. The six-week Dear G I R L tour ran from September to October and took in major venues in Western and Central Europe, including the UK's O2 Arena.

Shure's Axient wireless microphones and PSM1000 in-ear monitoring systems, as used on the European dates, were sold by Shure Distribution UK, and supplied by Wigwam Acoustics in Heywood, Greater Manchester.

Pharrell's regular monitor engineer Jeremy Peters informally approached US-based RF engineer and stage and microphone tech Matthew Bock, of Nashville audio technology vendor Sound Image, early in 2014 for advice about which wireless systems to use on the live dates that were then being planned in support of Pharrell's successful G I R

Canada - Calgary's Epcor Centre is one of the most vibrant centres of the arts in western Canada, annually attracting over 600,000 people to around 960 events. This year the venue has invested in no less than six DiGiCo mixing consoles, the direct result of the positive experience with a single example installed in 2012.

Epcor Centre for the Performing Arts (then known as the Calgary Centre for Performing Arts) was officially opened in 1985 by Dr Martha Cohen, Sandra LeBlanc and Vera Swanson, three women who were instrumental in establishing and raising funds for the facility. It is housed within two historic buildings - the Burns Building, constructed in 1917, and the 1931-built Calgary Public Building.

Covering six floors and over 400,000ft2 (nearly 37,200m2), it is one of the three largest performing arts centres in Canada and features seven performance spaces, five of whic

The Netherlands - Green Hippo will be holding a free conference during ISE in Amsterdam in February 2015.

With the recent launch of Hippotizer V4 media servers and AViary Video Tools, this is an opportunity to find out more, have live demonstrations and hands-on play with the latest Green Hippo technology.

To register you interest in attending the conference please sign up on either of the website links below:

Hippotizer: http://www.hippotizer.com/calendar/70/105-ISE-2015-Show-and-Green-Hippo-Conference

AViary Video Tools: http://www.aviary-videotools.com/ise-conference-2015

(Jim Evans)

USA - In the city that gave us Times Square, New Year's Eve is just too big to be confined to one night. That is why RPM Presents created Big Week NYC, a week-long, heart-pounding EDM celebration, to ring in the New Year with sick beats by superstars like Martin Garrix and Kaskade and a scintillating lightshow created by Kevin Mignone and Mike Gionfriddo of KM Productions using a collection of fixtures from Chauvet Professional.

Held in Manhattan starting 27 December and going on through the wee hours of 1 January 1, the event drew visitors from around the world. Most of the performances took place at Pier 94, a 135,000sq.ft historic dock and warehouse that was converted into New York's hottest pop-up concert venue.

Artists like Carnage, Armin van Buuren and Disclosure rocked the famous Pier 94 stage. This all-star lineup preforming at a world-renowned venue required an intens

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