Korea - NEXT-proaudio has confirmed Avix Tech as its new Korean distribution partner following this year's Proligh+Sound in Frankfurt. Having founded the company 30 years ago, CEO Antonio Correia announced his satisfaction with the appointment made at the company's Rio Tinto headquarters in Portugal on the eve of the exhibition.

"Avix Tech is a very high profile supplier in Korea working closely with systems integrators, broadcasters and consultants," explained Mr Antonio Correia. "With our product portfolio, we see great potential in the Korean house of worship market.

USA - A range of microphones from Audio-Technica was again selected by the audio professionals lending their talents to the recent 30th Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in Cleveland, Ohio.

A highlight of the show was the segment honouring soul legend Bill Withers, who made a rare appearance and an even rarer on-stage performance at the event. R&B singer John Legend and Hall of Fame member Stevie Wonder each performed in this segment using Audio-Technica's 5000 Series UHF Wireless System with AEW-T5400a handheld microphones/transmitters. Wonder performed Ain't No Sunshi

Opera on the Road - Opera is to be toured to theatres around the UK by a new production company that aims to bring more diverse audiences to the genre. HighTime has been founded by Felicity Green and Benjamin Hamilton, who met while studying at the University of Warwick, and is aimed at staging productions for people who would otherwise not have access to opera. Its first production, supported by Arts Council England, will be Engelbert Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, in a new translation by Kit Hesketh-Harvey. It will run at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry, with plans to tour t

USA - Fort Lauderdale-based lighting and video rental company Paradigm Lighting once again delivered a fabulous production, lighting design and kit for the Live Stage at this year's Ultra Music Festival in Miami, with Robe Pointes and MMX Spots at its core.

Paradigm's owner and founder Jorge Valdez has been involved in lighting this stage at the US's premier EDM extravaganza for the last 12 years. The Live stage, located at the 7500 seat outdoor Klipsch Amphitheatre at Bayfront Park, was a major hotspot of the event, and hosted up to eight live artists a day for three days. This year

UK - The recent gala evening for Alice's Adventures Underground saw team White Light venture down the rabbit hole for Les Enfants Terribles' extraordinary new show, nestled deep in the Waterloo Vaults.

Now open for a strictly limited season, the multi-sensory production fuses puppetry, story-telling, music and spectacle with stage technology for an immersive experience. Inviting intimate groups to choose their own adventure, different interactive elements re-create memorable scenes from Lewis Carol's novel, which has just celebrated its 150th anniversary.

The White Light team

USA - At the sold out Invasion Del Corrido concert at the Staples Centre, keeping pace with the swirling passion, colour and intensity of the music on stage was a dynamic lighting design created by LD Brandon Dunning of Visions Lighting. At the heart of Dunning's design was a series of truss structures energized by bright pixel mapped Nexus 4 x4 LED panels from Chauvet Professional.

Dunning used 20 of the Nexus panels controlled with an ArKaos LED Mapper. (He ran the rig using a grandMA 2 Light console.) Eight of the Nexus panels were hung inside a 30' x 25' upstage circular truss str

USA - Yard House restaurants combine a wide selection of "made-from-scratch" menu items, over 100 craft beers, ales and lagers and high-energy classic rock music to create an exciting atmosphere for casual or group dining, happy hour and holiday celebrations.

No Static Pro Audio of Burbank, California designed and installed the audio and video systems for the newest Yard House which opened in Kansas City in April 2015.

Eugene Gordon, No Static's CEO says, "The restaurant's brand image has a focus on classic rock so the owners want really high-quality foreground music

USA - It is the hope of every museum to help make history come alive, and with an 11,000 year old history as rich as the Cherokee nation, the Museum of the Cherokee Indian had no shortage of inspiration. In 1998, Visual Terrain, Inc. designed lighting for the newly renovated space, and was awarded the IESNA's prestigious Edwin F. Guth Memorial Award for Interior Lighting Design.

In 2014, the museum called when they could no longer get parts for the 1998 dimming and control system. Upon visiting the museum, Visual Terrain CEO Lisa Passamonte Green noted, "They had started to upgra

USA - With spectacular staging, big-screen displays, theatrical lighting, all-encompassing sound and close to 20,000 spectators at every event, this year's Passion Conference - Passion 2015 - looked more like a major rock concert than a religious event. But the Passion 2015 event is actually three full days of music, inspirational speeches, video, lights and stagecraft designed to bring 18 to 25 year olds closer to Jesus Christ.

An annual event since 1997, the Passion Tour has grown exponentially, with this year's conference presenting three separate events this winter to sold-out cro

USA - The University of Alabama at Birmingham has made a long-term investment in the self-powered Meyer Sound Lyon linear sound reinforcement system. Installed in the 1,330-seat Jemison Concert Hall at the school's Alys Stephens Performing Arts Centre (ASC), Lyon provides impeccable clarity and headroom for lectures and concerts ranging from classical and jazz to pop, rock, gospel, and reggae.

"To meet artists' riders and put on shows that consistently satisfy audiences, we simply couldn't do better than the Lyon system," states Adam Stermer, technical director for the ASC.

UK - Local authorities around the UK, faced with providing an ever increasing number of services from diminishing budgets, have been introduced to an elegant integrated 'one button' webcasting and audio/videoconference facility by Jon Hunnisett of technology specialists, Sound Advice PA Installation Ltd.

In designing a system that enables separate video and audio streams to be combined, councils can engage more with their constituents by allowing sessions to be web-streamed and viewed over the internet.

At the heart of his solution is RCF's intuitive Forum 9000 digital conferencing

Belgium - Earlier this year, Elation partner Fratuer near Antwerp, Belgium, supplied and installed a new Elation lighting package in Red&Blue, the city's largest gay club and the biggest in Belgium. Red&Blue, which has stood as a pioneering nightclub in Antwerp for more than 17 years, hosts crowds of partygoers each night, as well as a slew of parties throughout the year. The club sought to create a new experience for its customers and chose to upgrade its existing lighting system.

"Together with Frateur and Red&Blue management, we started out with some drawings to get our though

USA - Pretty much anywhere in the world, state funded school budgets are tight, so most cannot frequently upgrade technology; and when they do invest in classrooms, gyms or theatres, they have to make the right choice since they'll be using it for years to come.

When Nevada's Clark County School District needed to upgrade its aging theatre equipment, the district - which spans 9,000 square miles and includes Las Vegas - chose ETC Ion lighting desks to bring its 37 theatres into the 21st century.

An Ion is now in all 35 Clark County High School theatres and its performing arts high s

UK - Theatre consultancy Charcoalblue is continuing to expand its operations by opening its first UK regional Design Studio in Bristol.

The Bristol Studio is located next to the oldest continuously working theatre in the UK, and one of Charcoalblue's first commissions: Bristol Old Vic.

"We're thrilled to have opened up a new studio in the City of Bristol where our team of designers can work to deliver exciting projects in the South and West," says Charcoalblue's managing partner, Andy Hayles. "We spent some time looking for the right space and location and are delighted to b

UK - As befits an event devoted to physical conditioning, the pace was nonstop high energy at the International Fitness Showcase 2015, which drew 3,500 fitness instructors to Blackpool Winter Gardens for three intense days of Pilates, kettlebells, spinning, pole fitness, Zumba, step aerobics, street dance and other activities. Helping to pump up the action and motivate participants at the annual event was a collection of LED fixtures from Chauvet.

Oliver Wilkinson, lighting designer and engineer at Arranpaul, which supplied lighting, sound and AV for the event utilised a variety of co

USA - A multitude of fans were entertained by Philip Selway's solo performance, which used Allen & Heath's iLive-T112 at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio, California, USA.

Philip Selway, best known as the drummer in Radiohead, performed nearly an hour long set Sunday evening at Coachella, Weekend 2. Selway didn't play drums but instead sang and played the keyboard in the Gobi tent.

The audio engineer for Selway's solo tour, Gavin McComb, explains how the Allen & Heath equipment is currently being used. McComb controls the FOH mix, while the band controls their o

USA - Even in the depths of January, Red Bull's Crashed Ice event in St. Paul, Minn., drew more than 100,000 people to a weekend of after-dark competitive ice cross downhill skating. Spread out over three square miles of the city center, the massive track and viewing area required hundreds of Martin Professional fixtures to be properly lit. Lighting designer Paul Guthrie of Toss Film + Design Inc. was brought in by Red Bull to lead the layout and design of all the lighting fixtures for the event.

Crashed Ice takes place four times a year in world-class cities such as Helsinki, Belfast

USA - In Manhattan, the heart of the city that never sleeps, creating something spectacular can be a challenge. The New York Spring Spectacular starring the Rockettes does justice to the word. Animated statues, rain, 3D video, moving video screens, and more, all make this show something to behold.

An RC4Magic Wireless DMX and Dimming System delivers subtle and not so subtle effects that help make this show great. Act 1, Scene 1: Grand Central Station, complete with its world-famous ticket counter and clock, centre stage. Lights are controlled using RC4Magic Series 3 wireless, and that

USA - A Motionless in White concert is not for anyone expecting a predictable metalcore experience. Sometimes described as "horror metal," the iconic group never fails to surprise and unsettle audiences by pulling unexpected tricks out of its musical bag, whether it's a shattering blast beat that bursts out of nowhere in the middle of a verse or a haunting keyboard effect that leaves audiences looking over their shoulders. The band's headline performance at the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival was no exception, arousing the crowd with its unexpected twists and turns.

Denmark / USA - Neets is entering the US market in cooperation with its new distributor Starin Marketing. Starin is committed to creating the foundation to make Neets Control Systems the natural choice for classroom and meeting room control by integrators.

With over 100,000 control systems deployed, Neets has focused on developing reliable, user friendly and effective room control systems for the AV-integrators around the world. Configuration of the control systems is straightforward without code complexity with Neets Project Designer software.

Starin and Neets recognize the essenti

South Africa - Set and lighting designer, Joshua Cutts from Visual Frontier, used one grandMA2 full-size, one MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) and grandMA2 onPC for back-up on Miss South Africa, hosted at Sun City's Superbowl. Cutts explains that the beautifully lit HD televised production, with the set and full technical supplied by Dream Sets, went back to a fashion show feel.

Gavin Wratten was the producer and director from Sic Entertainment: "The show concept came about as Gavin talked me through his ideas," commented Joshua Cutts. "He wanted to go back to a fashion

South Africa - Mediatech Africa, the largest media and entertainment technology trade show for southern Africa, will be staged this year from 15-17 July at the Dome at Northgate, Johannesburg. Staged biennially, Mediatech Africa presents the latest technologies and trends to southern Africa's broadcast and film sector and rapidly-growing live event and AV systems integration industries.

The exhibition area will feature over 130 exhibitors including manufacturers and distributors, and over around 700 brands, while the conference running alongside will cover the latest trends in AV and

UK - A QSC Q-Sys audio management system, supplied by QSC's UK installed sound distributors Shure Distribution UK, has been installed at London's Twickenham stadium, home of the Rugby Football Union (RFU). The Q-Sys platform, based around a pair of Core 1100 processors (one main and one redundant Core), routes audio and controls the PA and Voice Alarm systems at the venue, and replaced an outdated Peavey Media Matrix system.

2015 is a big year for the RFU. As well as hosting key matches in the annual Six Nations Championship in February and March this year at Twickenham, the ground wi

UK - Hoist UK has been UKAS accredited against the provisions of OSHAS 18001: Occupational Health and Safety Management. The OSHAS 18001 accreditation adds to their ISO9001: Quality Management and ISO14001: Environmental Management accreditation obtained previously.

Hoist UK director, Tony Dickson comments, "Achieving the ISO9001, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 is a major milestone in our overall business strategy and reflects the responsibility that Hoist UK's management team and employees have always taken to ensure that we look after our customers, employees and our business at all t

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