USA - Atlanta musician Ian Schumacher professes to be a performer by trade, but it's clear that he has a bit of organiser/promoter in his DNA as well. Nothing else explains how he pulled together a cool weekly venue, a state-of-the-art Line 6 StageScape M20d digital mixer, multiple sponsorships including Guitar Centre Atlanta, and Atlanta's diverse music community, to create the Tin Roof Acoustic Showdown competition.

"Atlanta has a huge music scene, but it's spread out in different neighborhoods and we all gig on the same nights, so no one ever gets to experience what's happening in other parts of the community," explains Schumacher. "I wanted to create something that would draw musicians together from all over town."

The result was the Tin Roof Acoustic Sho

Germany - Often copied, never equalled, the BigCityBeats on the occasion of their tenth anniversary celebrated the BigCityBeats show WinterTagTraum on 21 March 2014 together with the whole of southern Germany in the Ratiopharm Arena.

The line-up featured Martin Barrix (Netherlands), Faul & Wad Ad (No. 1 in the single charts), Stefan Dabruck (WePlay), BigCityBeats Residents, Kid Chris, Marco Petralia, Steven Blunt, Paul Lomax (Coco Beach, Ibiza) and many more.

Soundsolution Veranstaltungstechnik was responsible for the planning, equipment and technical supervision of the event and was on site with 15 technicians.

Among other things, 40 Sparx 7, 32 Varyscan P6 and even more equipment by JB-Lighting were used. With regard to the lighting set, managing director of Soundsolution, Sascha Allerberger, largely opted for products by JB-Lighting, since his experience of the pro

USA - The Academy of Country Music Awards is hailed as the biggest night in country music, and it pulled out all the stops to deliver, with Bandit Lites' clients taking home most of the evening's top awards. Millions of fans watched from around the world as hosts Luke Bryan and Blake Shelton brought out the southern charm and delightful stunts to the live audience at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Jason Aldean took a brief reprieve from his stadium tour to accept Male Vocalist of the Year, while Miranda Lambert walked away with her fifth consecutive Female Vocalist of the year, in addition to winning both Single of the Year for Mama's Broken Heart and Vocal Event of the Year for her We Were Us duet with Keith Urban.

The Band Perry kicked off the night with their new hit single Chainsaw before being awarded Vocal Group of the Year. Lee Brice was a

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LD Systems ICOA PRO series – high-performance coaxial PA speakers for professional demands

The popular ICOA PA systems have been further developed to include two active full-range coaxial speakers – ICOA PRO 12 A and ICOA PRO 15 A – as well as the active 21″ bass-reflex PA subwoofer ICOA PRO SUB 21 A. With its professional features and high output power, the ICOA PRO series is aimed at ambitious bands, musicians and DJs as well as hire companies and commercial customers looking for a compact, robust and powerful PA sound system. The ICOA PRO series is rounded off with modern connection and control options via Bluetooth 5.1 and the specially developed ICOA PRO app, for use on smartphones and tablets.

ld-systems.com/icoapro

UK - A.C. Special Projects (ACSP) has provided an energy-efficient, bespoke colour-changing LED lighting solution for the exterior façade of Madame Tussauds London - one of the capital's most iconic visitor attractions.

An international brand, with 154 locations including New York, Sydney, Hollywood and Hong Kong as well as London, Madame Tussauds gives guests the chance to get up close to some of the world's most famous stars - combining glitz and glamour with history.

ACSP were tasked with creating an energy friendly, flexible architectural lighting solution to help bring the exterior of the attraction to life at night, making it the focal point of its location.

ACSP project manager Lance Bromhead comments, "Up until now Madame Tussauds London had minimal exterior lighting. The attraction was looking for a versatile solution where lighting could be set to suit diffe

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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

Germany - Yamaha's CL1 digital console has proved itself a winner in regional and municipal venues, where space is at a premium, but the flexibility and facilities of the CL system means venues can exceed audience expectations. A prime example of such an installation is in the German town of Vöhringen.

The Bavarian town's biggest global claim to fame is probably as the birthplace of Charles Fey, inventor of the one-armed bandit. However the Wolfgang-Eychmüller-Haus, its modern cultural centre and venue for many events, undoubtedly attracts a lot of attention from across southern Germany.

Opened in 1993, the building replaced the deteriorating auditorium of the town's Eagles Hall, sympathetically married to the restored former venue's listed main building. The result is a state-of-the-art venue which bridges the modern and historic and is the social and cultural centre of the

UK - 12 gigs in 19 days is hectic by any measure; arena productions and their schedules don't just fall together. Yet front of house engineer Mark Kennedy was his usual self, completely at ease, following the opening shows of Tinie Tempah's latest tour. "We just played two nights at Wolverhampton Civic and it was great. Most of the venues we play are ten thousand plus capacity, but these first two, Wolverhampton and Manchester Apollo are smaller so we are playing two nights in each.

"Britrow have given me L-Acoustics K1 for the arenas but I must admit I was surprised when they turned up with K2 for these first two; I thought I'd be getting V-dosc, that's what I'd spec'd."

"We were always going to provide the smaller K2 for side hangs at the larger venues," explained Britannia Row Productions' client liaison, Lez Dwight. "Putting them on the truck

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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

USA - Currently touring North America with a rig of Elation Professional lighting that includes Platinum Beam 5R and Design Spot 1200C moving heads, Brit Floyd's Discovery is a three-hour musical journey that recreates the legendary band's music and gives audiences a retrospective look at a classic lighting setup.

Brit Floyd has performed to over one million fans around the world since its first show in Liverpool in 2011. Lighting design is by Dave Hill, who has been designing Brit Floyd for years and incorporates the Platinum 5Rs into the trademark Pink Floyd arch and circle light show.

"The Platinum Beam 5R's do most of the big effects and are situated around the circle and on the trusses above," Dave states of the narrow 2.5 degree ACL-type beam effect that can project 12 colours and houses rotating gobos, all in a small package. "I particularly like t

Germany - The Pulsar speaker series, remarkably popular since its late 2013 release, has been extended with a compact variant called PL 110 FA. It is loaded with a 10" woofer.

Like its larger siblings, the PL 112 FA and PL 115 FA, this enclosures also houses a 1,000-watt, bi-amped power system that delivers 650 watts to the woofer and 350 watts to the tweeter. An intelligent multi-band limiter tames spiking bass signals to ensure the audio image remains stable even at high volumes. This unit also features four combinable filter settings that voice the speaker array's frequency response to suit the given application.

Deployed as a stand-alone solution, the PL 110 FA is an designed for all live situations where the natural sound of the human voice and acoustic instruments are to be rendered in high-definition audio. Various 2.1, half-stack and full-stack systems may be conf

UK - Popular American punk pop band All Time Low recently took the UK by storm on their latest A Love Like tour, and part of their energy-fuelled performances was the lighting design created by Boston-based LD Jeff Maker. Lighting for the UK tour was supplied by Leeds-based rental company Zig Zag and included over 80 Robe moving lights including 54 Pointes, 12 LEDWash 600s and 12 LEDBeam 100s - all from Robe's Robin range.

Parnelli-nominated Maker has worked with the band since 2009 and his visual starting point for this tour was based on four different backdrop reveals throughout the set - a budget-friendly strategy to bring multi-layered looks and maximum dynamics to the stage and the pacey set. The set also includes semi-transparent riser ramps which are under-lit.

It is the first time that Maker has used Pointes on a tour, so beforehand he researched the fixtures ex

UK - Pearce Hire will be exhibiting again at PLASA Focus: Leeds 2014, securing their place alongside the other exhibitor regulars at this sell-out regional event. Taking place on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 April at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, PLASA Focus is the premier entertainment technology trade show for the North of England. This exhibition acts as a springboard to Pearce Hire's busy season as the festival and outdoor events industry sparks into action for the spring and summer months.

"The team here at Pearce Hire have spent the last few months negotiating contracts with customers such as Field Day Festival, Big Church Day Out and a series of events for Peterborough Showground, whilst expanding the portfolio of events we are working on this year for Soul Survivor with the addition of their new Scottish launch event," says MD Shaun Pearce.

"

UK - XL Video supplied projection and Catalyst control for the recent UK tour by quirky and interesting indie rock band Bombay Bicycle Club, which kicked off their So Long See You Tomorrowalbum campaign and world tour.

The equipment was specified by lighting and set designer, Squib, who is enjoying his second album tour with the band, which is also the first time they have embraced video visuals in their live work.

The band were heavily involved in the overall visual concept explains Squib. They wanted to bring the clean and unadulterated aesthetics of the album artwork created by London based design studio La Boca to the stage and into a completely different dimension, so Squib asked video designer Adam Young to assist in this process, joining animator Anna Ginsburg who was another integral part of the team.

Some of the eye-catching material created for the show whic

UK - The production values on the X-Factor Live Tour certainly maintain the look and feel of the TV show. Video plays a large part in this with two IMAG screens stage left and right reminding the audience of the journey the performers have completed prior to each acts' performance.

On the stage itself, part of the video wall is used as a sliding reveal for the artists' entrances while the TV dynamic is continued in the design of the stairs, the independent stage thrust and the hi-gloss flooring. Add to that a lighting rig that begins with fifty nine Clay Paky Sharpys just for starters and it is clear that a for a followspot to cut through and make its mark, it would have to be something powerful, very bright and with a clarity of focus to work with the camera work effectively.

Step forward, the Robert Juliat Lancelot, a 4000W Discharge unit that is fast becoming accepte

UK - HSL continued its productive and creative working relationships with award-winning lighting designer Davy Sherwin on tour with alt rockers The Foals, who have just finished the latest UK leg of their ongoing Holy Fire album campaign.

This was Sherwin's second world tour for the band who have earned much critical acclaim for their incendiary live performances and won the 2013 Q Award for Best Live Act. Lighting was an integral part of the show and lead singer Yannis Philippakis in particular had some very clear ideas about how certain things should look.

The look and feel of the UK tour, which culminated in two sold out nights at London's Alexandra Palace, was an evolution of their summer festival floor lighting package which was highly effective and presented with Sherwin's characteristic imagination, style and flair.

HSL's project manager Mike Oates commented: &

Canada - Mantracourt has announced that its BroadWeigh wireless load monitoring system has recently been employed for the safe installation of a large overhead multi-screen display system at an ice rink in North Bay, Canada. The BroadWeigh system was used initially to monitor the loads on four electric chain hoists during the lifting operation, and then to confirm the loads on the final rigging hardware for the multi-screen display.

The BroadWeigh portable wireless system offers real-time, simple, effective and accurate load monitoring for rigging professionals, safety officials and site managers enabling them to monitor and log the precise loads on any given rigging point.

Central to the design of the BroadWeigh system are Crosby shackles equipped with a high accuracy, wireless load pin that reports data remotely to a computer or a handheld display. The system is able to moni

UK - The first ever Brighton Music Conference hosts some of the world's most exciting electronic artists as well as over 150 luminary industry speakers, and is slated as being the 'UK's answer to the Miami Winter Music Conference'.

Sennheiser UK is both a sponsor and exhibitor and will be showcasing its new range of DJ headphones and HD 25 headphones as well as a variety of its wireless microphones, plus Neumann monitor loudspeakers, Rane's acclaimed DJ interfaces and mixers, plus the new LimitEar HDM Pro - a Sennheiser Solutions product which integrates HDM Pro technology into HD 25 headphones, delivering the most audible, safe hearing experience possible.

Designed for the most demanding users and punishing pro environments, the new HD8 DJ, HD7 DJ and the HD6 MIX DJ headphones have been developed in conjunction with some of the world's top DJs.

Another highlighted will be t

UK - Stage Electrics delivered the lighting, audio and video systems to Milton Court, Guildhall School of Music and Drama's multi-million pound facility near its premises in Silk Street.

To ensure that it continued to offer students incomparable training in exceptional, modern facilities, the School's aim was to update and expand its site, 'future-proofing' it for the next 25 years. The result is a venue which houses three rehearsal rooms, a television studio, a studio theatre, a 227-seat theatre and a 608-seat, world-class concert hall.

Stage Electrics supplied, installed and commissioned the lighting, audio and video infrastructure venue-wide which includes dimmer racks, data distribution, paging and show relay, plus custom-manufactured stage management desks, facility panels, lighting bars, 'raceways' and loose equipment.

The physical challenge of cramming so much into a

Germany - When Bernhard Paul and André Heller founded Circus Roncalli in 1975, they certainly did not expect to reach such great success. Their first tour began with a world premiere in Bonn on 18 May 1976. Over the years, Circus Roncalli has always been committed to maintaining the classical circus tradition, and its numerous successful tours in Germany and abroad are proof of the exceptional quality of its shows.

The circus was hosted yet again this season by the Musical Theatre Bremen for the event Roncalli meets Classic. During the show, the acts are accompanied by the sound of the Norddeutsche Hanse-Philharmonie (North German Hanseatic Philharmonic). The audience enjoyed a show consisting of several performances revolving around a common theme - fire and ice. They involved top artists and a sophisticated lighting design.

As in previous years, the equipment w

The Netherlands - Following Elation Europe's popular PRO Theme Day seminars in October of last year, Elation Professional is inviting technicians and all interested service professionals to PRO Service Days to be held 6 May (beginner) and 7 May (advanced) at Elation's European headquarters in Kerkrade, Holland.

As Elation continues to expand its market presence across Europe, the company has put in place the service infrastructure needed to support the higher demand for its products. The company says: "Elation is committed to educating service technicians and other lighting professionals in optimal methods of servicing and maintaining Elation products, an initiative the company is supporting with the upcoming PRO Service Days."

May's PRO Service Days will focus on providing in-depth technical knowledge of Elation's Platinum Wash and Spot moving light series. The full

UK - BSc (Hons) Lighting and Live Event Technology students from the University of South Wales have showcased their best work at the successful Innovation Expo 2014 event, held at the Wales Millennium Centre. The two-day event, held on Tuesday and Wednesday 1-2 April, saw 27 students present nine different products to industry employers.

Each group were tasked with developing and building a product prototype and creating their business model before marketing their product to potential buyers. This was a six-month process in their final year of study where students took their existing skills and interests and then sought out new knowledge and techniques to enable them to realise their products.

Rob Locke, award leader for Live Event Technology BSc(Hons), said: "This is what makes our students stand out - the ability to learn new techniques and to deliver creative technical

USA - Following the extremely successful HedgeHog 4 launch at LDI 2013, High End Systems has further broadened its Hog 4 family with the addition of the HedgeHog 4N. This version adds the ability for the popular compact platform to network with other all other Hog 4 consoles and peripherals and will make it a perfect backup or dimmer city console.

Along with the RackHog 4, which was launched at Pro Light and Sound 2014, HedgeHog 4N will be shipping in Q2.

"We listened to our existing Hog customer base and HedgeHog 4N delivers exactly what they want," says Chris Ferrante, director of product management, "a compact console which can be moved easily, with the additional power of HogNet."

(Jim Evans)

Sweden - One of the last examples of neo-classical architecture in Sweden, The Stockholm Concert Hall was designed by Ivar Tengbom and completed in 1926. Sited near Hotorget Square, the building's monumental facade cuts an impressive figure with its 10 huge Corinthian columns. Its interior is similarly impressive, decorated in part by the work of renowned artists Isaac Grunewald and Edwald Dahlskog.

The Konserthuset comprises three separate halls, the largest of which seats 1770 people. In 1971 the venue was renovated by Tengbom's son Anders with a focus on improving its acoustics. Home to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Concert Hall is the principal venue for orchestral music in Sweden as well as being perhaps most famous for hosting the annual Nobel Prize Ceremony.

The principle issue to be resolved in the Main Hall at the Konserthuset was the need to quite literally l

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