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14 March 2016

A major challenge in designing lighting for The Who in recent years is that no smoke or haze can be used, which immediately rules out certain types of lights.

Tom has been using LED sources increasingly in his designs, and decided to continue that theme on this current tour. A large video system features an upstage LED screen, so any lights had to be potent enough to punch through the ambient lighting levels. He also decided to incorporate LED pixel panels in his design, which amplified the need for a very strong LED wash light. The LEDWash 1

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14 March 2016

The team at the Playhouse Theatre, which opened in 1998, recently took a decision to replace its existing dimmers. Phil Viney from Design Stage was engaged to prepare a specification that would directly replace new for old dimmers in the 850-seat venue.

Due to space limitations and the existing dimmers' footprint, any replacement dimmer ideally needed to be a small footprint unit that could easily be distributed around various locations in the venue. The only alternative available at the time was to use rack-mounted dimmers - however, such a solution would occupy valuable floor space, be more expensive and more difficult to

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14 March 2016

"With the Cooper, we decided to go beyond what anybody else was doing in our region," states Randy Pryde, president of Movie Palace, Inc., operator of Studio City Mesa. "When it came to audio, we didn't want to compromise. As one of my partners remarked, 'You never have to apologize for quality.' So we decided to move out in front of all the competition with Meyer Sound."

The auditorium's new system comprises three Acheron 100 screen channel loudspeakers, 16 HMS-10 surround loudspeakers, and six X-800C

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14 March 2016

The day's main music performances and speeches were held at the main square in front of the entrance.

"These are the projects where the Dreamlines prove to be unbeatable," says Peter Ellegeest (engineer ASL). "Events like this are about many things but not about sound reinforcement. Intelligibility and HI fidelity music should simply be there. Inconspicuous, up and ready to play in minutes rather than hours, predictable coverage, predictable sound quality. It proved all easy work with the Dreamline."

The programme also included concerts, guided tours, exhibitions, debates, meetings with MEPs and EC Commissioners,

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14 March 2016

With no available barge capable of providing the required 'foundations' for a two-bedroom house, replete with kitchen, living room, bathroom and garden, Star Events built a bespoke floating structure, which was licensed by the Port of London Authority.

Star came to the event via a wave of other waterborne showcases, Jaguar and Cortana among them, and worked with regular collaborators, including Setsquare Staging and Livett's Launches, to bring it to fruition.

Taken from order to completion in just four weeks, the project was launched on the River Thames and sailed straight into a celebration of media coverage on Monday 18 May.

Star Events' p

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14 March 2016

Lighting designer Gabe Hodge built on the previous year's design which consisted of 18 lamp bars with six GRN LED pars per bar, six Color Kinetics Colorblaze 72 LED strip lights, and eight Elation CUEPIX WW2 Blinders which replaced the four GRN 8-lite moles.

"I knew that I wasn't going to use the colour features on the 8-lite, and I also wanted more fixtures to spread out amongst the rig," said Hodge. "I was able to get eight of the Elations, and I really liked the way they updated the design."

The GRN Pars and Elation Blinders were spread out across the downstage, mid stage

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14 March 2016

The format of the show in the Caernarfon Suite at Celtic Manor Resort in Newport, south Wales, was a conference and presentation during the day, with the room transformed in a rapid 60 minute turnaround between 6 and 7pm to a gala dinner and party.

Entertainment featured magic from Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee and live music Bjorn Again.

The CPL team was led by Lee Gruszeckyj, who created a stylish design based around the exceptionally tight timescale involved - an intense 24 hours of activity.

"Central to the design was it being achievable in

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14 March 2016

Floyd Central's new Elation lighting rig, purchased from Phoenix Lighting of Louisville, Kentucky, was part of a recent school lighting renovation and Mary Poppins was the first show to have the new gear available.

Floyd Central High School's director of theatre arts, Robbie Steiner, produced and directed the production and also designed the scenery. Concerned a couple of years ago about the quality of their theatre's lighting, he approached school administrators to see what could be done to begin upgrading their outdated system.

"Our school auditorium was constructed in 1981 and the bulk of the fixtures we were using were from that time period," he says. &quo

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14 March 2016

Only recently announced at Prolight + Sound, the Leopard line array loudspeaker and its accompanying 900-LFC low-frequency control element are the smallest and most versatile members of Meyer Sound's flagship Leo family.

"After listening to the Leopard system, I was not only surprised but shocked," recalls Martin Štefanek, managing director of Hurricane. "I couldn't believe a system so small and lightweight would have such enormous power and brilliant sound - not to mention the simplicity of the rigging and connections."

For Eenorm Facilitair, flexibility and sonic performance are key to the purchase decision. "We were stunned at the sound quality of Leopar

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14 March 2016

The Quantum Profiles are the latest addition to Blue Parrot's large moving light inventory which includes 30 MAC Aura washes, 24 MAC 101 units and a mixture of the flagship MAC Viper series of products: Profile, Performance and Wash DX models.

"We've had a great experience with our Martin MAC Aura and MAC 101 fixtures over the last few years," says Dave Morris, head of hires, Blue Parrot. "They're reliable and versatile lights in diverse applications, so it makes sense for us to invest in the Quantum Profile to continue offering the latest and best equipment to our production and dry hire customers."

A number of high-profile technical produc

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14 March 2016

Motown Magic - Motown the Musical is to open in the West End. The musical, which premiered on Broadway in 2013, will begin previews at the Shaftesbury Theatre in February 2016. The show had initially been planned to run at the Dominion Theatre. Featuring more than 50 Motown tracks, the musical tells the story behind the record label's success.

Motown f

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14 March 2016

One of the College's key aims is to expose their students to a wide range of ideas and concepts relating to the various courses offered.

KV2 Audio's involvement in the week-long symposium began with a seminar to students from the BA (Hons) Performance Sound (Live Design and Engineering) course, members of the in-house technical team as well as a selection of people with a general interest in high quality audio systems.

The 300-seat Rose Theatre hosted the seminar beginning with a presentation

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14 March 2016

Rob Nevalainen, who said this only last month, has many good reasons to celebrate Perpick's sense of adventure. "A little over a year ago my company Gearforce needed to invest in a good medium size PA system. What were the choices? There weren't too many large US audio companies close to the Canadian border, so the field was open. We first looked at the d&b audiotechnik V-Series not long after it came out. We liked it immediately for its natural sound and its great power to weight ratio." Not that he made a purchase straight away. But to understand why he eventually did, it

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14 March 2016

The new production - due to tour in 2016 - has a narrative based around the world's most famous cruise liner, from its beginning at the famous Harland & Wolff Shipyard in Belfast, to its tragic end at the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Conleth was given an open book when it came to the lighting design. He's been using Robe's Pointes frequently for lighting musicals and likes to integrate the myriad of beam options possible using these fixtures into the choreography, and this proved "A great opportunity to do the same with an Irish dance show".

For Titanic Dance, he utilised 24 Pointes, 12 600E Spots, 12 ColorWash 1200E ATs, fo

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14 March 2016

Kenny has used Chauvet Professional's Nexus panels on a number of his projects since the company first brought him some demo versions to try out. "I've used the Nexus products on a lot of my shows and always wanted to use them on The Who," says Kenny. "They have some very cool effects inside. They give me a great effect; they're very bright; and they can light the whole arena. They're just very powerful and they give lots of different variations."

For this tour, because it was the band's hits, Kenny wanted to go for a clean rock look. "Since I use a lot of the Nexus panels on my other projects, I knew for this design t

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14 March 2016

Held in memory of ex-Deep Purple keyboard player Jon Lord, Celebrating Jon Lord at the Royal Albert Hall featured performances from many of his friends and band mates. The resulting album, for which DMZ Live recorded and mixed all versions, has subsequently reached number one in the Music Video charts (Blu-Ray and DVD) in four countries.

DMZ Live's high spec digital recording mobile was used for the recording stage at the Royal Albert Hall, with the premix done at the comp

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14 March 2016

The main stand was home to the lighting and rigging offering from AED Distribution that includes High End Systems, Prolyte, Columbus McKinnon, SRS Light Design, Swisson, AV Stumpfl, Doughty, Verlinde (Stagemaker) and MediaLas.

Prominent were the latest stage lighting luminaires from High End Systems under the LED RISING Banner, including the SolaSpot Pro 1500 with its 400w White LED engine providing a staggering 20,000 Lumens output and the Shapeshifter C

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14 March 2016

Constellation not only restores the sense of a unified worshipping community that was present in their previous smaller church, but by engaging different presets, it also adds acoustic "life" to the spoken word and energizes both the worship team and the rest of the congregation.

Constellation gives venues the ability to modify their room acoustics at the press of a button, allowing them to host a wide range of events and provide the acoustics most appropriate for them. For houses of worship like Clinton Frame, Constellation offers the ideal sonic characteristics for congregants to feel immersed in t

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14 March 2016

Having begun his career at the legendary Olympic and Townhouse studios, it made sense for Andy to turn to ex Olympic maintenance engineer Paul Wilkes for the installation of the upgrade.

He explained: "Paul did a great job and recommended we used Van Damme blue series cable almost exclusively because of its reliability and suppleness when running it around corners and tight turns. The studio is based around a Pro Tools HDX system with Xmon software and I use an Icon 24 mixing surface which suits me and the way I work. Originally the Icon

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14 March 2016

This first-ever AES Convention to be held in Poland was co-chaired by Bozena Kostek and Umberto Zanghieri, and featured a keynote address by ORF (Austrian TV) sound engineer Florian Camerer, as well as the Heyser Memorial lecture given by Genelec Chairman Dr. Ilpo Martikainen.

Other highlights included the popular Project Studio Expo stage, several unique Tech Tours of local Polish audio production facilities, and a wall-to-wall exhibition area, where attendees were given a first-hand look into the latest professional audio equipment and services from leading manufacturers.

Additionally, as part of the Tech Programme events, the Best Peer-Reviewed Paper Award was presented to Frank Schultz, Florian Strau

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14 March 2016

In the restaurant, accommodating about 100 people, elegant and discreet Audac ceiling speakers have been chosen to provide an elegant and subtle sound. After visiting the restaurant, guests are invited to make their way to the cocktail bar where they can round off the evening on comfortable couches, with good music and classic drinks.

To make good music sound even better, four LDEB82A loudspeakers from the Stinger series were combined with two Stinger Sub 12A G2 subwoofers. Six Cameo Flat Par Cans Tri 3W IR provide the perfect lighting. In the Private Dinner Room, audio systems from L

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14 March 2016

A wide selection of industry professionals from across the installation, live, rental sectors as well as engineers and production managers came to check out the action.

Adlib Director John Hughes explained that the open days were planned in particular to focus on installation and sales potential, and how offering turnkey solutions with leading brands can have a huge impact on assisting venues in being more competitive and attracting new business. He was delighted with the response and turnout as well as the support from the manufactur

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14 March 2016

Robe's general manager for the Middle East, Elie Battah, and his team were joined by Robe International's Nathan Wan and Steve Eastham for the build period, and together they constructed the impressive stand which featured a special Lightshow, designed and programmed by Nathan.

As with other recent Robe exhibition stands, this proved a real magnet in attracting people as well as creating a great buzz and a talking point around the show floor.

Robe also partnered with three dynamic complimentary visual effect companies at PALME ME this year - LPS Lasersysteme from Germany, MagicFX from The Netherlands and fog / haze ex

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14 March 2016

SGM Nordic ab is located in Gothenburg, Sweden with warehousing and central administration, but also includes branches in Norway, Finland and Denmark. Heading SGM Nordic are SGM veterans Mikael Uddh and Steen Geertsen teaming up with well-known industry specialists around the region.

Mikael Uddh explains: "Multiple projects and increased communication on dealer and designer level, including cross boarder coordination, require an organisation that has a deeper regional insight, thus improving operational matters. Therefore, we have set up SGM Nordic."

Peter Johansen, CEO o