UK - Le Mark's high gloss StudioTak flooring is back with the second series of Sky Living's The Love Machine.

The set maximises the effect of StudioTak's high gloss finish and combines professional studio lighting to produce a visual impact that's not often rivaled by other self-adhesive studio floors.

Le Mark's Leanne Baker said, "The Love Machine is a really lively and stunning set. The camera angles perfectly capture the glossy floor finish, making the nightclub-style set design beautifully shine back on-camera."

(Jim Evans)

France - The Palais Omnisports Marseille Grand-Est is the latest and most modern competition venue in a city known for its love of sporting entertainment. Spreading over a site some 20,000 sq.m in extent to the east of the city centre, the complex offers facilities for a variety of different sports - notably ice skating, for which a 5,600-seater stadium has been provided.

Marseille-based Objectif Plus was commissioned to design and install the stadium's sound reinforcement system. The highest acoustic hurdle here - and one most ice rinks share - is the hall's long reverberation time. "Obtaining clearly intelligible sound under such conditions posed a real challenge," admits Jean Marandet, product & service manager with EVI Audio France, "especially since the budget for the project was relatively modest. It was necessary, therefore, to find a solution capable of pr

UK - Popular Northern Irish band Two Door Cinema Club continued the latest UK leg of their Beacon world tour with a very cool lighting design by Squib (Chris Swain) which included 32 x Robe LEDBeam 100s and 10 Robe MMX Spots, all supplied by rental company Siyan together with the rest of the lighting rig.

Squib has worked with the Band - whose lively mix of rocky electro pop has fed their hyperactive career trajectory - since 2010. They are a hard-working live act. Squib's first gig for them was at London's Heaven venue, mid-way through the cycle for their first studio album Tourist History, which segued almost immediately into Beacon.

He is a relative newcomer to using Robe fixtures, and it was the latest Robin series that caught his eye and encouraged him to look further at what the brand had to offer.

This was the first full production leg of the Beacon

USA - Liberty AV Solutions and Perfect Path have jointly announced details of a distribution partnership that will add the Perfect Path line of locking high-speed HDMI cables to Liberty's extensive product catalogue.

A trademarked brand of the East Syracuse, New York-based company PPC, Perfect Path products debuted four years ago with a patented line of high-retention and locking HDMI cables that quickly garnered a reputation for performance and reliability within the residential AV, home theatre, and systems contracting markets.

With its headquarters located in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Liberty AV Solutions is an AV supplier of solutions-based products ranging from bulk cable and connectors to custom plates, panels, racks, and signal distribution devices manufactured by its Intelix division.

"Partnering with Liberty is a perfect fit for our extension into the world o

Denmark / USA - The ability to move from venue to venue and achieve the same sound regardless of the acoustics or the PA system is the main reason why sound engineer Raul Mendez chooses DPA Microphones.

"I have been using DPA microphones for a long time now and they are always my first choice of microphone because they give me the sound I want without any feedback problems," Mendez says. "Whether I am miking an acoustic instrument, voices for an event or a musical, I know these microphones will work perfectly every time and in all of these different areas of performance."

Raul Mendez is currently using a selection of DPA microphones to capture the sound of legendary guitarist, composer, dramatist and producer Paco Peña. Over a career spanning more than four decades, Peña has expanded the possibilities of flamenco and changed perceptions of the art form by

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ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

France - The SIEL, Professional Festival of Live Show and Events Techniques has closed its doors at the Grande Halle de la Villette in Paris. With 125 exhibitors, 800 brands and an attendance of 9732 visitors, SIEL confirms its position as a leading professional trade show.

The concept of SIEL was reinforced this year with more than 40 workshops, lighting showrooms and audio classrooms. Prestigious conferences were also added to those professionals meetings, thanks to the involvement of exhibitors and partners : APG France, Clay Paky, DV2, Profession Spectacle and SGM. More than 150 visitors took the opportunity to attend Luc Lafortune's conference. Guest of honor, the lighting designer of the Cirque du Soleil, spent more than three hours sharing his work experiences, techniques and anecdotes about the shows Ka and O.

For this second edition of the SIEL 'new formula',the Etoil

UK - David Whitehead, founder and majority shareholder of Stage Electrics passed away suddenly on Monday 18 February after a courageous fight against cancer.

"David was diagnosed with cancer 15 months ago and met the challenge of his illness with the same blend of determination and optimism that was his hallmark in business. Since stepping down as managing director of Stage Electrics he has devoted time to ensuring a secure future for his company and its employees," says the company. "His majority ownership passes to his family, however David has made sure Stage Electrics is in safe hands with strong management in place led by managing director Dan Aldridge and chairman Trevor Smallwood."

David founded Stage Electrics in Exeter in 1979 and built the company into the nationwide multi-discipline organisation it is today. Leading the company as managing direct

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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

UK - Crestron has announced the appointment of Matthew Browning, filling the new position of EMEA marketing campaign manager. Based in the Crestron UK office, Browning will be using his extensive marketing experience to support the dealer base throughout EMEA.

Browning's career has seen him fulfill a wide range of marketing roles that make him the appropriate candidate for this new position. Having worked in business-to-business marketing for over six years, he has been responsible for numerous successful tactical marketing initiatives for large international technology organisations in both agency and in-house positions.

"It's easy to see that Crestron is making positive noise in the market place and growing on an impressive, international scale, with incredible speed," said Browning. "The company is a huge player in the industry and I can't wait to be a part o

USA - Chauvet Professional Legend 412 pixel-mapping moving yokes flawlessly performed during 168 shows next to up-and-coming country singer Justin Moore, as the opening act for Eric Church's tour.

Lighting designer Sooner Routhier specified 44 Legend 412 fixtures placed in custom-made wood carts behind the singer and symmetrically on the left and right side of the stage. "We needed to make sure that the floor package we used was easily configurable to accommodate the many different stage sizes," Routhier said.

"It needed to expand and contract based on the various widths. Luckily, the lighting company - Special Event Services - had some custom-built carts that they modified in order to pack lots of lights into small spaces." These props allowed the tour to set up a floor package and tear it down in record time for festival and opening act situations. "

UK - When the celebrated American jazz pianist-composer Ahmad Jamal played to a sell-out audience at the Barbican Centre in London on Friday 8 February, he insisted on a full Bose RoomMatch system being installed especially for the concert, the first in the UK for four years.

Ahmad Jamal has been praised as one of the greatest jazz innovators over his exceptionally long career, and joins other world renowned artistes and musicians who have performed at the Barbican, Europe's largest multi-arts and conference venue presenting a diverse range of art, music, theatre, dance, film and creative learning events. It is also home to the London Symphony Orchestra.

Considering his four piece ensemble 'an orchestra', Mr Jamal wanted a system that would deliver the most lifelike venue-filling sound to every member of the audience, and previous experience of Bose made the RoomMatch system t

UK - Orbital Sound has announced that its 2013 Sound Fundamentals for Theatre training course will take place from 2-5 April, representing the 12th consecutive year that the Easter training week has been staged. Among the confirmed elements will be hands-on training sessions from d&b audiotechnik, Shure and Yamaha Commercial Audio, as well as the chance for students to go backstage on a West End production.

Orbital's Richard Carter and Alex Waddle are this year's course leaders, tutoring up to 24 students at its well-equipped training facility in Brixton, south London. Among the modules are dedicated sessions on show control, radio microphones, video communications and networking, reflecting the emphasis on the range of practical and technical disciplines that form the backbone of today's live sound applications.

The annual Easter Sound Fundamentals for Theatre w

UK - Broadcast and production experts will lead informal round-table discussions at BVE 2013's popular Skills Zone, bringing their expertise on a wide range of topics and encouraging visitors to share their career issues, business concerns and ideas. The Skills Zone is a key learning and networking opportunity at the show, which runs from 26-28 February 2013 at ExCeL London.

Those looking for careers advice will find BECTU and The Crewing Co offering daily CV clinics (15 minute slots can be booked on stand 55), while Emily Man, Creative Skillset leads a discussion on developing careers in the film industry, and Samantha Meah and Dermot Casey, EMS Technical Personnel look at permanent and contract work placements in broadcasting.

Script writers can find out how to make money from their talent with Julian Friedmann, Blake Friedmann Literary Agency, while Henry Swindell, BBC Writ

Australia - As the newest and largest arrival to the Phoenix Group, Parramatta Phoenix is upholding the group's passion for delivering Sydney Chinese dining experiences. As well as their well known Yum Cha and A la carte menu, the Parramatta Phoenix restaurant is also able to cater for all types and sizes of groups, with their private dining function area perfect for weddings, parties and corporate events.

Envision AV were commissioned to design and install a comprehensive audio system for the venue and with no hesitation they proposed a Jands solution.

The venue has a main restaurant level on the ground floor, a mezzanine level, a private dining room that can be divided into three when required and a function space upstairs. The main restaurant floor was a particularly challenging space acoustically with ten metre high glass walls on three sides and many demanding ceiling spa

UK - Confirming the show's position as the premier event for entertainment technology in the north of England, PLASA Events is delighted to report that all exhibitor stands for PLASA Focus: Leeds 2013, taking place on Tuesday 30 April and Wednesday 1 May at the Royal Armouries in Leeds, are now sold out.

In a further indication that this year's show will be the best yet, organisers report a 30% increase in visitor registrations. New exhibitors joining the show this year include Autograph Sales, HD Pro Audio, Pearce Hire and Unusual Rigging, among others. A full list of exhibitors and details of the Professional Development Programme can be found on the PLASA Focus website.

Another exciting new development is the first ever PLASA Riggers' Forum for the North, which will take place on Tuesday 30 April. Building on the success of the PLASA Riggers' Forum in London in September, t

UK - The beginning of AP Security's sixth year working at London's O2 Arena has seen the company as busy as ever. From television and music celebrities, basketball superstars and motorcycle madmen to children and dinosaurs, the company's staff ensured that exemplary charm and helpfulness were always top of the bill.

January was a particularly varied month for The O2. The high profile 18th National Television Awards and NBA London Live basketball match were both televised live, Arenacross featured high octane motorcycle racing and stunts, Ronan Keating lit the fires of passion in women of a certain age, Donnie and Marie Osmond produced plenty of Puppy Love and Walking with Dinosaurs produced much wonder for younger generations.

"We cover the main entrances, the floor of The O2 and the response teams on all the levels, so our staff are effectively working thro

USA - Super Bowl XLVII was a memorable game, but the full Super Bowl experience started well before kickoff with a pair of live pre-game concerts broadcast on VH-1 and CMT where grandMA2 light consoles played a key role.

VH-1 and the NFL joined forces to celebrate the Super Bowl with Train headlining The Best Super Bowl Concert Ever on Friday night. CMT and the NFL partnered the following evening on a Crossroads special starring superstar country band Rascal Flatts and iconic rock band Journey. Both concerts were held at The Sugar Mill in New Orleans, which seats 4,000-5,000 fans.

Atomic Lighting of Lititz, Pennsylvania provided a pair of grandMA2 light with grandMA2 fader wing for the concert series. PEDG was the production design team collaborating. Bob Pederson was acting lighting designer on the broadcast truck.

The grandMA2 light was selected by programmer

Italy - Founded in the early 80s, Elio e Le Storie Tese (which translates roughly to "Elio and the Tense Situations") is an Italian pop/rock band that evolved from the underground Zappa-esque "Rock demenziale" scene of the late 70s.

Their music is a blend of different genres, where cheeky and often insolent lyrics contrast sharply with complex musical arrangements: Elio e le Storie Tese are widely considered to be amongst the best musicians in Italy.

Claudio Scavazza is the P.A. technician on Elio's latest tour, Enlarge . . ..

Claudio has been working with Elio and the audio rental company Sonique - who provide the systems for the tour - for many years. During this time he has witnessed the evolution of Sonique's JBL Vertec system which was recently beefed up with the addition of Powersoft K Series amplifiers.

"Up until recently the system w

UK - After a live try-out of DPA's d:facto vocal microphone at London's Royal Festival Hall, sound production and rental company RNSS was so impressed with their performance that it has placed an order for six of the new d:facto II vocal microphones.

RNSS specified DPA d:facto vocal microphones as part of the audio equipment for the London Jazz Festival, an annual event produced in association with BBC Radio 3. Hailed as the capital's biggest pan-city music festival, The London Jazz Festival featured artists such as Herbie Hancock and Lucinda Williams.

Richard Nowell, director of RNSS, says, "We have had a long association with DPA Microphones and already carry a large stock of the company's products. I was intrigued by the new d:facto Vocal Microphone and was keen to try it out. The Jazz Festival gave us the perfect opportunity to put it through its paces. We borrowed tw

UK - A troupe of Clay Paky Sharpys has added high-impact layers to pop princess Cheryl Cole's visuals-led tour.

Lighting designer Peter Barnes - dubbed the UK's 'guru of pop lighting' - specified 14 Sharpys rigged on the back truss on drop-bars and ten on the stairways, all mimicking the shapes of the LED screens on stage. A further ten Sharpys were positioned on a flown box truss just in front of the FOH position.

"The Sharpys were the only fixture I knew would give strong defined beams powerful enough to be visible against the intensity of the LED screen that made up the pyramid shaped fascia to the set and the backdrop," says Barnes. "They were also small enough to be placed on the stairs without being a hazard to the dancers."

HSL supplied the Clay Paky Sharpys and the tour was project managed for HSL by Mike Oates.

"The Clay Paky Sharpy is a real wor

USA - Barco provided the ultra-bright projection technology for Fresh Air Flicks to create an astonishing illusion depicting the future of automobile travel via the BMW i: A Window Into the Near Future campaign. By turning a street-level window of the MetLife building across from Bryant Park in New York into a digital reflection which morphed passing traffic into BMW's new all-electric i3 and plug-in hybrid i8 concept vehicles, event producers gave passersby a glimpse of the future of automobile transportation.

From the outset, the biggest challenge that New York-based video display integrator Fresh Air Flicks faced was the need to project moving images on a giant window in direct sunlight. After extensive testing, producers discovered that 3M Corporation's Vikuiti window film and Barco's brightest large-venue projectors were the perfect combination for achieving this fir

USA - Grammy award winning vocal group Little Big Town is on the road with Bandit Lites for The Tornado Tour. Comprised of Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Jimi Westbrook and Phillip Sweet, the country music group has been unstoppable, with their first platinum single Pontoon racking up accolades, including the CMA Award for Single of the Year and the Grammy award for Best Country Duo/Group performance.

Raj Kapoor worked closely with Little Big Town to design a stunning set that did the word justice. The design features the remains of a theatre, with tattered legs and borders hanging across the mid stage.

While the name of the tour and album inspired the set design, lighting designer Chris Shrom worked with production manager Chris Diener on the production details during Rascal Flatts' Changed tour that they wanted to bring to Little Big Town's show.

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