Belgium - Barco and AED Studios, part of AED group, have officially inaugurated 'Barco Virtual World', a virtual experience events hall at the site of AED Studios in Lint, Belgium. The 1.000sq.m hall is equipped with 10 of Barco's high-brightness HDX-W20 projectors and a 90m long screen - the largest in the Benelux region - to provide an immersive virtual experience in full HD.

A longstanding customer of Barco, the AED group purchased the renowned Eurocam Mediacenter in 2013, renaming it AED Studios. The 55,000sq.m site is home to an extensive range of film studios (45sq.m < 3000sq.m)

Sweden - One of Sweden's largest 'theatre show restaurants', Rondo, has upgraded its house lighting system to Chroma-Q Inspire premium performance, energy-efficient LED house lights, to transform the feel and atmosphere of the popular venue.

Situated in Scandinavia's biggest theme park, Liseberg, in the city of Gothenburg, Rondo stages high-class after-dinner entertainment shows and has featured performances from some of Sweden's leading musicians. One of the country's most historic show venues, around six million happy guests have danced, dined and celebrated here since Rondo opened

UK - London-based RTS Communications recently added the Roland VR-50HD AV Mixer to their hire stock, with the unit going straight out the door to local production house Pink Banana Studios.

RTS purchased the VR-50HD from Leisuretec Distribution, who as distributors of professional audio and video products directly to trade customers, hold stock of Roland Systems Group (RSG) products including the VR-50HD. The sale was facilitated by Chris Webster from RSG who had received the initial VR-50HD enquiry from Pink Banana Studios and had demonstrated the streaming and live production featur

USA - Following the success of his 2011 EPIC 1.0 tour, Eric Prydz knew his EPIC (Eric Prydz In Concert) 2.0 shows had to raise the stakes of EDM visuals, and therefore collaborated again with show designers, technical specialists & content creators Immersive to realise a world-class audio/visual sensation.

Hailed by the world's press as an example of boundary-pushing design, London and New York-based show designer Immersive created an enormous set incorporating LED screens rather than projection surfaces, lasers, holograms, smoke machines and other visual effects.

Reviewing the show

UK - Qdos Event Hire, was appointed to provide cabins, luxury toilets and waste tanks to the BRIT Awards for the third year in succession.

The contract was awarded by Brit Awards Production Ltd and saw Qdos supply their cabins for use as production offices and hospitality areas for backstage and the after-show party. They also supplied a range of their luxury toilets to support the existing facilities in-house at the venue. In addition they to installing tanks for catering waste.

The 2014 BRIT Awards, widely regarded as the biggest event in the British music industry's calendar, was

Australia - Since Perth's Concert and Corporate Productions (CCPWA to their friends) purchased their Jands Vista L5 they've barely had the pleasure of its company. And it's that kind of that kind of immediate return on investment that really makes a production company happy. Sean McKernan, general manager of CCPWA, couldn't be happier with its absence. "We got it mid-September and we only had it in our warehouse for 12 hours before it went out on its first tour!"

After purchase from Jands, the L5 flew into Perth to be prepped by the CCPWA crew, and soon turned around and was

UK - 'Juke box' musicals based on the songs of iconic performers continue to enjoy huge popularity in the UK. Ben Elton's Tonight's The Night - The Rod Stewart Musical is currently on a major tour of provincial venues, with a Yamaha CL5 digital console ensuring that the audio production is plain sailing.

Originally staged in London a decade ago, this is the show's second UK tour. Sound designer Rory Madden of RM Sound Design specified a Yamaha PM1D for the 2006 tour, so this time out a CL5 was the obvious choice.

The CL5, a Rio3224-D and two Rio1608-D i/o units were supplied

Belgium - Glenn Roggeman (CEO AED group) cut the ribbon for the opening of the AED studios in the presence of numerous prominent guests from the political as well as corporate scene.

In August 2013, the Eurocam Media Centre - formerly known as the Alfacam Studios, changed ownership after the acquisition by the AED group.

On 1 October, Glenn Roggeman officially started phase 1 of his master plan, "the update" of the studios. During the last five months, neither cost nor effort was spared for this prestigious project. Today, many waste containers, renovations and innovations

UK - XL Video reports the creation of a new 'Centre of Excellence' for media servers and control systems. The team, whose expertise will be available to clients of XL Video worldwide, will be led by Christian Dickens, media server and control systems manager at XL Video UK.

Christian, who has recently joined XL Video, has almost 20 years experience in audio-visual technology. For the last six years, he has specialised in the field of projection mapping and media servers, and it is this expertise that makes him the ideal leader for XL's new team. Before joining XL, Christian's projects

The Netherlands - Yamaha's R-Remote software was only launched a few weeks ago, but it has already made an impact on audiences in the Netherlands, where a short tour by Holland Baroque Society found it "indispensible".

Holland Baroque Society is a collective which is not only keeps baroque music contemporary and frequently performed, but works with musicians from other genres to create innovative performances, albeit with baroque always as the starting point.

Early February saw one of these ground-breaking projects bring the inspiration of 18th century French composer Jean

Belgium - Barco and AED Studios, part of audiovisual specialist AED group, officially inaugurated Barco Virtual World, a virtual experience events hall at the site of AED Studios in Lint, Belgium.

The 1.000sq.m hall is equipped with ten of Barco's high-brightness HDX-W20 projectors and a 90-meter long screen - the largest in the Benelux - to provide an immersive virtual experience in full HD. As a technical partner of Barco Virtual World, Barco is happy to help AED Studios to push the limits of projection and corporate event infrastructure to create a unique experience for AED's custo

Russia - Moscow-based AV company, Proton Centre, specified six Allen & Heath rackmount Qu-16 digital mixers to be installed in the Main Media Centre at Sochi's Olympic Park during the recent Olympic Games in Russia.

The Main Media Centre catered for more than 2000 members of the international media accredited to cover the Competition, and more than 6000 television and radio broadcasters from around the world.

Proton Centre designed the AV system and supervised installation works, whilst its partner company, Sochi-based Tomlux+, completed the sound and video installation on site. The

USA - TMB and AC Power Distribution have celebrated the delivery of the 1,000th ProPower Rack Panel Distribution (RPD) system. The latest ProPower RPD rack was handed over at a special ceremony at TMB's global headquarters earlier this month.

"Our sale of the 1,000th RPD system comes as TMB's ProPower brand continues to enjoy increasing popularity with entertainment and live event professionals worldwide," says TMB sales manager, Stephanie Kilburg. "Continuously enhanced to maintain its quality advantage, ProPower RPD remains the most reliable, versatile (and good looki

UK - High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire-based cross rental facility Dry Hire Lighting has invested in a substantial quantity of new Robe moving lights to boost their available hire stock of Robe fixtures, making them one of the largest rental stockists of Robe fixtures in the UK.

The new purchase comprises of a mix of Robe Robin Pointes, Robin LEDWash 600s and Robin LEDBeam 100s.

Dry Hire Lighting made the move due to an increased demand generally across all sectors for all of Robe products which are appearing with increasing frequency on specifications for concert tours, theatres shows,

UK - West London-based rental company Entec's Sound division renewed its long term acquaintance with Bedales School, supplying a d&b sound system and crew for their annual Rock Concert event, staged in the 340 capacity Olivier Theatre on the school's picturesque campus in Hampshire.

Bedales was founded in 1893 by the innovative educator and author John Bradley with the aim of being profoundly different from other public schools of the day. Putting the key elements of the child's education, welfare and happiness right at the core of its values, Bedales continues to be one of the most s

Czech Republic - Robe has renewed its sponsorship of Czech MotoGP racer Karel Abraham for the 2014 Road Racing World Championship Grand Prix.

Abraham kicks off the 2014 season with a brand new Honda bike and lots of positive attitude.

Says Robe s.r.o CEO Josef Valchar, "Supporting Karel in the Moto GP was a great success for us last year! It provides an exhilarating international event that can be enjoyed worldwide by everyone and a great opportunity for us to offer hospitality and a special experience to our clients and friends."

Last year Abraham had some bad luck and

France - La Chaine parlementaire (The parliamentary channel) is a French television network responsible for broadcasting activity from the National Assembly of France (LCP) and the Senate of France (Public Senat) - made available through TNT digital terrestrial television.

Created in 1999 at the request of the National Assembly of France to broadcast initially twice a week on France 3, by the following year it had also encompassed the Senate of France. Today it broadcasts 24 hours from the Assembly followed by 24 hours from the Senate having obtained its own TNT frequency. This makes

UK - Stage Technologies has supplied a stage engineering system for the newly reopened Everyman Theatre in Liverpool, UK. The system is based on a specification designed by Charcoal Blue consultants and the Everyman Trust that focuses on flexibility and future expansion. This combined both automated and non-powered engineering applications spread throughout the fly tower, thrust grids, and at stage level with a completely re-configurable and removable staging and seating rostra.

Stage Technologies was hired by main contractor Gilbert Ash. The automation system utilises a Nomad Control

UK - X Factor winner James Arthur has gone on to sell more than 2.5m copies of debut single Impossible and see his first, eponymously-titled album enter the charts just one place off the top spot in November 2013.

For Arthur's recent solo headline tour, front of house engineer Darren Mullis employed a variety of Audio-Technica microphones - including an AE5400 cardioid condenser, AE6100 hypercardioid dynamic and AE2500 dual-element cardioid dynamic/condenser - on both vocals and backline.

"When we went into rehearsals with James we had numerous microphones to try for dif

UK - Since 1988, The Australian Pink Floyd Show has been taking the 'tribute act' concept to extremes by bringing the aural and visual spectacle of Pink Floyd's live shows to enthusiastic audiences around the world. The band's current European tour includes a month of UK dates, which start in mid February, for which Capital Sound Hire is providing the audio system.

The tour's venues are a mixture of theatre and arenas, so Capital is supplying a flexible Martin Audio MLA system, comprising MLA, MLAc and WS218x subs with LM front-fills. FOH sound mixed by Jonathan Brooks on a DiGiCo SD8

USA - Louisville, Kentucky, is known for its festivals and special events and the city's annual Light Up Louisville event between Thanksgiving and New Year's is one of its most popular. Elation Platinum Beam 15R Pro moving heads and IP-65 rated ELAR 108 PAR RGBW lights were used for the 2013 edition, which included an extra component, 40 Nights of Lights that featured light projection and a nightly light show set to music.

Designed to bring more citizens and visitors downtown to celebrate the season, Light Up Louisville is a four-block festival of lights and this

USA - Bruno Mars and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers were given a dazzling backdrop to their performances at the Super Bowl XLVIII Half Time show at the MetLife Stadium, New Jersey, on 2 February by Bob Barnhart's spectacular lighting.

Barnhart, of Full Flood, LA, incorporated 220 Ayrton MagicPanel 602 fixtures into his design to enhance the vibrancy and dynamism of the performances on stage.

The MagicPanel fixtures were arrayed in two massive, raked banks which flanked the performance area and served to extend the visual impact of the stage within the massive 82,500-seat stadium. The Ma

Australia - Having regularly used Optocore products for events requiring custom audio distribution, Australian rental staging company, Novatech Creative Event Technology, has now gone further.

The company first adopted Optocore systems back in 2012. According to project manager (audio), James Sacca, "At the time we were looking for a solution that would transport multiple channels of audio as sends and returns. Due to the nature of the particular event, we also needed something that could be quickly cabled after a series of road closures.

The multimode fibre made this an easy t

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