Asia - Mattel's universally beloved Barbie and Ken dolls are performing across Asia in the stage production Barbie Live!. For the young audience in this family show, sound designer Kai Harada has built a sound system based on the Meyer Sound M'elodie line array loudspeaker. Equipment provider is Orlando-based Show Systems.

"It's a dance-heavy show," says Harada, "so we needed a robust system that would cover large theatres or smaller arenas with exceptional clarity-but at levels appropriate for children's ears. I knew that a M'elodie rig would give us those qualities, as well as the flexibility to adapt to different venues."

The show uses up to 24 M'elodie loudspeakers that can be configured as either left-right or left-centre-right arrays, depending o

Tourist Boom - Tourists going to concerts and festivals are boosting the UK economy by as much as £2.2 billion a year. Music tourism is also said to provide 24,000 jobs each year, a report by Visit Britain and UK Music shows. Spending by people from the UK and abroad was worth £1.3 billion last year. That includes buying tickets and paying for transport and accommodation plus other indirect spending, which adds another £914m.

Visit Britain says nearly half of the average live music audience is made up of tourists, with visitors from abroad spending an average of £910 while attending festivals and £602 going to concerts. Domestic music tourists spent, on average, £396 while attending festivals and £87 going to concerts.

The report also says that overseas tourists account for 6% of music tourism visits and 20% of music tourism spending.

UK - A sonic sea level which immerses audiences beneath the ocean waves - without getting wet - and then allows them to climb steps to emerge to a different sonic atmosphere has been unveiled at the launch of a major new cultural festival celebrating the River Tamar.

Fathom is a new 'sonic artwork' by Plymouth University media arts specialists Jane Grant and Dr. John Matthias. In an attempt to bring one of the country's most diverse waterways into sharp focus they used new generation technology to create an artificial surface 6ft above the floor of a 17th century Royal Navy victualing yard. Anyone that understands the challenge in creating two distinct sonic experiences in the same space will know this is no small feat - and it is Martin Audio's award-winning technology that has made this possible.

The company's Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA), supplied by RG Jon

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UAE - Sennheiser Group together with vendor partner K-Array will be hosting two seminars covering live and installed sound during the InfoComm/GITEX week, on 22-23 October, 2013, at the Meydan Racecourse in Dubai.

The seminar on 22 October will feature installed sound elements and there will be a demonstration of K-array's flexible, array element speaker, the Anakonda KAN200 and the KZ10, an ultra-miniaturized line-array element. The second seminar on 23 October will feature K-Array's live sound products, including the company's revolutionary Concert Series speaker and subwoofer range. There will be a demonstration of the KH4, hi-tech, self-powered PA system and line-array element and its complementary KS4 dipole subwoofer.

Mig Cardamone, sales and marketing manager, Sennheiser Middle East says, "K-Array is known worldwide for its revolutionary speaker technology. As the

USA - Based in Southern California Stephen Lieberman has been lighting clubs and discos for 25 years - at least half of that time under his company, SJ Lighting. But he is equally at home providing production for major festivals such as the Electric Daisy Carnival (EDC).

Asked about his profile, Lieberman says, "I'd like to consider myself a part of the electronic dance music community as well as a part of the nightclub community. I've grown up in this industry; I embrace it, support it and do my very best to perpetuate it."

Over the years he has turned to many different lighting solutions to fulfil his concepts, but recently added the name of SGM to his tool-box - specifying new generation LED X-5 strobes to implement a redesign at prominent Chicago club/restaurant Studio Paris.

"Aside from SGM, this was also my first project for Studio Paris and we immediate

UK - During PLASA London 2013, AED group organized its second Beer and Boar Night, with the highlight being the price draw of a Road Hog 4 lighting console from High End Systems worth 10.000 EUR end-user price.

"To celebrate our recent master distributorship of High End Systems in the BeNeLux, France and the UK, we organized a party on our booth and were happy to meet and greet with over 150 AV professionals." says Hans Vanderheijden, managing director of AED Distribution.

During the evening, and while invitees were enjoying typical Belgian drinks and food, the prize draw was held. The lucky number belonged to Mr. K?stutis Dulinskas, technical director for the Lithuanian AV company No Noise.

"I was very happy to win the Road Hog 4 lighting console handed over by Mr. Glenn Roggeman, CEO of AED group," says K?stutis Dulinskas. "For a growing business l

UK - Registration is now open for the second annual White Light Open Day, held at White Light in Wimbledon on Sunday, 27 October. The entertainment lighting specialist announced the return of its open day earlier this year, after the success of the event in 2012.

The White Light Open Day, a free event aimed at those working in small theatres, performance venues, schools, and colleges, attracted 200 visitors in 2012 with attendees coming from across London and elsewhere in the UK. All were looking to improve their lighting knowledge, demo the latest kit, or meet with White Light staff.

This year's event aims to provide an even greater variety of content and activities allowing visitors to take part in lighting master classes and technical training sessions, as well as getting a hands-on look at White Light's extensive range of lighting, AV, and effects equipment available for s

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UK - Chromlech, manufacturer of the Elidy range of panels and strip fixtures, recently received an Honourable Mention from the judging panel at the PLASA Awards for Innovation ceremony for their latest product - the Elidy Strip with Tap Technology. The technology allows users to automatically set the DMX address of each fixture simply by touching it.

The Awards for Innovation ceremony is an annual event celebrating the most innovative new lighting, sound, and video technology from across the industry. This year, an independent panel of expert judges viewed more than 45 products which were presented from the floor of the PLASA Show 2013 exhibition in London's ExCel Centre. With the awards announcement, the judges said that Chromlech's Tap Technology "represents an impressive advancement in state-of-the-art entertainment lighting," adding that they were "very excite

UAE - ETC is getting ready to exhibit for the first time at the InfoComm MEA tradeshow, which will be held at Dubai's World Trade Centre, 20-24 October. Working closely with representatives from UAE distributor Oasis Enterprises, ETC staff will be on hand on stand TA-G31to talk about projects and demonstrate a range of products.

ETC Selador Desire LED wash fixtures, including the D40XTI outdoor version, will be on display. Desire luminaires are available in seven arrays: Lustr+ for a complete range of colour mixing; Vivid for bold colours; Fire for warm-spectrum hues; Ice for cool spectrum tones; fixed colour temperature white light options Studio Daylight and Studio Tungsten; and Studio HD for variable colour temperature white light. The Desire D40XTI is safe for use outdoors in any weather, with a dust- and weather-resistant IP66-rated design that makes it the perfect tool to

Turkey - Wireless Solution Sweden reports that Elit Light and Sound Technologies, located in Istanbul, has been named distributor for W-DMX products in Turkey.

With the world's leading brands, Elit provides professional solutions for studio, TV applications, conference and concert halls, theaters, shopping malls, etc. The company also offers project design, installation and after-sale support.

Mr. Emre Defne of Elit says, "We are very happy about this new partnership with Wireless Solution. The company has an excellent reputation and a high quality product. We can see countless opportunities in Turkey for W-DMX to be highly successful in all sectors of the industry."

"Elit represents the top brands in the industry and is a very strong company," says Isac Alkstrand, operations manager for Wireless Solution, "They have a broad spectrum of connections a

UK - PLASA London 2013 proved a great success with exhibitors and visitors alike at its new home at ExCeL London. Over 11,000 visitors (subject to ABC audit) attended the show, of whom over 3,000 attended on multiple days. International interest was high, with more than 2,200 visitors from 84 countries. Stand rebookings for next year's show are also up on last year, and several major companies that did not make the move to ExCeL - including Philips Entertainment - have either already signed up for 2014 or are in serious talks to return.

Chris Toulmin, head of events, PLASA London 2013, said, "The response we've received to PLASA London 2013 has been overwhelmingly positive, both from visitors and exhibitors. They have embraced the new venue and also enjoyed the new features such as the AudioLab Arena, Theatre and Interactive. The PLASA team has worked very hard to get to th

UK - Rosco CEO Mark Engel presented Light Relief with its annual benefit cheque from the proceeds of Rosco's 313 Light Relief Yellow colour filter. The cheque was presented to Light Relief co-found Rick Fisher at Rosco's booth at PLASA. During the presentation, Engel had this to say about Rosco's continuing support of Light Relief, an organisation established to support entertainment technicians in times of hardship:

"When we introduced Rosco's Supergel 313 Light Relief Yellow in 2004, you [Rick Fisher] were quoted as saying "I wanted the Light Relief Yellow to be a warm, late afternoon, sunny colour...," which seems to me the perfect sentiment for this colour and this charity - a comforting ray of light when it's needed most. Thank you to every designer who uses Supergel 313 on stage for helping us help our community offstage. We donate the proceeds from this col

UK - Two intense days of evaluation at an event ambitiously billed the "Ultimate Network Shootout" resulted in success for Optocore over five other leading protocols.

The comparative sessions took place on the opening two days of this year's PLASA Show at ExCeL London, and were supervised by Roland Hemming (of RH Consulting) as part of the new AudioLab Interactive experimental concept, which he masterminded.

An impressive number of attendees on each day were given voting buttons in order to register their preference, as six of the most established industry audio protocols - Optocore, MADI, Dante, EtherSound, CobraNet and Analogue - were closely scrutinised. The Optocore solution was voted the best in terms of signal transmission quality by different independent audiences on both days.

The Optocore presentation was made by support engineer, Maciek Janiszewski, and s

Spain - First started in Sitges, a beautiful city at the south of Barcelona, the Pacha Group has grown into a world-recognized brand with nightclub locations spanning the globe. One of the world's most dominant names in the industry, the Ibiza venue is Pacha Group's crown jewel and driving force behind the brand. Due to the continuous eight-hour days and aggressive club environments, Pacha Ibiza was in need of reliable, high-quality lighting. Pacha turned to Martin Professional lighting for its flagship venue in Ibiza as well as its future franchise locations.

Pacha Group technical director, Toni Prats' lighting design at the Pacha Ibiza venue includes several Martin products, including 14 MAC Viper Profiles, 40 MAC 101 wash lights, 14 MAC 350 Entour fixtures, 10 Atomic 3000 DMX fixtures, four Rush MH 1 Profiles, four MAC 250 wash lights and various Martin Tripix LED strips.

&

UK - CUK Audio has announced the appointment of Rich Soper to the position of brand manager, live sound, with responsibility for sales and support of Cadac, Clair Bros., Cordial, dbTechnologies, Outline, Pivitec and Powersoft.

Soper has a background as a front of house engineer, working on tours, cruise liners and live events. He joins CUK Audio from Yamaha Commercial Audio where he held the position of regional manager and specialised in digital consoles, DSP and loudspeaker systems. Prior to that he worked for dbTechnologies UK and Amber Sound.

"The appointment of Rich is a major step for CUK Audio. It is a key element in the substantial commitment and investment we are making in terms of both sales and support in the 'Live' sector, and the direction the brand portfolio will take moving forward," explains CUK Audio's MD, Stuart Thomson. "We have established a

UK - Prolyte Group and subsidiary Brilliant Stages enjoyed a busy PLASA Show at its new home, ExCeL London, earlier this month. Both companies reported positive feedback following their decision to do something different for PLASA London 2013.

On display for the first time in the UK was the ProLyft AETOS range. Visitors were given the opportunity to see a selection of the new hoists in action on a dedicated demo booth. UK sales director Keith Williams commented, "The reaction to ProLyft AETOS has been amazing. We realise the products have to be seen to be fully appreciated so we had several working units on display, which gave us an opportunity to demonstrate their potential. The hoists were very well received, reinforcing our plans for the future. We had quite a number of enquiries from new contacts and met with many of our existing global distributors. Despite some initia

Italy - Widely regarded as the educational, scientific, financial, and political hub of Northern Italy, Trento is proud to boast of its excellent college - the Opera Universitaria. Ranked as first in the country by the Ministry of Education, Opera's mission is to ensure that a student's full potential can be realised - whether that stems from sport, academic work, or the arts. After enlisting the help of AV integrators A&T Multimedia, and distributors, Adeo Group, the college's new theatre has been equipped with a comprehensive technical installation, enabling complete control over audio, lighting, and video.

Opera's consultant specified that the theatre must be multi-functional, and that the technical system needed to offer standalone use by anyone, trained or not, without the assistance of the college's AV department. As a result, A&T was required to design a system which allo

USA - SES (Special Event Services) of Winston-Salem, NC and Nashville, TN recently provided a Large Format Outline GTO system for the Greenbrier Classic Concert Series. Produced by Gary Bowman of Nashville Live!, in conjunction with the Greenbrier and the PGA, the GCCS offers two days of entertainment on the State Fair Grounds in Fairlea, WV.

This year's headliners, Kenny Chesney (4 July 4th) and Aerosmith (6 July) made the need for an A-Level PA system an absolute necessity. When tasked with designing a system to cover the nearly 1,000ft long field, and crowds in excess of 25,000, SES systems engineer, and director of audio, Jason Farah chose Outline to handle the job. "We chose the GTO system not only for its amazing power, but also the fidelity of the system at the distances it had to reach," Farah states.

Chris Rabold, FOH Engineer for Kenny Chesney adds, "I

Germany - This year's Oktoberfest in Munich was illuminated Leader Light. Approximately 6.4m guests came to Munich to be a part of the event of the year.

"We need to save energy" said the responsible architect of the Hofbr&0228;uhaustent at the Oktoberfest.

For many years on the 16 pylons in the tent featured PAR 56 spots (300Watt each). This year these luminaries have been replaced by Leader Light's energy-saving Stage beams, the same LED fixtures which were used at Eurovision Song Contest 2013 in Malmo.

"We are very happy with the result because we didn't think, that LEDs are able to produce such a effective light and beam," said the architect. "Next year we will definitely use Leader Light's lighting again."

(Jim Evans)

USA - Sound engineer Ben Hammond is on tour with English heavy metal band Saxon, travelling with Allen & Heath GLD and iLive digital systems to manage FOH and Monitors.

The band is currently on a month-long tour of the USA and Canada, supported by American rock band, Fozzy.

A GLD-80 mixer is at FOH, accompanied by an AR2412 rack to manage I/O. The mixer takes inputs via Dante from the iLive monitor system, comprising an iLive-T112 surface and iDR-48 MixRack.

"I'm currently running a 39 input "festival patch" type channel list to fit both Saxon and Fozzy, and GLD has coped fantastically," explains Hammond. "I'm using all eight on board FX engines, which sound stunning - the EMT250 and ADT presets are personal favourites of mine. As well as the FX, so many great iLive features have been included in GLD, one of which that I find incredibly useful is the

UK - Virgin Trains has invested in revolutionary LED lighting technology at Birmingham International Railway Station; this will significantly reduce energy consumption and maintenance costs.

In a bid to create more energy efficient railway stations, Virgin Trains has tasked Lorne Stewarts Facilities Services Division PLC to find innovative ways to reduce energy consumption at stations maintained by Virgin. In the latest phase of this project, Lorne Stewart PLC has used AVA branded LED lighting products to light up parts of Birmingham International Railway Station.

Lighting accounts for a significant amount of energy usage and AVA LED technology was specifically chosen by Lorne Stewart as a cost effective route in achieving 90 percent reductions in power consumption, when compared to outdated lighting technologies.

AVA branded T8 tube lights, lamps and panel lamps were chosen

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