Germany - Goethe University Frankfurt am Main is a modern, research-oriented university in the heart of Germany. As a Stiftungsuniversität (a university privately funded by a foundation) and citizens' university, it is closely associated with the city and the region of Frankfurt. Westend

Campus Westend of the Goethe University Frankfurt nestles in a burst of parkland, yet directly borders Frankfurt's downtown, boasting a wealth of eateries, shops, theatres and other recreational facilities. The buildings of Campus Westend are based around the Neo-Realist IG Farben Building , while im

Austria - Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system was used for the recent Regions of Climate Action (R20) conference in Vienna.

R20 is a non-profit environmental organisation founded by former Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, with the support of the United Nations. A coalition of sub-national governments, private companies, international organisations, NGOs and academic and financial institutions, R20 supports governments building a green economy.

The two day conference gathered nearly 600 participants, and was hosted by Schwarzenegger. Local broadcast company, Rad

USA - In the weeks leading up to the opening of the Cedar Street Courtyard music venue in Austin, Texas, America's live music capital, the venue was already drawing noise concerns. Due to its close proximity to residences and other establishments, Cedar Street Courtyard was looking to minimize its contribution to the noise pollution problem, and RoomMatch loudspeakers and PowerMatch amplifiers from Bose Professional Systems Division were able to solve these issues by controlling the sound with "extraordinary precision".

Nashville-based consultant Steve Durr was called in to

UK - This year's Winter Jam Tour has had upwards of 300,000 attendees and sold out 23 arena shows to date. Headlined by TobyMac, the 10-artist, 44-city concert tour is powered by a potent system built around the Meyer Sound Milo line array supplied by Blackhawk Audio of Whitehouse, Tenn.

Winter Jam serves up a wide range of music styles-from the dub step of the Capital Kings to the acoustic pop of Jamie Grace, the guitar rock of Red and the rap of headliner TobyMac.

"It's a challenge for the PA because you can't simply tune it for a certain style," says Jerry Holcomb, prod

Australia - The Hills SVL Group has been appointed distributor for L-Acoustics. The agreement between the Hills SVL Group and L-Acoustics covers Australia and New Zealand and sees the Hills SVL Group promoting and supporting the range through its seven sales offices and warehouses across Australia and NZ.

Don McConnell, head of product, for the Hills SVL Group, commented, "We're delighted to be involved with such a respected and innovative company. The timing of the agreement is perfect with new products including ARCS WIDE, ARCS Focus and ARCS II sure to create a lot of interest

UK / Sweden - Working in collaboration with the production team at this year's Eurovision Song Contest, PLASA is pleased to announce plans for a unique event: PLASA Focus: Backstage Malmö, taking place on 7-8 May, one week prior to Eurovision's live broadcasts, in Malmö, Sweden.

As one of the world's most-watched live music productions, attracting in excess of 100m television viewers each year, the Eurovision Song Contest has become a major annual showcase for the technologies at the cutting edge of the show production industry.

This year's Eurovision Song Contest, produced by the

UK - Manchester-based lighting and rigging specialists dbn created an elegant, bespoke, self climbing, ground support truss design to achieve the perfect positioning for key production equipment in The Pavilion Suite at Ascot Racecourse, Berkshire.

This allowed a conference and awards event to be staged in-the-round; ensured that all delegates in the room had a clear view of the proceedings with the installation of 16 plasma screens in strategic positions ... and maximised the very low and idiosyncratically shaped headroom of the space.

dbn's project manager was Nick Todd and the co

The Netherlands - Ampco Flashlight Rental BV has announced the appointment of Dennis van der Haagen, who has joined its board as commercial and operational director.

Van der Haagen, for the last 17 years the leader of one of Holland's most successful live entertainment production companies, Sightline Productions, brings his enthusiasm and commercial management skills to aid the growth of Ampco Flashlight, the leading technical production group in the Netherlands with expertise that spans audio, lighting, video, rigging and every related service.

Dennis van der Haagen commented, &quo

Germany - MilTec (UK) Ltd will be using the Prolight and Sound show in Frankfurt to launch their new Blakite and Blakite TR ranges of speakers.

The new speaker will be built entirely in the UK. "We wanted to help bring back manufacturing to Britain and to fly the flag for home grown products." said technical director Graham Gosden. "We will be using high quality materials and components with a hard wearing, professional finish. The speakers will be made from European birch ply and will be fitted with high quality drivers supplied by British and European manufacturers. M

Germany - The annual trip to Frankfurt signals the launch of a brand new product for Audient this year. Breaking new ground for the British signal processing manufacturer and putting its young, creative R&D team to full use, the company is keeping the identity of the product under wraps until Musikmesse, when the unveiling will take place at the Audient booth: Hall 5.1 D73.

The company's 9500-strong Facebook fan base and 2000 Twitter followers will be kept in the virtual loop with clues, and a preview competition in the countdown to the show's opening on 10 April. "Show news and

USA - Usher, Diddy, Macklemore and Bun B is just a short list of acts that Allen&Heath consoles were used to stream the experience at this year's South by Southwest music conference, one of the world's largest music conferences, just concluded in Austin, TX and Allen & Heath digital consoles were used to stream the experience live to millions of fans around the world. Allen & Heath partnered with The Fader Fort and Dell to stream more than 50 acts during the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music Festival (12-17 March). The festival attracted an affluent crowd of music executives and aficionad

UK - Students at Backstage Academy have undergone a series of live sound masterclasses delivered by sector-leading professionals as part of the training centre's mission to align industry skills and knowledge with education.

The Academy draws upon the insight gained through its links to the production rehearsal studio and set construction operation LS-Live, to promote the teaching of current working practices, methods and technologies in the entertainment industry.

The month-long Live Sound module on the Academy's Foundation Degree in Live Events Production (validated by The Univers

UK - As part of a £24m refurbishment project, the Allianz Park stadium in North London, brand new home to Saracens Rugby Club, now sports a concert-standard audio system designed and installed by Richard Nowell of RNSS Ltd. Working with audio consultant Roger Lindsey who was brought in by Saracens CEO Edward Griffiths, Nowell specified equipment from a number of manufacturers, including a significant amount of EM Acoustics equipment for the new East stand.

The brief from Griffiths, who has driven the project from its inception, was quite clear. He felt that rugby fans deserved b

Italy - Is now the time to challenge the traditional concepts of how to mix a live concert? Igor Fiorini of VDM Studio in Rome certainly thinks so and he is not alone. For some years now, the recording industry has used DAWs to record critical concerts with admirable reliability and Pyramix has already been used on Olympic opening and closing ceremonies with no issues at all; so why not mix a concert live with the same technology.

Not only does this reduce the size of the rig needed, it also introduces many less obvious advantages. It opens up the opportunity to use a huge array of pl

Germany - German electronic musician and actor, Paul Kalkbrenner, has embarked on a pan-European tour, with Berlin-based Complete Audio fielding a Martin Audio MLA PA system to provide coverage for up to 10,000-seat arenas.

André Rauhut's company first introduced Martin Audio's multi-cellular loudspeaker array system to the artist's production back in 2011, when the two operations started working together. "We first used an MLA/MLX rig for a big outdoor show," remembers Rauhut. "They really loved how the system sounded, and as a result, they have since continued

UK - The organisers of the Shakedown Festival and the new Love Supreme Jazz Festival have confirmed Flare Audio as their preferred sound supplier for 2013.

For the past two years Flare has provided the sound for Shakedown's Supercharged Dance Stage, which has played host to artists including Zane Lowe, Chase and Status, Knife Party, The Freemasons and Kissy Sell Out.

Receiving positive feedback from artists and audience members alike, Flare's range of speaker systems "impressed festival organisers so much they have asked Flare to provide the sound for the entire festival this y

USA - It's only right and proper that d&b audiotechnik should feel a special warmth for Milwaukee USITT, "Any town that has a famous song about beer is OK with us," said d&b USA marketing manager Roger Keim, "It even has a German name." But there is a serious intent to USITT that's not to be ignored, that's why d&b chose this event to launch ArrayCalc V7 in the USA. "This is a hub for US audio professionals," continued Keim, "These users will quickly realise that ArrayCalc V7 is a potent modelling tool in the designer's arsenal." Loudspeakers on d

USA - Behringer has unveiled its Eurolive B207MP3, a multi-purpose, 150-Watt, active loudspeaker designed for vocal and/or keyboard monitoring, multimedia, press conferences, and other applications where space is at a premium. Based on the company's hugely popular B205D, the B207MP3 takes high-efficiency loudspeaker design to an entirely new level, one that is as feature-rich as it is versatile, says the company.

The B207MP3 features a built-in high-performance MP3 player for playing audio files from a USB stick, three-band EQ, and built-in four-channel mixer that accepts XLR, TRS and

Olivier Awards - Michael Frayn and Gillian Lynne will be given prizes for their outstanding contribution to theatre at this year's Olivier Awards ceremony. They will both receive their Special Awards at the event, which is taking place at the Royal Opera House on 28 April and will be hosted by Hugh Bonneville and Sheridan Smith. Frayn is best known for writing his 1982 play Noises Off as well as dramas including Copenhagen and Democracy. Lynne has choreographed more than 50 Broadway, West End and international stage productions including musicals Cats and

UK - Queen guitarist Brian May and Broadway star Kerry Ellis played a set in support of endangered tigers at London's iconic St Pancras station, with sound provided by HK Audio's new Linear 5 speaker system.

May and Ellis were playing in support of the Born Free Foundation, which works to prevent individual animal suffering, protect threatened species and keep wildlife in the wild.

Sound at the event came from an HK Audio Linear 5 Big Venue Pack, supplied by Hertfordshire-based entertainment and production firm Mr H Productions.

The Linear 5 Big Venue Pack contains four LSUB2000A

UK - The Conference and Live Events division of leading UK audio visual services provider Saville Audio Visual have recently taken delivery of eight new Roland V-800HD Multi-format Live Video Switchers. Featuring High Definition picture quality and eight multi format channels with independent scalers as well as a variety of output formats including a built-in multi-viewer, the V-800HD Live Video Switcher is ideal for live event and corporate productions as well as web streaming. The addition of the V-800HD to the Saville inventory fits perfectly with recent investment in HD projectors a

UAE - Meyer Sound has appointed Chris Mead as the company's Middle East technical support manager. Based at the Meyer Sound Middle East office in Dubai, Mead will be responsible for providing technical support to customers throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Indian sub-continent.

"Meyer Sound's growth opportunities in the Middle East lie in our quality products as well as our ability to provide timely and knowledgeable technical support for customers in the territory," says Mauricio Saint Martin, director of Middle East sales. "Chris's in-depth engineering bac

UK - The nominations for the Olivier Awards with MasterCard - the most prestigious event in the UK's theatrical calendar - have been announced, and The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time leads the list with eight nominations, followed by Top Hat receiving seven, and the West End transfer of Chichester Festival Theatre's revival of Sweeney Todd in close competition with six. Other stand-out nominations include The Audience and Kiss Me, Kate receiving five each, and Constellations, The Bodyguard and Twelfth Night with four.

In

Italy - RCF is updating its entry-level range of commercial audio amplifiers by introducing two new multipurpose models. AM1125 (p/n 12135082) is a mixer-amplifier while UP1121 (p/n 12135083) is a power amplifier.

Flexibility and reliability are the main features of these devices, together with audio intelligibility and overall construction quality. The solid chassis are standard rack 19" and the 2-unit mounting accessories are "in-the-box".

AM1125 is a 120W RMS mixer amplifier with five inputs, four of them universal (mic-line sensitivity) and one switchable phantom

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