UK - Stage Electrics has updated its inventory of audio equipment with the recent addition of an L-Acoustics ARCS Wide and Focus system. The investment follows the appointment of Rob Collett to audio hire manager and his remit to ensure the standard of equipment within the hire department is in line with needs and the expectations of its customers.

One of my first roles was to evaluate the audio equipment we offered and identify opportunities to invest in new technology says Rob. "Stage Electrics' aim is always to be at the forefront of the industry and our policy is to ensure th

Fighting Talk - Foo Fighters have revealed they will be the headline act on the first day of Glastonbury Festival. The US rockers announced the news after they were named best international band at the NME Awards. In a recorded video message, frontman Dave Grohl told music fans at Brixton Academy, south London, they were returning to the UK to play Glastonbury. They are the first major act announced for this year's event. Foo Fighters will headline the Pyramid Stage on Friday, Glastonbury's website confirmed, making their first appearance at the Somerset festival since 1998. Lionel Rich

Switzerland - A new website marks the official launch of the Schertler Group of companies, as its members formalise a corporate re-branding that has been in progress for several months. The group comprises Schertler SA, Swiss manufacturer of high quality contact microphones and compact acoustic and electric amplification systems, SR Technology, the Italian loudspeaker systems manufacturer (wholly owned by Schertler since 2012) and Velvet Strings SA (developed and owned by Schertler).

The group's new website offers pro audio customers, hi-fi enthusiasts and performing musicians an exte

Poland - Located in the provincial capital city of Lublin in eastern Poland, Arena Lublin is a new 15,500 seat capacity football stadium. Built on the land of a former sugar factory, the stadium's surrounding area has been fully landscaped and is bordered by trees, with lawns to the adjacent river. Home ground to the football club Motor Lublin, the city is proud of its new landmark venue.

With unequalled experience in stadium audio in Poland, Tommex ?ebrowscy Sp. J. was commissioned to design and install the sound for the new venue. "We designed the system based on Dynacord elect

UK - When the annual TPi Awards switched from the Hammersmith Novotel to Battersea Evolution in 2015, turnkey event technology specialists VME were delighted.

Moving across the river to the large, wide open 5,500 sq.m Evolution temporary structure in Battersea Park was almost familiar territory, and the restricted sightlines and low balconies that had challenged them at the Novotel became a thing of the past. "We have worked in similar venues at Aintree and Tatton Park and are entirely comfortable in this marquee type of venue," he said. And of course he knew that the offsit

UK - Having already supplied new Soundcraft Vi3000 consoles for installation at Liverpool University and at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, UK rental company Adlib has now added two Vi3000 consoles, plus two Soundcraft Realtime Rack plug-in engines, to their own rental inventory.

Packaged with the Realtime Rack and utilising the Vi3000's on-board Dante interface, the compact rental system provides 64-channel recording, virtual soundcheck, and integrated UA plug-in capability alongside the Vi3000's acclaimed sound quality and ease of use.

Dave Jones, Adlib director commented, "We h

Australia - For the past three years, Entertainment Installations has been supporting the long-standing Twilight at Taronga summer concerts in Sydney with production services.

Based an hour north of the city, the installation and production specialists can hardly have taken on a more challenging task, since the concerts take place in the middle of the busy Taronga Park Zoo, with restricted site access. Despite its picturesque setting, with around 1600 people nightly picnicking as the sun sets behind the Opera House and Harbour Bridge, in the past off-site noise has been a real issue.<

USA - Founded in 2005, the Rocky Mountain Classical Academy is a successful K-8 charter school in Colorado's second-largest city, Colorado Springs. However, RMCA was split between two locations until the recent completion of a $17m, 100,000sq.ft building to house all of its 1,000 students, with additional room to grow school enrolment by 33%.

The building is community-oriented, featuring lots of open areas and gathering spaces with an abundance of natural light. Among them are an adjacent gymnasium and auditorium. With a clever arrangement of movable partitions, the two facilities sha

USA - Some may say bigger is better when it comes to speakers, but in this case Avalon Hollywood's owner and audio expert John Lyons says, "It's a matter of being louder, cleaner and clearer."

The new system, which was unveiled during Grammy weekend at Hollywood's historic venue Avalon two weeks ago, features Powersoft's new M-Force technology - and is claimed to be the world's largest subwoofer club installation ever.

While other venues may opt for sound systems featuring a du jour brand, Avalon has its own namesake speaker series. No stranger to conceptualizing game chan

South Africa - Wild & Marr, the South African distributor for Harman Professional, will be hosting two exciting Harman BSS Audio workshops in Johannesburg during March 2015. The workshops will be presented by Justin Hankey, Application Engineer for Networking and Installed Sound at Harman.

The target audience for the classes would primarily be AV Programmers and Systems Integrators as well as audio designers and anyone else in the professional audio industry that require a better understanding of Audio Architect, networked audio signal processors and digital audio networking protocols

USA - The second edition of PLASA Focus Orlando, the regional event for the live entertainment technology industry, has been branded a resounding success by both visitors and exhibitors alike. Attracting record numbers of attendees, the popular event offered networking opportunities and hosted many over-sold education sessions presented by top industry speakers including Richard Pilbrow - lighting designer, theatre design consultant and author and Jim Hutchison, customer engagement and education manager for Chauvet Professional.

Taking place on 17-18 February at the Rosen Plaza Hotel,

The Netherlands - How to design the perfect audio solution in small & medium sized applications? Apart Audio has developed a digital tool to help and inspire every installer. There is no need any more to search for a product in a product catalogue. The new intuitive web based plug & play tool is starting from the customer needs and presents an entire audio solution for the specific customer requirements. Visit the Apart Audio website www.apart-audio.com to experience it yourself. A high quality audio solution is designed in no time.

On the Apart website (apart-audio.com) a Plug & Play

UK - Source Distribution is hosting the world launch of several RØDE products and new Genelec loudspeakers at BVE 2015 in Lon don this week.

Source is making the exclusive world-wide launch and first public display of RØDE's new RØDE Link Digital Wireless System, NTG4 and NTG4+ shotgun microphones and the NTR ribbon microphone.

The RØDE Link Wireless system utilises 2.4GHz technology to provide a high-resolution 24-bit/44.1kHz digital audio signal at a range of up to 100 metres. The system consists of a number of receiver and transmitter options, and will

Germany - Having updated the audio systems in its Ü2 and Ü3 radio OB trucks back in 2013, Bavarian public broadcaster Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) operates integrated systems of Lawo production and on-air products. At its Nuremberg Regional Studio, BR is now replacing another two aged OB vans (Ü1 and Ü2) with new vehicles that have a largely identical configuration.

Mixes of all kinds are handled by Lawo mc²66 consoles, providing the recording, sources and TB signals needed for large-scale live events using a sapphire mastercard-equipped DALLIS router frame. The different processes

Canada - Award-winning musical Once returned to Canada on 10 February to start a 111-day run at Toronto's Ed Mirvish Theatre. Having enjoyed a particularly successful stint in the city during the show's North American Tour in 2013, Once's producers decided to re-visit for an extended stay. Sound designer, Clive Goodwin, has created a new audio concept for the production that is, once again, formed around a Funktion-One sound system.

Set in modern day Dublin, Once is the story of a guy who gives up on his love of music and the girl who inspires him to dream again.

USA - Seeking to provide exceptional audio quality for its diverse speech and music programmes, the Penn State Great Valley graduate school has recently installed a Meyer Sound Mina line array loudspeaker system in its 300-seat Warren V. Musser Auditorium.

"With Mina, we have future-proofed the room for any future needs," says Dave Brotman, president of Coatesville, Penn.-based DBS Audio Systems, which handled system design and integration. "Mina's clarity and coverage easily take care of all current speech requirements for educational uses and corporate conference rent

UK - With little over a week to go before this year's ISCEx2015, the Institute of Sound and Communications Engineers is reporting a record number of companies exhibiting.

The two-day networking event, taking place at the picturesque rural location of Coombe Abbey, a four-star country house hotel outside Coventry, will bring consultants, specifiers and manufacturers together under one roof. Following the AGM during the afternoon of Wednesday, 3 March, a networking dinner, with comedian Lea Roberts, will serve as a curtain-raiser for the following day's exhibition.

Wednesday, 4 March

USA - The in-store radio architecture is typically a patchwork of systems and components from different sources to deliver music and advertising to businesses, with challenging scenarios for licensing music and audio content. The formation of StoreStreams aims to simplify the launch and management of a multi-site in-store radio system, cleanly integrating IT network infrastructure with audio players-and providing the content, licensing and user interface to ensure a unified and profitable service.

StoreStreams brings together the music catalogue and network intelligence of XYZ Stream

USA - At the request of FOH engineer Jose Rivera, a Meyer Sound Leo and Lyon linear sound reinforcement system was deployed for Marc Anthony's recent mini tour. The shows - which included 360-degree productions in New York and New Jersey - were Anthony's first North American concerts to be heard through a Leo system.

"Everybody was extremely happy with the performance of Leo and Lyon, both on stage and throughout the audience," reports Rivera, who first used Leo at a stadium concert in Peru. "The overall sound was very transparent and open. Vocal intelligibility was imp

USA - From its start in 1996 as a small independent plant by Grandville, Michigan's Resurrection Life Church, Radiant Church in the Richland suburb of Kalamazoo has steadily grown its membership to 3,500. Recently expanding its service count to four each weekend - two on Saturday and two on Sunday - the church also freshly upgraded the audio facilities of its 1,050-seat sanctuary with a new ARCS WiFo (Wide and Focus) loudspeaker system from L-Acoustics.

Parkway Electric & Communications of Holland, Michigan provided the design and integration of the new system, which replaced an outda

UK - Adlib has been providing a riotous sound for favourite UK rockers, Kaiser Chiefs, renewing a long term working relationship with the band and reuniting many crew who have worked together over several years, on a tour that's been every bit as full-on and enjoyable as previous ones.

Adlib's George Puttock, Sam Proctor and James Petch joined the band's engineering duo of Chris Leckie at FOH and Ilias Andriantos on monitors for a rousing three week tour where all the energy and passion of the Kaisers' renowned live performances was exceptionally well received by the public.

Working

UK - Bombay Bicycle Club will forever be known as the last live band to play at London's Earl's Court venue. But preceding that already-famous December show was a tour that had started nearly a year before, on which DiGiCo SD9 and SD10 consoles played a starring role.

Front of House engineer Tom Wiggans joined the band in the summer, part-way through the tour. A DiGiCo user for around 12 years - including working with UB40, Squeeze, Wet Wet Wet and The Cranberries - Tom's debut with Bombay Bicycle Club came on festival shows, before he used a DiGiCo SD9 on the band's US shows. He then

USA - After Oscar awards were collected and the lights dimmed on stage at the Dolby Theatre, the stars hit the streets of Los Angeles to find their favourite after parties. Among these, the Governors Ball, held at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at the Hollywood & Highland Centre. Kicking off the event's entertainment this year was Grammy Winner Sergio Mendes, who performed songs with special guest will.i.am from their co-produced, Latin Grammy-winning album Timeless, using several DPA Microphones d:facto Vocal Microphones.

Selected by Mendes' production manager John Baker, wired and wi

UK - Alchemea College is celebrating the recent success of several of its former students at this year's BRIT Awards, Grammy Awards, MPG Awards...and on the charts.

Jimmy Napes (aka James Napier, Class of 2004) was both songwriter and producer whose work contributed to Sam Smith's BRIT Award nods for British Breakthrough Act and British Global Success, as well as nominations for British Album and British Single. Other Alchemea alumni represented at the BRITs include Steve Sedgwick (Class of 2002), house engineer for British Male Solo Artist nominee Damon Albarn, and Robbie Nelson (Cla

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