UK - The Entertainment Industry has seen many improvements in safety practices in recent years as 'health and safety culture' becomes common place in all aspects of day to day business.

One of the latest areas of focus is the design and management of temporary electrical systems in not only the TV and Radio world, but also in films, at events, in theatres and other similar workplaces.

Whilst the current IET Wiring Regulations BS7671 (17th Edition) qualification exists for fixed electrical systems, there has not been an agreed industry qualification for BS7909 - the Code of Practice

USA - With the celebration of its one-hundredth year in operation still fresh on everyone's minds, the Bowmansville Volunteer Fire Department in upstate New York secured modest funds to refurbish the AV systems in its 4,500sq.ft recreation room.

The room is used by the volunteers and the community for gatherings spanning everything from lectures to parties and bingo to movie nights. In addition, the company uses the room to stage training and other educational events. A new Ashly Audio Pema 4250.70 combination 8x8 Protea matrix processor and four-channel amplifier has breathed new lif

Germany - British manufacturer Audient has appointed Sonic Sales as exclusive distributor in Germany, Austria and Switzerland to handle sales, service and marketing for the entire Audient product range - with immediate effect.

Located in Bielefeld, the newly appointed distribution company is headed up by Matthias Herbst, who says, "The people behind Sonic Sales are well known as successful sales and marketers of big names in the pro audio business. The team has been instrumental in the growth of brands like Native Instruments and Ableton in Germany, with sales cooperation right f

USA - DPA Microphones returned to The Rainbow Room for a New Year's celebration for PBS' second national, primetime celebration from the recently re-opened Manhattan venue, New Year's Eve at The Rainbow Room with Michael Feinstein. After the success of the Fall Arts Festival programme, DPA's d:facto Vocal, d:vote 4099 Instrument, d:dicate 4011 Cardioid and d:screet Miniature mics once again found their way onto the guest list for the esteemed event.

The company's wide range of products was perfectly suited for the various aspects of the production, including vocals and instrume

Norway - When Top Gear Live arrived at Oslo's 15,000-capacity Telenor Arena for three days of adrenaline-fuelled motoring spectacle, Leo-M and Lyon linear line array loudspeakers from Meyer Sound provided high-impact audio support. Top Gear Live is a theatrical adaptation of the popular BBC show, engaging audiences with its trademark blend of quirky humour and rip-roaring car races, stunts, and explosions.

"The system performed perfectly, and the coverage from the Leo and Lyon arrays was exceptional in every seat," says Theis Romme, system designer and audio pr

UK Baldwin Boxall reports that Global Fire & Security Systems has reached Customer Gold Status level. Working closely with Baldwin Boxall for over 12 years, Global Fire & Security Systems has gained an exceptional knowledge of the company's systems and products. The Gold Status reinforces the commitment between the two companies to promote, build, install and maintain systems of high quality with exceptional service.

Global Fire & Security Systems is the first company to achieve this status and managing director Ian Grantham commented, "This is great for us and we are very please

UK - d&b audiotechnik has appointed two UK sales Partners in its newly restructured sales network - SSE Audio Group and The Warehouse Sound Services.

SSE Audio Group, backed by the experience of Wigwam, has offices in the north, south and midlands, along with a highly experienced and integrated sales team. Wigwam Acoustics, part of SSE Audio Group since 2013, has been an established d&b supplier for Hire, Sales and Installations for many years. Pro audio specialist The Warehouse, with offices in Edinburgh and Glasgow, has 25 years' experience as a leading d&b audiotechnik UK sales par

UK - SSL Live UK dealer, HD Pro Audio, is holding a series of workshop sessions for the SSL Live L500 and L300 consoles in conjunction with Home, Manchester's new contemporary arts centre opening in May 2015.

The sessions will be held from 10:00am each day on 27 and 28 January 2015 at Number One, First Street, Manchester M15 4FN. They will focus on a range of functional aspects of the consoles with experts on hand to provide professional guidance and advice.

"These events are the perfect way for engineers to get hands on experience whilst simultaneously having product specialis

USA - Founded in 2005, Tech Solutions and Sales is an AV manufacturers' representative company covering the states of Indiana and Kentucky.

Owner Dave Fellabaum and associate William Stewart have many years of experience as reps and integrators in the AV business. Both Fellabaum and Stewart have extensive sales and design experience in commercial audio, educational, house of worship and other AV market areas. From this background Tech Solutions and Sales has built a representative firm that emphasizes great customer service and builds lasting relationships with the AV integrators, eng

Dominican Republic - On 18 October 18th at the Centre Court of the Hotel Lifestyle Holidays Vacation Club, Puerto Rican reggaeton singer/songwriter/producer and actor Daddy Yankee performed his version of urban music to an enthusiastic audience of approximately 18,000 people.

The Centre Court is one big outdoor performance venue, so when the crowds approach the maximum 20,000 person capacity - as they did for the Daddy Yankee concert - a serious sound reinforcement system is required. To ensure the music had all the power it needed, a sizeable assortment of loudspeakers drawn from the

UK - An Optocore fibre distribution system has been specified by Theatre Projects Consultants (TPC) and installed by Northern Light at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre's (EICC) new Lennox Suite, with the venue's £30m expansion. The new fibre routing matrix is in keeping with the requirement of the new multi-purpose suite to transport a number of different signal protocols within a flexible environment.

The new suite, measuring 1600sq.m, represents a multi-level expansion of the existing EICC, complete with a glass atrium and additional event spaces. This versatile a

Italy - Dolce and Gabbana is a widely known Italian fashion worldwide firm. The headquarters of the firm, located just a few minutes from the historical centre of Milan, in Viale Piave, were recently renovated. The complex, consisting of three parallel buildings overs a total area of 10.000m², a showroom with the latest clothes, their central offices, a restaurant and common areas.

For this project, the company in charge of the installation chose the Neo Series of loudspeakers developed by Work Pro. The reasons was significant: these loudspeakers blend in with the architectural and d

UK - Sennheiser UK is always keen to support new talent. Part of this commitment is a long relationship with the Faculty of Music at the University of Oxford, which recently held the final of a new competition for original composition. Sennheiser supported the project with prizes for the winners, while a K-array audio system was used for the performances.

Sennheiser's work with the University has included support for the Oxford Surround Composition and Research studio (OSCaR) - a bespoke, state-of-the-art electronic music studio, which opened last year.

This year, the company sponso

Mexico - Flightcase, speaker cabinet and 19 inch racking solutions specialist Penn-Elcom has announced the opening of a new fully operational manufacturing facility in Tijuana, Mexico.

It is part of the company's planned expansion following robust trading worldwide in recent years, and the strategic location in Mexico's bustling Baja financial and industrial centre will benefit both Penn's Latin American and US markets with even quicker and more efficient delivery times and product options.

Penn Elcom Mexico will be headed up by MD Javier Haro with Frank McCourt heading up the sales

UK - Liverpool based technical production, lighting, sound and AV specialist Adlib has announced the opening of a new Scottish office that will be based at the very heart of Scotland's buzzing entertainment industry ... in Glasgow city centre.

This is a direct response to the steady general overall increase in Adlib's work in Scotland in recent years, and also specifically to service and support several important new contracts won by the company's Installations & Sales division.

The new office will be headed up by Graham Cochrane, a well-known tour and production manager in Scotland

Archive Campaign - The British Library has launched a campaign to raise £40m to digitise the country's sound archive of more than six million recordings. The library said around two million of these are fragile and rare recordings. These are at risk of being lost due to physical degradation and the disappearance of the technology to play them, the library said. The archive, which includes the voice of Florence Nightingale, is held on more than 40 formats. These include wax cylinders, lacquer discs, cassette players, reel-to-reel tapes and minidiscs.

The UK Sound Archive includes

UK - Electrosonic has promoted Bryan Hinckley to head of the worldwide entertainment business, which includes the museum, theme park, visitor centre and retail markets. The post was previously held by Chris Conte, who was recently named head of the new US Business Development team.

Hinckley has been managing Electrosonic's themed environments and attractions business in the US, where he was responsible for maintaining and growing the business as well as managing and supporting its US-based sales team.

"Bryan's promotion to lead the entertainment business comes at a very excitin

UK - On the first month of this year 2015, Next-proaudio has decided to announce a new period of warranty and is extending the warranty on all Next-proaudio speakers from the standard two-year warranty to five years.

"The decision to extend the warranty period reflects our confidence in the quality of Next-proaudio and this gives our customers an additional argument to trust on the reliability of our products", says Andre Correia, Next-proaudio's assistant manager.

The warranty on the electronic products (such as power amplifiers, digital signal processors) remains in effe

USA - Meyer Sound has announced that its CAL column array loudspeakers are the first loudspeaker products to receive the AVnu certification by AVnu Alliance, the industry consortium that certifies Audio Video Bridging (AVB) devices for interoperability. This certification is the global seal given to devices that have implemented the IEEE AVB standards and passed AVnu Alliance's rigorous testing for interoperability and compliance. CAL can be heard live at the Meyer Sound stand at the 2015 ISE trade show in Amsterdam.

CAL is widely recognized for setting a new standard for coverage con

The Netherlands - For the fifth consecutive year, Dante's AV Networking World series of informative presentations and hands-on workshops will be held Monday, 9 February 2015 at the Amsterdam Holiday Inn near the RAI Convention Centre.

The free all-day event will feature presentations, training workshops and interactive panel discussions led by industry design consultants, AV installation contractors and IT networking experts. The event will also feature a major interoperability networking demonstration of Dante-enabled products and systems, several of which are debuting at ISE from th

USA - The Newport Performing Arts Centre (PAC) in Oregon has recently installed a Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system in its 398-seat Alice Silverman Theatre. With the upgrade, the venue joins the likes of Moscow's Svetlanov Hall, The Appel Room at Jazz at Lincoln Centre, and more than 50 other prestigious venues that rely on the variable acoustics of Constellation to deliver an extraordinary live experience.

"The result of Constellation is subtly but fundamentally transformative for both audience and performer," says David Ogden Stiers, resident conductor for the Newp

UK - London-based audio consulting firm, RH Consulting, has strengthened its team and widened its services with the addition of former PLASA Technical Resources Manager, Ron Bonner.

Ron has served with PLASA for 13 years offering health and safety advice, regulatory compliance information, technical advice and support in product compliance and environmental regulations. He offers services to many parts of the entertainment industry and continues to provide technical resources to PLASA as a contracted supplier. He offers additional services exclusively for the audio industry through RH

UK - The Dear GIRL Tour is the ongoing debut concert tour by American singer-songwriter Pharrell Williams. Williams kicked off the tour in Manchester, England, with a full Adamson sound reinforcement system.

The European tour was spearheaded by Sound Image out of Escondido, California, with UK-based Wigwam providing the Adamson PA.

Kyle Hamilton, FOH engineer for Williams, specifically chose the Adamson Energia line arrays to support performances at major arenas throughout Europe.

"They asked me what PA I preferred when we were preparing for the tour and I immediately chose A

USA - D.A.S. has announced the launch of its new Aero 20A compact powered line array system. The new system joins the third generation of Aero line arrays systems born with the introduction of the Aero 40A Advanced Line Array System (ALASTM) in 2014. Incorporating the ALASTM philosophy, the Aero 20A draws from the success of the "all-purpose" capabilities of the Aero 12A, launched in 2009.

The Aero 20A incorporates a new D.A.S. 12" loudspeaker optimized to provide high output and reliability. A light aluminum voice coil bonded to a new fibreglass reinforced cone, an opt

Latest Issue. . .