The Day the Music Died - The Music Producers Guild is backing a campaign to ensure that songwriters get a larger share of royalty income generated by digital music sales. Spearheaded by the British Association of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and entitled The Day the Music Died, this initiative will focus on the role and importance of songwriters and composers in the digital music industry. It will press for three key actions - a 50/50 split of gross digital royalty income, the removal of auto-predictive search functionality in search engines, which point people to illegal content and a push for all digital advertising income to be paid to creators for all usage.

BASCA is also asking for more transparency around digital deals and is calling for improved regulation of illegal content on search engines, plus the easier removal of infringing websites and apps. P

South Africa - Durban in South Africa once again came alive with the buzz and the excitement of the 2015 Metro FM Awards, with Robe BMFL Spots taking centre stage - as part of a rig of nearly 150 Robe moving lights - for a stunning stage presentation at the Albert Luthuli International Convention Centre.

Staged for the third consecutive year right in the heart of the city, attended by 4000 enthusiastic guests and VIPs, the massive evening organised by one of the country's leading radio stations was broadcast live on national channel SABC1 and saw the presentation of 20 coveted awards and nine special live performance collaborations.

Co-ordinating all the technical elements was Dream Sets. Their Project manager was Robert Hoey, who was also working on the event for the third year for event producers, Blue Moon. Lighting designer Francois van der Merwe from the Wizardry Group wa

Czech Republic - Often hailed as the 'Czech Pink Floyd', progressive rock legends Stromboli have played a special one-off sold out show at Prague's O2 Arena to celebrate their 30th anniversary, with lighting and set designer Radek Havlicek choosing to use an array of Clay Paky fixtures to complement his impressive volcano-themed set.

Havlicek, of design agency and rental operation Pink Panther, worked alongside his colleague Petr 'Panki' Volek to choose 50 x Clay Paky A.leda Wash K10, 20 x Sharpy, 12 x Alpha Beam 1500, 24 x Alpha Spot 1200 and 12 x Shotlight Wash fixtures for the vibrant and immersive design, which was centred upon a vast volcano set piece to represent the band's name.

"We rigged some of the Clay Paky fixtures on ringed trussing around the volcano," explains Havlicek. "We positioned 14 of the K10s, which we used for vibrant washes of colour, on

UK - As one of the few UK partners selected to join the new Soundcraft Vi network, Liverpool-based Adlib has been consolidating its growing fleet of VI6 and Vi3000 consoles - for rental, sales and installation.

Confirms director Dave Kay, "The Soundcraft Vi series remains our first choice of console in view of its simplicity, reliability and usability. We provide regular training for potential users, backed up by a great service and support team."

Despite making an immediate commitment to the company's new Vi3000 hybrid - investing heavily for both sales and rental stock - he emphasises that the Vi6 shows no sign of letting up, even after eight years.

"This is because the software and feature set has evolved over the years, making it still very much a current product which continues to be specified," he says. "In 2015 we have already had the consoles

UK - Warner Music UK has chosen the reliability and quality of the Chauvet Professional PVP S7 LED video panels for showcasing the latest music videos at their West End offices in London's Kensington Borough.

The 3-by-2m screen, consisting of 24 individual PVP S7 panels, was installed to project content visible from the high street over 500m away, by Emiror Research, a team of specialist audio consultants who pride themselves on creative and innovative electronic installations.

The company attends to the audio and electronic installation needs of Chappell Music and Atlantic Records amongst other prestige clients. The screen forms the public part of a larger installation of screens throughout the property. Run via the proprietary Chauvet VIP drivers, through a HD Kramer switching and matrixing system, the screen updates an older Barco product.

Emiror Research CEO, Giles Smith

Denmark - When the specifiers of the aesthetically stunning new build Musikkens Hus (House of Music) in the northern Danish city of Aalborg were planning the venue in 2009, they filled it with some 250 traditional tungsten Source Four fixtures. Although by the time the venue opened, the rig seemed outdated, with the help of ETC's Danish distributor Bico, the venue nevertheless ended up with the most up to date lighting products on the market, including ETC Gio control, Sensor3 power control and over 50 ETC LED fixtures.

The project was first specified - and budgets allocated - when LED fixtures were still in their infancy and would not have been relied upon as a venue's main house lighting; tungsten was still in charge. So in 2013, in order to help the 20,000 sq m venue plan for the future, Bico's project manager Søren Jørgensen worked closely with venue consultant

Germany - Jazz and pop star, Roger Cicero and his band have been on tour throughout Germany and Austria promoting his latest CD, Was Immer Auch Kommt.

Lighting, sound and stage design, were of the highest quality to complement Cicero's superior mix of swing jazz.

The prime service provider Soundhouse commissioned the company Big Mama Production from Hannover for the implementation of the lighting. The rig featured semi-circular segments of staggered truss, with PR Lighting fixtures much in evidence.

Among the effects used by lighting designer Fabian Kuhn was a selection of XR200 Beam and XLED 590 as well as some powerful XL5000 series spots, which were provided by Focon Showtechnic, PR Lighting's German distributor

Jens Ottenhus from the German distributor Focon Showtechnic says, "PR Lighting fixtures are finding their way increasingly into professional rental

UK - Entertainment Workshops (EW), the Rye-based education facility providing essential alternative education in creative media and production arts for students of school-age - has been highly commended in the Micro Business Award category of the Apprenticeships 4 England 2015 Training Provider & Apprentice Employer Awards.

Operations Manager, Paul Byrne, received the award on behalf of the Sussex charity, which was one of seven small businesses shortlisted as finalists for the category.

Also in attendance was EW employee/apprentice, Phil Smith, who recently completed his level three apprenticeship in Live Events & Promotions. He said, "I have thoroughly enjoyed working with the team at EW to achieve this apprenticeship, the constant support and encouragement has been invaluable"

David Byrne, Chairman said: "It's fantastic to have another great award to add to

UK - Instantly memorable and clearly identifiable as emphatically live for reasons best forgotten, this year's Brit Awards proved the best yet for audio providers Britannia Row Productions Ltd (Britrow). "Every year we reflect on the show and make adjustments to improve the following year," said Britrow's Josh Lloyd who mixed FoH for all but Royal Blood. "You can always make improvements, that's part of the legacy that Derrick Zieba left for us. This year some new equipment added some genuine enhancement."

The essential dilemma of The Brits hasn't changed, the unrelenting demands of the camera lens dictate that sightlines shall always be clear so audio is rigged as high as possible, while down on the floor sit the assembled masses of the recording industry who know what good sound means and expect nothing less.

"We updated this year's PA design drawing

Bulgaria - Arena Sozòpol is one of the four venues that will host the 2015 UEFA European Under-17 Championship. Completed in plenty of time for the championship, the 4,000 seat stadium has undergone full reconstruction with new grandstands and amenities.

Sozòpol is an attractive ancient seaside town located 35 km south of Bulgaria's second largest city, Burgas, on the beautiful Black Sea Coast. It is one of the country's major seaside resorts, internationally known for the Apollonia art and film festival.

Burgas based Pro Audio Ltd was commissioned to design and install the audio for the new stadium. Stanislav Petrov, managing director of Pro Audio explained their design, "High intelligibility, even coverage and good sound levels with headroom were all main criteria, so Community's R Series were the natural first choice. Their accurate dispersion also avoids unnecessary

Singapore - VUE Audiotechnik has announced the appointment of Global Market Management as its APAC sales representative. The company's CEO Bardy Hayes will oversee new sales opportunities from Global Market's California office, while Singapore-based Alex Schloesser will lead the technical support for current and future customers in the region.

"We have been following VUE Audiotechnik's progress with great enthusiasm since its launch," says Hayes. "We are very pleased to become the sales representative for this exciting brand of loudspeakers. We have never before encountered such swift worldwide acceptance for a new professional audio brand, particularly loudspeakers. I have personally known the co-founders for many years and their combined experience and reputation, along with the wide portfolio of products they have developed, has quickly catapulted them to the u

USA - The Grammy Awards, held annually at the Staples Centrein Los Angeles, recognises the recording industry's best artists.

As was the case in previous years, ATK Audiotek again relied heavily on a predominantly fibre optic-based network run on Optocore, for the recent 57th edition. For the last five Grammy Awards ATK Audiotek has used Optocore to transport the award winning music that is performed live at the show, this year including AC/DC, Beyon?e, Madonna, Katy Perry, Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga.

The complex nature of the Grammys, in conjunction with the 'mission critical' delivery aspect of a live event, defines the need for flexibility and absolute fault tolerance and recovery.

Jeff Peterson, the incumbent system PA designer for the award show, has relied on Optocore to deliver quality audio under these exacting conditions since 2011. This year's network drive system

Hungary - The Visual Productions' Hungarian distributor Colossal has recently been involved in two lighting installations using the CueCore.

The first installation was for the restaurant called Prime Steak and Wine in Budapest. The CueCore is at the heart of the DMX network. In terms of lighting, the CueCore controls all the ambient lighting, the LED fixtures, the RBG colouring of two columns. The CueCore is also used to control the heating system on the terrace and the magnetic lock of the entrance door.

The CueCore has been programmed by Csaba Csanadi. He utilizes many of the features of the CueCore allowing for great flexibility but little work for the client . Says Csanadi,"There's a slow transition between day and night light mode as well. It is scheduled to start 2 hours before sunset and nobody can notice it."

There are a number of pre programmed scenes for

The Maldives - PR Lighting fixtures have again been luxuriating in the sun-soaked holiday islands of the Maldives.

Ticket to Bollywood is a 90-minute non-stop Bollywood dance show by Indian dance company Ferris Wheel which opened at the Alimas Carnival Stage, Malé City.

Lighting designer, Becket J Tundatil, designed the lightshow and local event company Azidon Pvt Ltd was brought in by the client, Hub Co Pvt Ltd. Quantities of XR300 Beams were used on the dancefloor, with XLED 1037 washes overhead.

"We work regularly with Hub Co, and they are always pleased with our work," comments Azidon MD, M. Fayid Farouk.

Azidon also acted as production company at Taj Exotica Resort & Spa for the New Year's Eve gala, when they again provided their XLED Washes and XR300 Beams for the festivities which took place at the beach - the main New Year Eve's dinner and e

Spain - The Fallas is the official festival of Valencia, which is celebrated from the 15-19 March. This event has become an important tourist attraction.

Besides of the name of the festivities, 'fallas' is also the name used to designate the thousand monuments which are located in Valencia city as well as in every town of the province. The 'fallas' consist of a figure or central composition of several feet high, surrounded by numerous figures of papier-mâché, supported by a wooden frame. They include signs written in Valencian explaining the meaning of each set, always with a critical and satirical angle.

One of the most important activities of this week is the 'mascletà', which is celebrated from 1-19 March, when the fallas are burned and the festivity ends. A 'mascletà' is a pyrotechnic fire which forms a very loud and rhythmic composition. Megafonía Torres, respo

USA - The creative force that drives The Isley Brothers never rests. It's why these Rock and Roll Hall of Famers can still shake the house after six decades of touring. It's also why they've never flinched at abandoning comfortable familiarity in favour of new forms of musical expression; the way they did in the mid-1960s when they took on a young and then unknown sideman named Jimi Hendrix and blended his heavy guitar riffs with their own extended R&B inspired vamps to kick off an original funk sound that would influence the direction of rock music.

The Isley Brothers' penchant for new ideas remains as strong today as it was back then - and not just with music, but with lighting too. This was very much in evidence recently when the multi-Grammy winners' design team changed its plans to use some familiar lights after it heard Brad McWhorter of Atlanta Audio Visual talk about how

USA - For the seventh year running, Hippotizer by Green Hippo was again the media server of choice at this year's Academy Awards, broadcast from Hollywood's Kodak Theatre on 22 February.

This year however, marked a major step forward: The new Hippotizer V4 hardware and software system was put to work. One V4 Taiga, the flagship model of the new V4 range, performing a task that would have previously required at least three Hippotizer HDs, drove six video outputs, feeding all projection and LED screen content on the main stage - executing the show's artistic vision with perfectly executed looks, from a vintage theatre façade, to Selma's Edmund Pettus Bridge.

In addition, in the show's screens control room, a V4 Boreal provided live 3D visualization of the entire theatre and stage, including all media content, giving the programming team both accurate real-time and pre-viz repre

UK - The winner of the Philips Strand Lighting upcycling competition has been announced. Paul Nulty Lighting Design (PNLD) scooped the prize for team effort Anamorphosis, which saw the colleagues turn a vintage Patt 23 theatre lantern into a deconstructed art piece.

PNLD was revealed as the winner at The Society of Light and Lighting Fresnel Lecture, which took place at the Royal Institution of Great Britain (Ri) last week. Philips was chief sponsor of the event, alongside support from the IALD. Following the talk, Philips' Lighting Application Design Lead and competition judge Mike Simpson announced that PNLD's design had come out on top.

On the winning entry, Simpson says, "It was a difficult decision as the other finalists were fantastic, however 'Anamorphosis' was a very deserving winner.

"Many lighting designers will have grown up with the Patt 23 and s

UK - Award-winning lighting designer Bruno Poet used CAST's wysiwyg software to previsualise his technically innovative, trailblazing and epic stage lighting for the latest production of Cameron Mackintosh's Miss Saigon at the Prince Edward Theatre in London's West End.

Big West End shows have never used pre-visualisation software on a show of this scale before, making the use of wysiwyg on this production a real world first. The production team for the latest London production of Miss Saigon was new, while the set was inspired by the recent successful Miss Saigon tour of the Far East.

"As the script and score for the show were well established, the production period for the show was much shorter than other West End productions of a similar scale. Our team worked from scratch on the show's lighting design using the pre-visualisation features on offer

Europe - Morphed is a work by Tero Saarinen circulating around eight dancers showing the expressive power of the human body and liberating movements in their performances. While Esa-Pekka Salonen created the music, Mikki Kunttu, who has been working with Saarinen for many years, was responsible for the set and lighting design. Morphed is currently touring through different venues in Europe accompanied by a grandMA2 light console that is owned by the Tero Saarinen Company.

Kunttu stated, "The grandMA2 is the standard in every production for the Tero Saarinen Company. It offers many vital features needed for a theatrical orientated project like this one. Thanks to the networking capabilities of the MA System it has been possible to pre-program the lighting on a grandMA2 onPC, then transfer the show to the grandMA2 light. This was a real time saver and made my jo

UK - "We wanted to hear everything from those old synths, the highs, the lows, each uninvited rattle and hum... Flare gave us a truly dynamic sound, a perfect match for our ancient technology," said Mel Wesson of powerhouse electro quartet Node, as Flare Audio's PA system broadcast their first concert in 15 years.

The landmark concert Node Live took place in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall at the Royal College of Music in London on 27 February 2015, receiving acclaim from fans and across media reviews.

Flare was selected due to its "clarity of sound". The detailed ambient sonic landscape created by the band requires the clearest possible sound and definition with even coverage and dispersion, as they filled the stage with an array of instruments and vintage analogue synthesizers, creating both a sonic and visual experience for the audience.

Just two X2

Italy - XL Video returned to the gleaming modernity of the MiCo Milano Congressi conference centre in downtown Milan to provide various video solutions including projection and control, cameras / multiple PPU and crew, together with general AV support for the Cisco Live! 2015 event, working for global experience marketing agency, George P. Johnson.

Cisco Live! is the industry's premier education and training event for IT, networking and communications professionals, and XL Video's team was project managed by Nick Askew and Chris Ellis. Their brief included the provision of a diverse selection of AV set-ups to 42 breakout areas, some for up to 300 people.

An impressive main room hosted the plenary sessions and accommodated 3,500 delegates. A primary presentation stage was built in the centre of the room and connected via a runway to a satellite 'demo' stage that was used for pr

USA - The Chroma-Q Color One 100 LED Par and Color Force 72 LED battens were recently used to provide outstanding colour and punch for Boston University's production of The Human Comedyat the city's Virginia Wimberly Theatre.

With music by Galt MacDermot (best known for Broadway's score of Hair) and based on William Saroyan's novel of the same name, The Human Comedy is a pop folk opera and coming-of-age tale about small-town life in World War II era California. It was presented by Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre and staged at the 360-seat new state-of-the-art proscenium Virginia Wimberly Theatre.

Boston University lighting designer Brandon Bagwell, who is being tutored on the University's Master of Fine Arts Lighting Design programme by Associate Professor (Lighting Design), Mark Stanley - the resident lighting designer for New Yo

USA - High school football is serious in Valdosta, Georgia. There, the Lowndes High School Vikings regularly fill 12,000-plus seat Martin Stadium and, far more often than not, prevail over their rivals. Lowndes has won five state championships - three of them within the last decade - and managed perfect seasons in 2004 and 2008. In fact, in 2008, ESPN ranked Lowndes as the #2 high school football program in the entire country. That's number two out of approximately 14,000 teams - no small feat.

To support the team and improve the game day experience for fans, the school raised funds for a new Jumbotron and, to go with it, a modern collegiate-grade sound reinforcement system. Ashly Audio NE Series signal processing and KLR-Series amplifiers support the new system, which provides extensive auto-mixing capabilities and, via a simple Ashly wall-mounted fader bank, intuitive control

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