Portugal - An Allen & Heath GLD digital system, comprising a GLD-80 mixer and accompanying AR2412 and AR84 remote I/O racks, have been installed in Casa da Cultura Mestre José Rodrigues auditorium in Portugal's Douro Valley.

The multi-purpose venue, which hosts a variety of events including theatre, live shows, congresses and town hall meetings, needed to upgrade its audio system. The house engineer specified a digital console with recording capabilities that would be practical and flexible.

"After installation, feedback from the engineer was that there was a great impro

UK - Five Production Arts students from City College Norwich recently lit the exterior of London's prestigious National Theatre during its 50th anniversary year, after winning leading British drama school Rose Bruford College's Junior Ready Steady Light competition.

The 'prize' was coordinated by the National's head of lighting resources, Huw Llewellyn - and a pair of SGM's G-Spot LED all-weather spots were ready to test the creative abilities of the fortunate students - selected by Llewellyn and provided by SGM UK.

The students were given advanced training to allow them to gain a m

UK - This year, popular British TV series Celebrity Big Brother evicted each voted out participant along a 'catwalk of shame' under the piercing, bright spotlight of the Clay Paky Sharpy.

Prolific award winning lighting designer, Gurdip Mahal, was tasked with providing a stand out lighting design for the show, which was watched by more than 3m viewers across the UK. Mahal opted for the high-impact effect of the Clay Paky Sharpy in order to deliver a strong rock concert style atmosphere.

"When I set out to design Big Brother my brief was to make it look like a enormous an

USA - The latest addition to the PLASA Focus regional event series is hailed a success, providing over 600 attendees with access to the latest entertainment technology and an impressive line-up of seminars delivered by industry experts.

Exhibitors have been speaking enthusiastically about the quality and number of people they saw at their booths. Frank Brault, industry product specialist at Nemetschek Vectorworks comments, "We met with all of the regional contacts we were hoping to connect with. It's been a fantastic show!" Phil Ion, director of CORE Lighting, adds, "We

USA - To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the appearance of The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Recording Academy, AEG Ehrlich Ventures and CBS presented The Beatles: The Night That Changed America - A GRAMMY Salute.

Featuring many of today's top artists performing songs made famous by the seven-time GRAMMY Award-winning group, the production also included footage from that landmark Sunday evening along with various presenters discussing the worldwide impact of The Beatles. Behind the scenes, it was designer Matt Firestone who was charged with bringing the events l

Japan - Audio company All Access Inc has been appointed as distributor for the full range of Audient products in Japan, including the USB interface, iD22 and the 8-channel mic pre and ADC, ASP880.

Hiyu Nagaoka who runs pro sales, works closely with All Access Inc president Cozy Hattori and confirms the faith they have in the brand: "The Audient products have both superb sound quality and excellent usability, the whole range is very professional."

From the outset All Access has proved they mean business, as Audient products fly off the shelves. One sale of particular note w

UK - On Wednesday 25 June 2014, Oran Burns of d&b GB Education and Application Support will present an Electroacoustics seminar at UK Sales Partner, Orbital Sound's premises, located at 57 Acre Lane, Brixton, London, SW2 5TN.

Achieving intelligibility is the focus of the day for anyone wishing to broaden their knowledge and gain further understanding of the principles of electroacoustics for sound system design and engineering.

"Electroacoustics covers all the essential information in an entertaining way through visual imagery and practical demonstrations," explains Oran.

USA - Christie Lites is opening a Chicago office in Fall 2014. Hard on the heels of a very successful first season for Christie Lites New York, the CL management team has committed to this new full-service warehouse location in the Chicago suburb of Woodridge, Illinois. Details will be announced as they develop in late summer.

This new location in its multi-office rental network marks #14 for this stage lighting and rigging rental company - a number that CEO Huntly Christie considers to be a very auspicious one.

With this addition Christie Lites is adding to an already impressive li

Denmark - With its new Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system, the headquarters of Denmark's Jyske Bank has broken stereotypes in corporate meeting room design. This architectural and sonic showcase has seamlessly integrated Constellation into its everyday use, from board meetings, presentations, and open discussions to videoconferencing, all without the burden of hand-held or tabletop microphones. The system has also opened up abundant possibilities for future entertainment functions for bank staff.

Steen Mertz, director of communications technology at Jyske Bank, partnered with A

USA - Bandit Lites has kicked off its busy 2014 festival season with the CounterPoint Music Festival, where more than 60 artists including Outkast, Foster the People, Pretty Lights, Matt & Kim, and St. Lucia performed on one of the events five stages across Georgia's Kingston's Down 5,000 acres.

The lighting coordination for the three day event was managed by 3srCreative, a new design firm comprised of designers Seth Jackson, Nathan Scheuer, Brent Sandrock and Jack Rushen, who had worked together previously on Selena Gomez's tour. CounterPoint provided a new set of challenges to overc

The Netherlands - Leading lighting company ELC Lighting has used the official opening of its state-of-the-art premises as an opportunity to thank its distributors from around the world for their contribution to the company's success.

At an official and glamorous opening party on 9 May at the company's new headquarters in Gemert, Netherlands, distributors, customers, family and friends were treated to a night of music and celebration with the company's warehouse transformed for one night only into a nightclub complete with bands, DJs and free flowing bar.

ELC Lighting's sales manager

UK - Visual Productions has appointed Qeytek Ltd as its new distributor for the UK market. The first joint venture for the two companies was during a 'wonderful few days' at the PLASA Focus Leeds last month.

Qeytek a specialist distribution company was founded in 2012 by industry known Cally Bacchus, and with the recent appointment of Paul Turner joining the young company and experienced team, the Dutch manufacturer is confident that the technical sales and support knowledge on the range of software and hardware products are in capable hands.

Visual Productions with the support of Q

UK - With an ever-increasing number of end users, Yamaha Commercial Audio UK has taken steps to improve its product servicing, training and customer support by appointing two Yamaha Approved Service Centres.

From Monday 19 May, Yamaha will outsource servicing of the majority of its products to the Yamaha Approved Service Centres (YASCs), which are SSE Audio Group and Berkshire-based Broadcast Service Centre.

In addition, Yamaha is appointing two freelance service engineers to carry out on-site repairs, both for land-based users and the cruise ship market.

"As our product port

USA - For the past 35 years, the 7,500-seat multipurpose Bicentennial Centre Arena in Salina, Kansas has hosted everything from concerts, theatre, circuses and civic events to rodeos, basketball, roller derby and home games for the local Salina Bombers, champions of the Professional Indoor Football League. But while the venue has undergone a number of changes over the years, the original sound system remained in place until Parkway Communications recently installed a new L-Acoustics ARCS Wide and ARCS Focus loudspeaker rig - aka WIFO - for the city-owned venue, which is managed by Phila

UK - Engage Production, specialist in interactive technologies for branded environments, has played a vital part in the creation of five new interactive kiosks at Heathrow's Terminal 5, part of a campaign promoting the British Airways Amex credit card. Engage was responsible for developing the software, based on Adobe AIR. The kiosks are Intel NUCs running Win 7 Pro. The five kiosks are housed in a booth surrounding a giant spinning globe with BA destinations marked on it.

Allowing visitors to input their details for a chance to win 100,000 Avios points, there's also the opportunity t

Australia - Neil Finn is on the road with his Dizzy Heights tour, a show full of lush aural landscapes and exotic arrangements complimented by evocative lighting and a large, fluffy tapestry backdrop created by Noel Crombie and partner Sally Mill.

Lighting designer David Harding began his relationship with Neil way back in the 80's when he was the Vari*Lite tech/operator for Crowded House. Over the years he has built a solid relationship with Neil who didn't even have to brief David on what he wanted for his lighting on the Dizzy Heights tour, such is their relationship.

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UK - Premium performance lighting solutions provider, Chroma-Q have announced their sponsorship of several British racing drivers in the high-profile BTCC and Lotus motor racing Championships.

Chroma-Q are a Premium Sponsor of promising UK racing driver, Jack Goff, in the 2014 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) season.

Jack showed great promise in his debut season last year, including being second fastest for most of the race day at Silverstone and achieving a well-earned second place podium finish in the final round at Brands Hatch, after a climactic battle for posi

USA - Rocky Hill High School is a four-year public high school in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, USA, offering a wide variety of educational, co-curricular, and extracurricular programs. Rocky Hill's dedicated auditorium seats 500 and is used for yearly musicals, band and choir concerts, dance recitals, faculty meetings and outside events.

Unlike many multi-purpose spaces, Rocky Hill's auditorium has good acoustics and a permanent stage designed for theatrical performances. However, the auditorium's sound system, which was installed many years ago, suffered from poor sound quality and feedb

India - Based in the boomtown of Bangalore, DS Pro is the first Indian rental company to purchase Nexo's flagship STM modular line array system. The 108-cabinet system, comprising 36 each of the M46 Main, B112 Bass and S118 Sub cabinets as well as 8x 45°N-12 line monitors and 20x NX4x4 amplifiers, was supplied by NEXO's Indian distributor Sun Infonet.

Bangalore is home to many of India's pro audio companies, and DS Pro joined the scene in 2004. Over the past decade, this dynamic young company has worked on a variety of concerts as well as corporate, religious and educational event

South Africa - Quite literally MGG Productions have done it again! Thanks to the success of a sci-fi concept they came up for a corporate conference held last year, MGG were asked by their client Eventworx to recreate the entire look for the same event hosted in January 2014.

MGG's newly appointed general manager, Denzil Smith, who joined the company in December, took the production to a new level. With a team of professionals at his side including lighting designer from MGG, Kevin Rieck, and the assistance of the impeccable system technician, Thomas Peters (known to drive people mad

USA - Janis Joplin exploded onto the music scene and almost overnight, became what many consider to be the queen of rock 'n' roll. Joplin's voice, filled with raw emotion and tinged with Southern Comfort, made her a must-see headliner. Recently, thousands of fans relived her musical journey through a Broadway show, A Night with Janis Joplin.

A two-hour musical extravaganza featuring non-stop powerful vocals, A Night with Janis Joplin was an intricate show that demanded wireless coverage across the stage. Responsible for the musical's sound design was Carl Casella of Soun

USA - Country music superstars Alan Jackson and Merle Haggard, as well as bluegrass icons Dr. Ralph Stanley and Ricky Skaggs, were among the 130 acts over four days in late April whose tunes wafted pristinely from MerleFest 2014. As has been the case for the past 26 years, DiGiCo consoles processed much of the music emanating from the Wilkesboro, NC festival's 13 stages, helping to cement MerleFest's reputation as a highly celebrated perennial American music event.

MerleFest was founded in 1988 in memory of Eddy Merle Watson, son of bluegrass legend Doc Watson, as a fundraiser for Wil

China - Since opening in 1989, the Hong Kong Cultural Centre has served as Hong Kong's premier cultural venue and in order to cater to a variety of performing arts, the Centre, located on the waterfront of Victoria Harbor in Tsim Sha Tsui, houses a number of top-class facilities including three major performance halls.

One of those is the 2,019-seat Concert Hall and although the venue was fitted with an adjustable acoustic canopy to ensure quality acoustics, a mock-up extension of the over-stage reflector was installed in August 2013 to improve acoustic performance of the extended sta

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