UK - As The O2 opened its doors to the BRIT Awards for the second year, Sennheiser UK celebrated its 10th anniversary of providing support to this most iconic of British music events.

"Sennheiser has had the pleasure of assisting on the BRITs since being invited by sound designer Derrick Zieba and Britannia Row back in 2002," says Sennheiser UK artist relations manager, Mark Saunders. "Initially, this was to support the large amount of Sennheiser equipment that was being used on the show. Since then, both Andy Lillywhite [Sennheiser UK's chief engineer] and I have been

South Africa - Bloemfontein, 443km from Johannesburg and popularly known as 'The City of Roses' due to the abundance of these flowers and the annual rose festival held there, is also the home town of Stefan van Biljon, owner of rental company Creative Kilowatt.

Creative Kilowatt provided the technology for a banquet dinner celebrating the 25th anniversary of OFM, the regional radio station in Bloemfontein. The event took place at the Woodlands Function Venue with a performance by opera singer Jannie Moolman and the music of Joseph Clark.

Creative Kilowatt provided the full technical

Denmark - Matrix Group has appointed Kenneth Bremer as CEO. Since 2009, Bremer has worked in Italy, most recently in strategic marketing and PR with loudspeaker manufacturer RCF, based in Reggio Emilia.

Matrix Group's stated mission is to become one of the most important players in the market segment of solutions and product supply to the entertainment industry. With a strong line-up of companies within the group, Matrix Group is an attractive partner towards sales, installation and distribution of professional products to the industry from 'day to day' distribution business to comple

UK - Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds world tour has just completed its UK arena leg, with Midas XL8 live performance systems at FOH and on monitors, supplied by Britannia Row Productions. Such is the scalability of Midas' growing digital range that the tour will move onto PRO6s for its run of European and US dates throughout the spring and then to the new PRO2Cs for summer festival appearances.

Both FOH and monitor engineer, Antony King and Nahuel Gutierrez respectively, are experienced hands on the XL8, and both are relishing being back at the controls. With a 26-piece choir from

Turkey - New indie nightclub Skandal! has opened its doors in Istanbul with an L-Acoustics coaxial loudspeaker system supplied by Turkish distributor, Elit Light&Sound Technologies.

Run by leading Istanbul venue owners together with Metehan Çorumluo?lu, aka DJ Style-ist, Skandal! draws heavily on the twin late-70s cultures of New Wave and disco, bringing a new vibe to the Istanbul club scene. A system of seven L-Acoustics 8XTi coaxial speakers from the Architectural Series for installers, with two 108P coaxials and two SB18i fixed installation subwoofers, driven by two LA4 amplifiers

UK - Rose Bruford College of Theatre & Performance will be hosting an interactive stand for the The Big Bang Fair held at The NEC Birmingham, 15-17 March 2012.

The Big Bang Fair is aimed at showing young people the opportunities there are in science, engineering, technology and maths and expects around 35000 visitors this year.The stand is very generously sponsored by White Light, Avolites, Arcola Energy and BOC.

The College's interactive stand has three areas: a performance lighting area, which has an automated lighting system comprising of a digital control platform, video screens

UK - The Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh is more than just an Olympic swimming pool. It contains multiple gyms, dry dive training facilities, cafeteria, kids party zones, diving pool and much more. This grade A listed centre piece of Scottish sport requires sound systems of extremely high calibre to match the level and quantities of events that are staged at the facility. Audio Light Systems Ltd was picked to design and install the building wide PA and music systems.

The main all important pool area, which is being used for the up and coming Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games requir

UAE - A Midas PRO2, deployed by leading Dubai AV production company Artes Middle East, delivered a first-class debut performance FOH at this year's 10th Dubai International Jazz Festival despite the onset of strong winds and sandstorms during the week-long event.

"The console stood its ground through everything," reports a delighted Karl Da Costa, FOH engineer and technical production manager at Artes, who was using a Midas digital desk for the first time following a product demo by Chicco Hiranandani of Dubai-based NMK Electronics.

The PRO2 was installed at the festival's

UK - Cue Media has taken advantage of the 0% finance deal that is currently available through A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET's audio division on equipment purchases of leading brands Nexo, Yamaha and Sennheiser.

Cue Media, a busy technical production and solutions provider, required a compact, highly versatile and fully digital sound solution to cover many different types and scales of event - from straight conferences to rock and pop bands, theatre style cabaret shows and lively motivational speaker events.

Nexo's successful PS-R2 Series speakers were the solution for their

UK - New at PLASA Focus: Leeds 2012 from Sennheiser UK is the XS Wireless Series, an entry-level series of wireless microphone package designed for users who want to go wireless effortlessly, but still have the guarantee of great quality sound.

These robust units are simple to operate, feature transmitters that have a battery life of up to 10 hours, while a switching bandwidth of up to 24 MHz allows for flexibility in the choice of frequencies. The series is comprised of two vocal sets, an instrument set and presentation sets with lavalier microphone or a headmic.

eRack, meanwhile,

USA - EAW has appointed pro audio veteran Alex Schloesser to the position of EAW Asia-Pacific sales director. The announcement was made by Jeff Rocha, EAW president, and reflects EAW's ongoing commitment to growth in the Asia-Pacific region. In his new capacity, Schloesser will report to and work closely with Davwinder Sheena, LOUD Technologies' Asia & Pacific-Rim managing director.

With more than 20 years in pro audio in and out of his native Germany, Schloesser has a wealth of experience from his past positions. He is fully versed in audio technology, including acoustical simulation

Germany - Out Board will be exhibiting at Frankfurt ProLight&Sound with TiMax distributor Pro Audio-Technik in Hall 8, Stand A01, and will demonstrate the TiMax SoundHub S-Version's "unparalleled combination of sound effects editing and management and wide range of showcontrol trigger and event interfaces".

Aimed at theatre and live events sound designers as well as museum and attraction integrators, the new S-Version features include multitrack Timeline cue programming, clip editing, looping, timeslip, volume-profiling and archiving, plus the object-based delay-pan programm

UK - West London based lighting and visuals rental company Colour Sound Experiment (CSE) has expanded its current warehouse facility by acquiring the building next door .... and knocking through. This increases the area to over 12,000sq.ft, nearly doubling the previous available space.

The old warehouse was already about to start bursting at the seams last year! When CSE added over 100 moving lights and over 500 tiles of their new proprietary BT12 LED screen to the near capacity stock, things became critical - and something had to give.

By a completely serendipitous stroke of luck,

Iceland - Several Allen & Heath iLive and iDR digital mixers have been installed in the prestigious new Harpa concert hall and conference centre in Reykjavik.

The new venue has four main spaces to manage a busy programme of music and conference events. iLive systems comprising an iDR-16 MixRack and iLive-R72 Control Surface have been installed in the Norourljos recital hall and Kaldalon hall, whilst a combined FOH and monitor system,comprising iDR-16 MixRacks and an iLive-R72 and iLive-T80 surfaces, has been selected for the Silfurberg conference hall.

All systems use A&H's propriet

USA - Francis Ford Coppola's American Zoetrope film studios, located in California's Napa Valley, has installed Meyer Sound EXP cinema sound systems in three new rooms, including an ADR stage, ADR control room, and a screening room. Consistent EXP monitoring will allow seamless translation between the new rooms and Zoetrope's existing re-recording stage, which in 2009 became the first facility of its kind to install a complete EXP system.

Coppola, working alongside re-recording mixers Walter Murch and Pete Horner, relied on Zoetrope's original EXP monitoring system for the final mix o

UK - The nominees for the 2012 Olivier Awards, which reward achievement in London theatre over the last 12 months, were announced on 15 March at a presentation broadcast live online for the first time. Entertainment lighting specialist White Light, lighting supplier to many of the nominated shows, would like to congratulate all of the nominees -in particular those in the Best Lighting Design category.

This year's nominated lighting designers are Howard Harrison for Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse, Bruno Poet for Frankenstein at the National Theatre, and Hugh Vansto

UK - Funktion One has announced the launch of their new website. The site has undergone a complete redesign with a much improved graphical interface including an extensive photo gallery and many new features. There are now direct links to every page allowing for speedy access to all Funktion One product information and news and the site is easily accessible via mobile phones.

In addition to the new website Funktion One have also launched the Funktion One (Official) Facebook page which can be directly accessed via a link on the homepage of the new site - http://www.funktion-one.com

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USA - Sensaphonics has announced its support for the annual Auction 4 Audiology, a fundraiser for the American Academy of Audiology Foundation (AAAF). The auction features several autographed items of music memorabilia, the proceeds from which will fund research for hearing health in musicians. The Auction 4 Audiology takes place on the BiddingForGood.com website and will be open for bidding from 19-31 March.

The auction items include electric guitars signed by Aerosmith, Lady Antebellum, the Dave Matthews Band, Buddy Guy, and O.A.R., all donated to the cause by Sensaphonics president

Germany - K.M.E. will promote the VL 4 ultra-compact column array loudspeaker system at ProLight+Sound this week.

The system comes with top sound quality in the midrange (4 x 4"cone speaker) and fine precise highs coming from a 1" dome tweeter with optimized wave guide for optimal localization performance in stereo and multi-mode setup. A high- grade passive crossover network completes the speaker components.

Its minimal weight of 6 kg and the slim and modest appearance together with outstanding handling features make it a high class product for entertainers, duos and mobi

Rwanda - Rwanda's nightlife has been the richer in recent weeks for a new attraction: on 3 February, an exclusive new discotheque, the K-Club, opened in Kigali's Brima Business Centre. The new hotspot features two stylishly furnished bars with dance floors, as well as several lounge areas. The aspirations of the new club - as is evident from its decor, ambience, lighting and sound systems - are of the highest order. The sound system was installed by Audio Visual Engineering Kenya Ltd (AVE), the Dynacord distributor in East, West and Central Africa.

Based some 500 miles away in Nairobi

Germany - Roland Systems Group (RSG) will be demonstrating their increasing strength in both the professional audio and the professional video market at ProLight + Sound this week.

On the audio side, the range of V-Mixer digital mixing consoles, M-48 live personal mixers, Digital Snake I/O units and the R-1000 48 track recorder/players will be featured. These products (as well as other audio products in the RSG range) can be configured easily as a flexible, expandable system using REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication), the proprietary technology from Roland for low latency, high

UK - Bose Professional Systems Division will unveil its latest FreeSpace products at PLASA Focus: Leeds 2012 - the FreeSpace IZA 250-LZ/190-HZ integrated zone amplifiers, and the FreeSpace ZA 250-LZ/190-HZ zone amplifiers. These integrated zone amplifiers are designed for background/foreground music and paging applications. They offer greater flexibility and configurability for creating premium sound and paging solutions for retail stores, schools, hotels, restaurants, and houses of worship. Proprietary Bose Opti-voice paging provides seamless paging over music, ensuring that clear, nat

MTV Awards - Frankfurt will host this year's MTV Europe Music Awards. It will be the second time the ceremony has been broadcast from the city since 2001. The event will be aired live from the city's Festhalle on Sunday 11 November. Belfast in Northern Ireland staged the event in 2011 with performances from the likes of Justin Bieber, Coldplay and Lady Gaga, with Selena Gomez hosting the ceremony.

Olivier Awards - Lyricist Tim Rice is to be honoured for his outstanding contribution to musical theatre at this year's Olivier Awards. Rice, who penned the lyrics to shows such as <

Denmark - dnp denmark has upgraded three of its most popular Supernova models, making them respectively easier to install, simpler to use and better to look at. And to ensure safe dispatch, they will also be delivered to site in more robust packaging.

The redesigned Supernova Core II features a highly improved flexible tension system that makes assembly of the screen easier. In addition, new wall mounts facilitate easier installation, while the screen frame has also been completely re-designed and now has a more elegant and smooth look. The quality of the corner assembly has been impr

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