USA - Katy Perry's glittering halftime show at Super Bowl XLIX in the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona was an eye catcher. Lighting designer Bob Barnhart of LA-based Full Flood chose a large array of amongst others Clay Paky Sharpy, Mythos and A.leda B-EYE K20 fixtures for the 12-minute show. Jason Rudolph, the lighting director in charge of the video system, used a grandMA2 light console to control the projection and inflatable, illuminated orbs.

Super Bowl XLIX marked Barnhart's seventeenth big game and his fifth as the primary or sole lighting designer. He served

The Netherlands - After proving the OCA control architecture in the field on global tours and major music festivals, the OCA Alliance is promoting the OCA message to the wider market.

At and around ISE 2015, several of the large number of OCA member companies exhibiting at the show participated in various activities to promote OCA. These included a presentation to members of the press, to carry the OCA vision of a common remote control standard to the AV industry, as well as presentations to AV consultants and system integrators. Meetings with numerous manufacturers also helped move f

UK - Manchester's Royal Exchange theatre has reinvested in TiMax technology via its recent purchase of a TiMax 2 SoundHub via Autograph Sales. TiMax will provide the audio system management and spatialisation resource for the theatre and the many varied productions which grace its boards each year.

The natural endpoint of the original TiMax Classic Rack system, after 16 years in constant use, coincided with a time of flux in the theatre's sound department. Within a year, the department had turned around so as to be entirely new and justifiably an immediate decision to replace was put

UK - PRS for Music, the organisation that represents over 100,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers, has chosen PMC loudspeakers for the listening room in its new offices in Kings Cross, London.

PRS for Music relocated to Two Pancras Square at the end of 2014. Moving to this prestigious new building gave the organisation the opportunity to create a working environment that was ideally suited to its needs. Part of that process involved installing a dedicated listening room that could be used for any critical listening tasks, including judging entries for the annual Ivor Novel

UK - The award-winning staging, structures and seating specialist will unveil a new name, simplified to Star Events Ltd, a new logo and a new website at the Event Production Show, as it takes formal responsibility for parent company Altrad Beaver 84's events division.

The amalgamation adds crowd control barriers, fencing, mobile grandstand seating and ground protection to Star Events' product range. Existing Beaver 84 contracts, with the BBC, Festival Republic and V Festivals among them, transfer too, along with Beaver's events team.

Steve Tysoe, managing director at Beaver 84 and S

UK - To mark the end of 2014's F1 season Sky Sports created a film called The Ballad of the Duelling Drivers that told the story of the intense battle between Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg. To enhance this special project, lighting director Richard Bowles chose Clay Paky Mythos and Alpha Beam 700 fixtures to deliver stunning effects and sharp beams of light throughout.

Bowles specified three Mythos and eight Alpha Beam 700 fixtures from Richard Martin Lighting for the film, which was created and directed by Sky Sports F1's Alex Rodger, performed by talented composer and piani

France - The World Heritage Centre, UNESCO's headquarters in Paris, was bathed in light from SGM for the two nights of the opening ceremony of the International Year of Light.

Finnish lighting artist and designer Kari Kola prepared a full concept design including light, video and music for a spectacular display at the iconic Fontenoy building during the ceremony. This launched an initiative intended to raise global awareness about the importance of light for the future and for the development of society. 1500 people attended this ceremony including leading diplomats, scientific societ

Finland - For this year's three-day Finnish Cross-Country Ski Championship in Jämi, the organisers were looking for a special starting gate for the sprint day, to provide a rivetting visual appearance for the TV transmission.

Opo's Sound delivered a truss gate and used SGM LED luminaires for perfect winter illumination during the dark hours. Thus, four SP-6 SixPack blinders and two P-5 wash lights were placed at the starting gate, while additional P-5s were used to illuminate Audi's Promotion Arc.

Selected for their powerful output, the SixPack contains six 40W RGBA LEDs while the

UAE - Martin Audio reports that a further production company has this month signed up to its growing worldwide network of MLA users.

Helping to expand the profile of the Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array platform across the Middle East is Access All Areas; the company confirms that it has added a 24-enclosure MLA Compact rig to its inventory, purchased from Martin Audio's Dubai-based distributor, VTi.

Set up by British ex-pat Martin Gravestock and Grant Collins in 2003, Access All Areas specialises in providing turnkey production solutions for the conference and concert sectors. This

Japan - The Nippon Budokan arena in central Tokyo played host to the Fumiya Fujii 30th Best Special Countdown Live on New Year's Eve 2014. The show was the spectacular culmination of a two-year tour by popular Japanese music artist Fumiya Fujii, in celebration of his 'double anniversary' which marked 30 years since the recording of his debut album and his 20th year as a solo artist.

Pivotal to Keisuke Nishi's design for the evening was a bank of 90 Ayrton IntelliPix-R LED panels supplied by Ayrton's Japanese distributor, First Engineering Japan.

IntelliPix-R is a modular beam projec

France - Sono 64 Événements, the NEXT-proaudio's distributor in France, recently designed the sound system for Discotheque Les Vôutes, located in Paris.

The sound system was needed to achieve high sound pressure levels, high quality sound to join the concept of Les Vôutes, an intimate club inspired on the ancestral and historical cellars with exposed stone walls.

The club has a long dancefloor atmosphere, several rooms under the arches welcoming conformable booths and tables. The Sono 64 Événements team designed the system using the X-Line, MA series, L

USA - Electrosonic provided video, audio and control equipment and integration for the new Carol J. and Barney Barnett Learning Centre at The Florida Aquarium in Tampa. The new facility builds on Electrosonic's strong relationship with the aquarium, which includes earlier extensive refurbishing of a portion of the aquarium.

The Learning Centre features a circular main hub area with the lab room, toddlers' room, ocean room, coastal room and green room, branching off of it. The Hub Scenic, part of an introductory experience and presentation for visiting students, is at the core of the h

UK - School Stage, the performing arts installation company offering exclusive provision to schools, colleges and universities, recently completed a project using Chauvet Professional fixtures to add colour and 'wow' factor to a multi-functional assembly hall in the newly built Lees Brook Community School in Derby.

The new school building was commissioned by the Education Funding Agency (EFA) because the school buildings were in poor shape, but no provision had been included for sound and lighting systems. Sensing this was a real opportunity to create the hall as a spectacular perform

USA - The 57th GRAMMY Awards, broadcast on CBS the evening of 8 February from the Staples Centre in downtown Los Angeles, featured an unprecedented 23 live musical performances. With so many artists performing in an RF-intensive urban location, the production team was faced with the daunting task of ensuring flawless audio from everyone's wireless microphones and in-ear monitors.

From the hard-rocking opener by AC/DC to the poignant closing performance of Glory by John Legend and Common, Shure wireless microphone systems, wired mics, and in-ear monitoring systems were a near-co

WhatsOn Winners - Miss Saigon has dominated this year's WhatsOnStage awards, winning nine trophies including best West End show. The record haul follows the musical's return to the West End last year, 25 years after it premiered in London. Former Doctor Who co-stars David Tennant and Billie Piper won best actor and best actress in a play. Tennant for Richard II and Piper for Great Britain. The awards, focusing predominantly on London theatre, are voted for entirely by members of the public.

The new production of Miss Saigon won nine of its 12 nominat

Turkey - When Konya was under consideration as one of the host cities for a future European Championships to be held in Turkey, construction of a brand new UEFA-compliant stadium was proposed.

While original plans set a capacity of around 33,000 seats, this was later upgraded to 42,276 seats - divided over two tiers, with an additional 50 VIP boxes - and the new facility, based in Selçuklu, will now provide the club Konyaspor KR with a state-of-the-art stadium for home matches.

Asimetrik, the Turkish-based distributors and AV system integrators, were awarded the contract to provide

UK - Flare Audio's PA system has been selected due to its 'clarity of sound' for powerhouse electro quartet Node's first concert in 15 years. Node Live will take place in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall at the Royal College of Music in London on 27 February 2015.

The detailed ambient sonic landscape created by the band requires true clarity of sound and definition with even coverage and dispersion, as they fill the stage with an array of instruments and vintage analogue synthesizers, creating both a sonic and visual experience for the audience.

Just two X2As and two X5As will pro

UK - Of all the buildings set within the historic cloisters of Oxford, one that really stands out is the Chapel at All Souls College - one of the city's oldest, whose origins date back to 1438-1442. Built by master mason Richard Chevynton, the original structure of the carved reredos (screen altarpiece) dates from around 1447 but the Chapel was almost completely rebuilt following its destruction by Puritans, followed later by a mid-19th century renovation, heavily influenced by Victorian design ideals.

The chapel contains 40 stalls, for the 40 Fellows of the original foundation and a

The Netherlands - After announcing in December that Integrated Systems Europe 2015 would be the last three-day event before a move to four days in 2016, attendance at this year's show comprehensively demonstrated why ISE has made the move to expand the duration of the exhibition.

In what was Europe's largest ever AV and systems integration exhibition 59,350 registered attendees came to the show between 10-12 February at the Amsterdam, RAI. This represents an increase of 8,347 registered attendees (16.4%) on ISE 2014.

"The volume of attendance confirmed ISE's position as the des

Europe - The well-proven design team of Steven Cohen and his associate Bryan Barancik, have again pooled their creative energies to conceive an ever changing scenography for the Lenny Kravitz Strut tour.

The two designers repeated the magic they had introduced for the earlier 2011 tour, but this time making the centrepiece an automated retro-style overhead sphere, with unfolding petals revealing the light sources, redolent of the global 'superdiscos' of the 1990s.

To animate this mechanical sculpture - which was expertly fabricated by Tait Towers - they populated it with a total of

USA - The Baptist Temple of McAllen,TX opens its doors and hearts to all. This much is evident in the welcoming section of its website, which declares, "We are teachers, lawyers, bookbinders, skateboarders, painters, musicians, and bikers..." It's also plain to see on the church's large stage, which bustles with energy during services, thanks in part to its dynamic band and singers, as well as the vivid light from a plethora of Chauvet Professional fixtures, including six Rogue R1 Spot moving heads.

"This is a very contemporary and dynamic house of worship," said D

Germany - Nexo has announced the appointment of satis&fy, one of Europe's leading full service companies for event production, as a new distributor in Germany. The two companies have been working together since satis&fy invested heavily last year in Nexo STM modular line array systems as well as the latest compact line array Geo M6.

"We've been increasing our sales business over the last few years," explains Martin Ramrath, head of satis&fy's audio department, who will be handling Nexo sales. "To be true to what we're doing, as well as to the market, we are only selling

UK / Sweden - LumenRadio has confirmed another OEM partnership - this time with London based Event Concept. Event Concept is an accredited production supplier to some of London's most sought after venues. They have recently expanded to include their own R&D facility to meet the demands of their partners who often have unique needs to place directional lighting in historically significant buildings.

Event Concept have already put this partnership to work and launched their first in-house designed fixture - the Concept 6 SD, the next step in wireless battery light technology. Developed

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