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14 March 2016

What's Next conferences are scheduled to take place in New York City (8 June), London (6 July), Los Angeles (10 August) and Tokyo (14 September. At each event, a panel of industry visionaries and professional artists will gather for a live interactive discussion designed to help musicians answer important questions, such as: Is live music the future of the indu

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14 March 2016

Steve Marshall, chief designer for Dirty Rigger notes: "The Armordillo project was 100% customer driven with their need to have a comfortable all day work glove with excellent grip and flexibility but with a high level of slash and cut resistance.

"We worked within a number of diverse industry sectors including event crewing, rigging, and overhead installation. This ensured that the feedback reflected the true use that these gloves would be exposed to.

"We chose Armourtex flexible shields in key risk areas, with a full Kevlar inner glove to ensure optimum protection and, very importantly, excellent grip. To ensure strength & durability Coats polyester thread was selected to stitch the whole Armordillo into a superb high e

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14 March 2016

Ivor's initial career began as an apprentice organ builder in Leeds. In the late 1950s he worked at London's Selfridges store as a television repairman whilst volunteering at the Questors Theatre in Ealing and the Theatre Royal Stratford East.

This lead to a formal role with Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop Company as its theatre engineer, working alongside Gerry Raffles and John Bury, amongst many others.

During his time with the company, Ivor researched and produced the original glass slides used for the inaugural production of O What a Lovely War, sourced from images held at the Imperial War Museum. These slides, now digitised, are - some 50 years l

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14 March 2016

Tutchener is using the new Clay Paky Sharpy Wash and the Alpha Spot QWO 800. "I knew the Sharpy Wash was coming, and had read about the QWO 800s, so I suggested to Noreen O'Riordan at Entec that we should take a look. She agreed and we duly set of for a demo at Ambersphere. There are many features that attracted me, even on first examination you see they're not huge hulking great lumps of metal work.

O'Riordan comments, "As a company Entec chooses very carefully where we spend our cap' ex' budget, but this was a straight forward decision. The Sharpy has proved a world beater since its launch; we expect nothing less from the Shar

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14 March 2016

"My aim with this event is to support the atmosphere, and what is going on musically, without overpowering or distracting people," White explained of his lighting design. "There are moments that need to be like a rock show, with huge dramatic cues and changes; but then also times for a lot of restraint, and subtle changes to enhance what is happening on stage and in the crowd."

For one of the more dramatic aspects of the show, a large 25ft cross was placed as the centrepiece of the rig, whereas in the pas

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14 March 2016

Making sure that the stage dynamics lived up to the performance were local production company E2Tech. Among the FX used were 24 of PR Lighting's new XLED 1037 moving heads with zoom.

Characterised by the use of 37 x 10 Watt RGBW LEDs (containing four colours in one), one of its outstanding features is its wide linear zoom, with variable beam angle. It was deployed on this show with 26° beam angle.

The lights were flown down specifically for the event - purchased by E2Tech from Modern Stage Service, PR Lighting's Indian distributors.

E2Tech owner, Jasjeet Singh comments: "We have been using PR fixtures for the last four years and are very happy both with

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14 March 2016

President of GLP Inc., Mark Ravenhill said, "Since we started our US operations in 2009, we have been endeavouring to support more and more of the valuable associations within our industry, and we are very proud that we can now call ourselves members of USITT."

USITT is a not-for-profit Corporation and is operated exclusively for charitable, educational and scientific purposes.

Carl Wake, Technical Director of GLP Inc. added, "We are very excited about working with, and supporting the organisation and in particular its student membership in any way that we can. Having done many years of product and application training through my career, I see some exciting opportunities ahead."

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Pernette says: "Jacques was in charge of the lighting of a documentary for the Arte TV channel. He showed a lot of interest in the LED fixtures which we were demonstrating; he could see the fixtures' potential, and saw that they had a much better output than their regular RGB counterparts."

As a man who professes himself artistically committed to improving the lighting in TV studios, Audrain is among those who believed in LED from its early days in entertainment technology; his faith in the technology was confirmed with the launch of ETC Selador, and its seven colour mixing system.

"F

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14 March 2016

The W-DMX G4S software platform includes an improved adaptive frequency hopping algorithm that improves the plug and play use in crowded radio spectrum situations and better avoids interference from Wi-Fi, DECT Phones, Intercom and more. The adaptive frequency hopping technology has been granted a patent in the USA and patent pending in the EU.

G4S also has a new Invisi-Wire MK2 with support for wireless software updates, which will make it possible to perform wireless software updates to all your receivers, with an easy connection to your transmitters with all receivers updated at the same time.

Another new feature is W-DMX Slot In, a new module that makes it easy to retrofit for the market and is

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14 March 2016

So what is the special ingredient in the d&b cauldron this year? To calm the stormy seas of a constantly variable acoustic environment comes the ArrayCalc V7, a sophisticated yet easy to use acoustic simulation tool that has been developed for both point source and line array setups as well as those projects that combine both into a single hybrid sound reinforcement system.

"This is the plannin

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14 March 2016

Held 12-14 June at the Orange County Convention Centre in Orlando, visitors to InfoComm will be some of the first in North America to get an up-close look at two Martin product lines that are taking the industry by storm.

Martin will also have on display its EC Series of LED video panels as well as its Exterior 400 range of outdoor LED lighting fixtures.

Martin invites all industry lighting professionals to Booth 6151 for a relaxing chat and demo from their own personal Martin rep.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Promoted by David 'Boogie Dave' Whittall, Ace supported the event with a Martin Audio Modular System that included the 215 MK3 bass bins and Martin Audio MH212 Philishave midrange - as well as top boxes. The entire system was powered by BGW's equally iconic Grand Touring Amplifiers.

"We ran totally in analogue from the microphone to the loudspeaker, giving a really warm and clear sound which this system is renowned for," stated Alex Czechowski. Bands playing through the system included Major Triads, Too Many T's, Alternative Dubstep Orchestra and The Beatbox Collective

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14 March 2016

The major release for Dataton in 2013 is WATCHPAX. Combining all the show-timeline, control and image-manipulation of the company's successful Dataton WATCHOUT software with a compact embedded computer, WATCHPAX is now shipping.

Dataton WIRETAG, which plugs directly into the WATCHPAX media-player module allows direct integration of a WATCHOUT show with Dataton's PICKUP audio guide system. Simply point and click at the WIRETAG with a PICKUP audio guide, and you jump straight into the show soundtrack at the correct point in the show.

Jim Testa, President, Show Sage, adds, "The North American market for Dataton's products is in very robust health and we are very excited by the attention WATCHPAX is getting from customers, curre

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14 March 2016

Based in Bergisch Gladbach, on the outskirts of Köln, Rational Acoustics' Michael Häck has been running Smaart classes since 2008, as well as distributing the software.

"Our courses demonstrate that you don't need to necessarily know all the theory, what is behind the algorithms or what is mathematically correct for setting up a high quality PA system. If you can use the software properly to measure the system and interpret the re

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14 March 2016

Over 300 objects have been brought together for the first time by the V&A's Theatre and Performance curators, Victoria Broackes and Geoffrey Marsh, and arranged across two exhibition galleries. Exhibits include many of Bowie's original costumes, music videos, excerpts from films and live performances and set designs.

Unusual Rigging's brief from the exhibition designers, 59 Productions and Real Studios, along with lighting designers DHA Designs, included some very subtle rigging requirements for the many flown scenic elements and projection surfaces, scrims, screens and aerial booths involved.

One major exhibit required Unusual to facilitate approximately 100 books swarm

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14 March 2016

This 6mm foam-backed performance vinyl floor provides a lightly textured surface with point elastic shock absorption for dynamic dance routines and ballet pointe work, suitable for all types of contemporary dance.

Le Mark's Dave Cartwright said, "The Compression floor range has already been used on some of the UK's highest profile dance productions. Earlier this year, Dynamic Compression was commissioned for Sky1's primetime series of Got To Dance.

"For this application the floor was installed directly over an existing concrete floor, providing a roll-out covering where the shows contestants could practice their high impact and varied dynamic dance routines.&

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14 March 2016

"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 Control team at our HQ. An internal forum will allow you to engage in discussion with fellow testers, as well as share new ideas, ways of working and experiences with each other."

Hippotizer product manager Lee House says, "Our users are the real designers of Hippotizer products. Withou

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14 March 2016

The introduction of the g X-5 LED strobes from Peter Johansen's SGM provided all the inspiration necessary for multi-award winning production designer, LeRoy Bennett, to specify almost 450 pieces for Beyoncé's The Mrs. Carter Show World Tour.

When the set climaxes with her popular song Halo, the accompanying drum roll is the cue for lighting director Whitney Hoversten to trigger every strobe in the house, completing a blinding blitzkrieg. "We throw everything plus the kitchen sink at it," he says.

Beyoncé herself had expressed a preference for a lightshow-dominated stage set this time around (rather than the current video-led paradigm) and Bennett immediately set to work creating a stunning light ladder 'torm', i

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14 March 2016

For the UK leg of the tour, Knight and production manager Scotty Ross worked with Lester Cobrin, White Light's head of concert touring, to choose the layout of the lighting rig. Having already toured the show in America, Knight decided to go in a new direction with the lighting for the UK tour. "In the US, we used mostly conventional sources - incandescent pars and similar - which didn't give me a lot of flexibility and required

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14 March 2016

The historic 20-story building sits prominently on Chicago's Loop, somewhat dwarfed by its larger skyscraper siblings but exuding an air of Old World class. Inside, the building's Main Hall plays host to events ranging from formal dinners to addresses by heads of state and other national and international dignitaries. It's an exquisitely appointed room with high ceilings and m