UK - XL Video supplied LED screens, cameras, Hippotizer media servers and control for the high profile London show by chart-topping and Grammy Award winning New York based indie pop band, Fun.

The video and lighting design was by Paul Normandale. He was approached by management and asked to come up with an inventive concept specifically for the sold-out Hammersmith Apollo show on the band's latest UK tour. Once again, he teamed up with XL Video to help make this happen, working closely with XL's Project Manager, Gareth Jeanne.

The video design was based on a poster of the band. Norm

Germany - A record-breaking 113,000 visitors from 142 countries attended this year's Musikmesse and Prolight+Sound expos in Frankfurt. This statistic spelt success not only for the show but also for Christie, who returned to Hall 9 as exhibitors in their own right after a break last year.

Pride of place went to the Nitro moving yoke series. The company welcomed existing and new customers to hourly presentations given by Christie field application engineer, Jan Walter, in which he compared a Christie YK100 single arm projection yoke (specifically designed for Christie M Series and Chri

USA - On 17 March, Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, celebrated the ministry's 40th anniversary by hosting a weekend event titled ReEnvision. The weekend was intended to reflect on how Harvest grew from a small church into one of America's mega-churches with one of the largest evangelical outreaches in America and the world, Harvest America.

Harvest lighting designer and programmer Christopher Eguizabal was tasked with lighting the event, as well as a special dinner for Harvest guests and staff to be aired on television. The lighting rig therefore ne

UK - The opening day of PLASA Focus: Leeds 2013 was tremendously busy, with packed aisles, full seminars, and dozens of new products to see on the show floor.

Here are 10 reasons to join us today:

* Audio legend Tony Andrews delivers his Keynote Speech What is Good Audio?

* Martin Audio debuts the MLA Mini

* Ambersphere presents Clay Paky and the Laws of Physics

* Award winning sound designer Gareth Fry gives his seminar Creative Manipulation of Sound

* d&b audiotechnik tell you Why Size Matters

* The ABTT discuss qualifications and competence i

UK - Innovation Productions Ltd is preparing itself for a busy summer with some new additions to its already extensive rental stock. Innovation Productions provide hire and sales of lighting, sound, video and staging equipment have added new additions to all areas of their range from leading brand names, including Clay Paky, Martin Professional, Sennheiser, Christie Digital and DPA. Innovation Productions have other additions planned over the coming months.

Andrew Pygott the company's managing director and himself a respected lighting and systems designer commented on some of the addi

UK - QED fielded no fewer than 19 Christie high-end projectors to meet one of their most complex projection-mapping challenges ever for BBC's Red Nose Day.

The 25th edition of Comic Relief's Red Nose Day 'Funny For Money' TV broadcast has so far raised a record amount of £75m for charities in the UK and Africa and was watched by millions of people across the UK.

Brought in by content creators, Framestore Labs, and working in the main studio at London's BBC Television Centre, QED fielded their front line armoury of Christie high-brightness 3-chip DLP projectors, including eight

Belgium / Japan - ArKaos has announced that it has signed an agreement with Dirigent Corporation Japan for the exclusive distribution of the ArKaos GrandVJ product range.

"We are very excited about this new collaboration with Dirigent," says ArKaos business development manager, Agnes Wojewoda. "Dirigent has been established for a very long time and is ideally placed to bring our GrandVJ range to the Japanese music market. The team is very eager to start distributing our products, organizing workshops and product training and is in an excellent position to offer full and

UK - When the BBC wanted to celebrate the completion of its ambitious Your Paintings project - an online catalogue of 212,000 oil paintings in public ownership - Mark Rackstraw, assistant producer of BBC Learning (under whose department it fell), had the idea of simultaneously projecting some of the artworks onto 30 landmark buildings and heritage sites around the UK on the day of the celebration.

The remarkable feat of carrying out this projection - at 5pm on 8 February - was undertaken by Keyteq; and at every site they deployed Christie LX1500's, outputting 15,000 ANSI lumens

UK - Stage Electrics has announced a management buy-out (MBO) of the business from the estate of David Whitehead. The MBO was fully supported and agreed by David Whitehead prior to his stepping down from the role of managing director in May 2012 as a way to position Stage Electrics for future growth and security, the company says. David Whitehead sadly passed away in February 2013 after a courageous fight against cancer.

The new shareholders - Trevor Smallwood, Dan Aldridge, Bob Smith, James Irvine, Anna Western, Adam Blaxill, Adrian Searle and Ian Tregaskis - combine considerable bus

UK - The specialist AV design, supply and installation company, Marquee Installations, has announced it is changing its name to Marquee AV to better reflect the company's business activities.

Director Mark Brown explained, "With our roots in the famous Marquee brand, our original name was based upon the sound 'installation' business section we had built, however as we grew we also became heavily involved in visual and lighting supply and design.

"Marquee Installations is well known in the industry, to our customers and for the reputation we've established, but we've grown

Canada - ArKaos had one of its ArKaos A30 media servers in action with TEDxYorkU for a recent think tank event at York University, Toronto.

The A30 server was supplied by A.C. Lighting Inc., ArKaos' exclusive distributor in North America.

York University is one of Canada's leading interdisciplinary research and teaching universities, offering a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level. TEDx is a series of events which began as a conference to bring together people from the worlds of technology, entertainment, design. Since then its scope has become ever br

Sweden - Visualisation expert Barco has revealed the details of its impressive technical contribution to the upcoming Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), from 14 to 18 May next. As an official technical event partner, Barco will have no fewer than 60 projectors and three Encore systems at the Malmö Arena, provided by a key rental partner. A main role will be reserved for the award-winning HDQ-2K40 projector.

A large number of the projectors used are from Barco's latest high-brightness range: 28 HDQ-2K40 projectors, 13 of which will be blended and warped into a spectacular back wall - the

UK - For the third consecutive year, XL Video sponsored the OLivier Award for Best Set Design (won by Bunny Christie and Finn Ross for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightime) as well as supplying video equipment for the awards ceremony.

At London's Royal Opera House, XL supplied the centre-stage LED screen, built from Pixled FX-11, 12 tiles wide by 7 tiles high, which linked up with the ITV broadcast feed and displayed live camera relay, VT clips and nomination packages.

The main screen was matched on either side by two dynamic portrait orientated screens measuring 5

South Africa - The Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) has appointed Inhouse Venue Technical Management (IVTM) as its new audio visual supplier.

According to CTICC general manager for operations, Aage Hansen, the centre has entered into a business partnership with IVTM, who will now be responsible for overseeing all the audio-visual requirements and solutions for the centre and its clients.

The new appointment supersedes the existing partnership between the CTICC and its former in house audio visual supplier AV Alliance, whose contract concluded on 30 April 2013.

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UK - Creative Technology (CT) will be the first customer to take delivery of the exciting new 8mm Outdoor LED product launched at ProLight+Sound by Barco's specialist LED division, LiveDots.

The new 8mm product is lightweight, low profile and silent in operation due to its fan-less design. With full outdoor brightness and high contrast to ensure optimal operation in direct sunlight, the product has been specifically developed by LiveDots in consultation with CT to service the companies growing portfolio of high profile sports events.

The C8 investment follows CT's successful introdu

UK - Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) supplied projection and lighting equipment plus design and programming services for the new ARC Festival, an innovative one day event celebrating electronic music and digital arts, staged in three domed and two tented structures in Eastville Park, Bristol, UK.

CPL's client was festival organisers ARC AP. The festival's directors are Ben Thompson from the ARC Festival and Will Young from interactive experimentalists Luma, who asked CPL's Nick Diacre to specify and supply a video system for the main stage and co-ordinate the supply of AV and lighting

UK - Green Hippo is recruiting for members for its new beta testing team . "As ongoing progress to our development and testing team, we have now introduced a dedicated and integral beta testing plan," says the company.

"Once registered and accepted, you will be given access to all the latest builds and tools that make Hippotizer the world's favourite media server. With these you will be asked to participate in testing, logging issues and suggesting new features.

"For the duration of the programme, you will become part of Green Hippo and have access to the Quality

UK - Avolites Media's industry-beating server 'Ai' has been powering the fast-paced visuals for Sky TV's popular spring series of Got to Dance. A total of four Ai Server systems, running on Mac Towers, two main and two backup, were supplied to the production by video rental house Creative Technology.

Respected TV lighting and visual media programmer Russ Grubiak - who has worked on a number of high rating shows including the X Factor, Big Brother, and Friday Night with Jonathan Ross - chose to use the powerful Avolites Media Server Ai to manipulate the end

Spain - Audi wowed audiences in both Madrid and Barcelona with the Audi A3 Experience, the automobile brand's stunning audiovisual spectacular, combining 360° projections, 3D mapping and Showmaster Control to publicise its new A3 Sportback. Produced by New Media Creative Technology Studio, the show used different Christie projectors and Christie MicroTiles videowalls supplied by Ingevideo.

The event was staged first in Plaza de Colón in Madrid between 28 February and 8 March, and then in Plaza de Cataluña in Barcelona from 16 to 23 March.

The show was held in a special

Sweden - PLASA's first ever networking event in Scandinavia, PLASA Focus: Backstage Malmö, was a huge success, with over 240 delegates attending from across Scandinavia and northern Europe.

Devised in conjunction with technical director Ola Melzig and the production team behind this year's Eurovision, this unique event aimed to combine unprecedented backstage access with seminars, Q&A sessions with key members of the production team and a technology showcase to highlight the cutting-edge sound, lighting, projection, video and control systems in use on a show which will have a tel

UK - Chaos Visual Productions were the video supplier of choice for the inaugural Taste Festival at London's newest venue space, Tobacco Dock at Wapping Lane, East London. This historic Victorian warehouse has been converted into a modern multi-functional facility comprising over 16,000m2. The Lab at Tobacco Dock was hosted by Gizzi Erskine, the TV chef and food writer and was organised in partnership with AEG, the home appliance manufacturer.

The Chaos team, headed up by project manager Mick Jones, provided projection for a live relay screen on the AEG Live Stage where top chefs and

UK - AMX has announced the appointment of Jeff Gorton as UK business development manager for the corporate sector.

"It is with great pleasure that we can announce that Jeff has joined the AMX team." said Jonathan Mangnall, sales director, AMX Europe. "Our corporate business has been going from strength to strength and we have been looking for some time for the right candidate to build on this momentum. Jeff's vast experience across the corporate installation industry will be invaluable."

Gorton joins the AMX team with over 15 years experience within the industry,

South Korea - Creative Production Agency ECA2 of France has broken new ground in show technology with BIG-O, a breathtaking multimedia installation at the EXPO 2012 grounds in Yeosu, South Korea.

BIG-O enjoyed a stunning debut at EXPO 2012 and stands impressively as a giant 41m high sculpture and 3,000-nozzle water curtain that transforms into an immersive multi-sensory show by night. The magnificent interaction of light and water incorporates 30 Martin MAC 2000 Profile and 48 MAC 2000 Beam XB luminaires as an integral multimedia element. All Martin luminaires are in protection domes

UK - The Award-winning Broadway musical, Rent, was first workshopped in New York in 1993. To celebrate this 20 year landmark, a new concert production under the direction of Daniel Wood recently toured around the UK. With packed houses and standing ovations nightly, it's no surprise that additional dates are already set to take place in the Autumn.

The production, designed by Ben M Rogers, included LED display solutions from XL Video, used to frame the performance as well as the option to integrate live camera footage and original work from video content designer Zoe Hitchen.

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