USA - Nemetschek Vectorworksn has announced the release of the English version of SimTread 2, a pedestrian simulation tool developed by A&A Co. Ltd., the Vectorworks distributor in Japan, in partnership with Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan and Takenaka Corporation. As a plug-in for Vectorworks software, SimTread lets users simulate and analyze crowd movement. It can also serve as evacuation simulation software for both general and complex building and municipal designs.
"SimTread lets Vectorworks users design with confidence by identifying crowded areas and factors that inhibit or change circulation flow," said Dr. Biplab Sarkar, chief technology officer at Nemetschek Vectorworks.
"It therefore expedites the iterative design process and helps to determine the be
UK - BlackBox Recorder manufacturer JoeCo has announced that a new version of its JoeCoRemote software app for iPad is now available to download from the iTunes App Store.
JoeCoRemote for iPad enables remote control and operation of any 24- or 64-channel BlackBox Recorder or Player. In addition to the standard input metering display, this latest software release includes a new, dedicated monitor window offering real-time monitor mix control. The window features expandable channel strips with graphic faders, pan, PFL, solo and mute controls. This enables a separate headphone monitor mix to be easily created.
The new software also features more robust signalling between the JoeCoRemote hardware interface and the software app, leading to more efficient communication in both wireless and wired set-ups. Preliminary support for JoeCo's forthcoming BlackBox BBR1MP Recorder with integ
USA - The National September 11 Memorial & Museum has opened in the footprints of the World Trade Centre in Lower Manhattan. Electrosonic provided the audio-visual systems for the museum, which is primarily located about 70ft below ground and offers a moving visitor experience.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum is an educational and historical institution honouring victims of both the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 1993 bombing, while examining 9/11 and its continued global significance. The museum building was designed by Davis Brody Bond, LLP with exhibit designs by Thinc Design and Layman Design. It is accessed by an entry pavilion designed by Snohetta.
Bob Haroutunian of PPI Consulting was the audio-visual systems designer for the museum and education center. Arup was the designer for the Pavilion Auditorium. The majority of the content was provided by Local Proj
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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.
USA - The last in the line of a legendary dynasty: Space Shuttle Atlantis, is now housed at the Kennedy Space Centre Visitor Centre, forming the centrepiece of its own 90,000sq.ft, $100m exhibit. The attraction was designed by PGAV Destinations, installed by Electrosonic and incorporates a pair of TiMax SoundHub audio showcontrol matrix systems to add immersive 3D spatialisation to a high-end multimedia history charting 33 missions of Atlantis, including maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope and the building of the International Space Station.
Visitors enter through a full-scale vertical replica of Atlantis's external tank and two solid rocket boosters, which tower 15-stories above the three-story exhibit building. Visitors are corralled through a learning area to wait for the start of the pre-show which describes the role Atlantis played in the Space Shuttle Program and how
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New Touring Series by Gravity – Every Scratch Has A Story
When the stage heats up, you need equipment that can keep up without compromise. The Gravity Touring Series has been specifically designed to meet the highest demands – for rental companies, professional musicians, concert organizers, and large event venues. Premium materials, exceptional durability, and impressive longevity make these products stand out. Whether on tour, in constant use, or under the toughest conditions: the Touring Series delivers maximum reliability and performance – every day, on every stage. FIND OUT MORE >>>
USA - Introducing a single component to address an array of AV switching and processing needs often encountered in boardrooms, classrooms and other presentation settings, Atlona announced at InfoComm 2014 its most advanced 4K-capable, HDBaseT switcher for systems which need to accept multiple digital and analogue inputs as selectable sources for displays located as far as 230 feet away.
The new Model AT-UHD-CLSO-612 is equipped with two HDBaseT, two HDMI, and two analogue inputs, and provides switching, up- and down-scaling, converting, audio de-embedding, and signal extension capabilities in a single rack-unit enclosure. According to the company, it is the first scaler that can take a 4K signal and display it on 1080p monitor.
"Switchers for single room systems, particularly in education settings, haven't addressed customers' needs in terms of providing inputs on lectern
UK - Leading European flightcase manufacturer 5 Star Cases supplied 250 lightweight flight cases complete with padded and semi-rigid bags to live video rental and production specialist Creative Technology (CT).
These are being used to house a variety of different monitors and screens that are in active service on major events and broadcast projects. The order comprised casing for 110 x 42 inch screens, 90 x 32 inch screens and 50 x 22 inch screens.
The cases were delivered in just a few days from the Cambridgeshire based manufacturer, while its specialist bag making facility - which has just been expanded to meet increased demands - was kept busy for around three weeks, as the bags are all individually hand-made and finished to order.
The cases and bags were purchased to refresh a whole raft of the protective cases and packaging for CT's television projects. They will be put
UK - With the first half of 2014 coming to an end, AED Distribution UK prepares for the summer season by offering one last HOG4 training session. The training is the last one for now out of a total of 10 trainings held from January to July and is open for lighting designers, lighting operators and live visual designers and operators.
AED Distribution as the master distributor for High End Systems in the UK, was committed to offer a training schedule of regular HOG 4 Trainings at various locations. Looking back to the first half of 2014, the company is pleased about the 10 different trainings with a total of around 75 lighting professionals trained. A full complement of HOG4 Family consoles were provided each time with whom the participants could get hands-on with. Each person was able to enjoy their own console for the free two-day course under the expert guidance of Colin Wood,
UK - The Seekers have recently brought their arena tour to the UK, trusting entertainment lighting specialist White Light to supply lighting solutions and production support for the 15 date tour. The artists, who have sold more than 60m records worldwide, returned to the UK with their Golden Jubilee Tour, marking 50 years since the group first performed in the country.
The tour comes as part of a wave of increased concert touring bookings for White Light, with the company also recently supplying lighting for artists such as Barry Manilow, Johnny Mathis, Gareth Malone, Wet Wet Wet, and Paramore.
For The Seekers Golden Jubilee Tour, White Light worked with lighting designer Simon Tutchener who specified the show's lighting plan. "Every artist or group has their own style, which I try to incorporate into the lighting design," he said of his approach. Tutchener's career
Austria - Nexo has appointed a new distributor to represent its complete product line in Austria. Luxson GmbH is based in Wels, distributing a variety of entertainment technology products including ChamSys showcontrol systems, ELC networking devices and Green Go intercom products. The company, owned by Roman Hauser, is also a dealer for Martin lighting, Yamaha professional audio and Camco power amps.
"Nexo is pleased to welcome Luxson to the distributor family," said Nexo sales director Denis Baudier. "Over the years, Austria has become one of our most successful territories where we have a dominant market share, so Luxson will be continuing a strong Nexo tradition. This is also an exciting era for NEXO as we see our modular line array the STM Series making significant inroads into the European rental scene, and we start production of new high-performance compact
Italy - Made in Sud' (now in its fourth season) is an entertainment programme made in Naples CPTV, broadcast by RAI. The 2014 edition has proven once again a television event of high technical level, thanks to the production choices that have raised the show from the typical 'comedy' format to a big-budget show, with the characteristics of a prime-time program.
Following the success of previous editions, Sandro Carotenuto was confirmed for the third time director of photography of Made in Sud.
Carotenuto decided to use the DTS moving heads - NRG 1201 and above all the Raptors - in a 'spectacular' way.
The fixtures were installed both on stage and in the stalls area; their projections have become one of the most recognizable elements of the show.
Many features of the Raptor were considered very attractive in television use: the high luminous efficiency; the ei
Italy - With horse racing taking place over considerable distances, much of the action takes place where it is difficult for spectators to clearly see what is happening. LED screens greatly enhance the thrill of the 'sport of kings' for its followers, which is why a Lighthouse Technologies' LED screen has recently been installed at the Capanelle Ippodromo horse racing course in the Italian capital, Rome.
An ever-increasing number of racecourse owners are installing LED screens to bring punters closer to the action, as well as making information like the latest betting odds available to all. Lighthouse has been at the forefront of this trend, with installations at Kempton Park in the UK, Wuha in China, San Rossore in Italy and others in place for a number of years, as well as a more recent installation at Canterbury Park in Minnesota, USA.
Romania - It shows some ambition when a young company takes delivery of its first full size line array, completes system training for its technicians, then nine days later loads into a festival main stage with their new PA.
Ovidiu Grunca who owns Set Up Company, the Romanian PA provider in question, was unrepentant. "This was for an audience of ten thousand with two days of full on performance. A mix of mainstream and dance, with a little rock and metal on the side, Blaj Alive is one of Romania's most popular new born festivals. You might think us foolish, but we had good reason to feel confident we could pull this off." And pull it off they did.
The Blaj Alive line-up included international artists such as headliners Seether and AWOL Nation, mixed with the likes of Vunk, one of Romania's most successful pop bands with a career stretching back to 1999, and Zdob si Zd
UK - DisplayMapper, a division of Projection Artworks has announced its fully daylight-visible retail solution. By creating retail sector applications using daylight visible 3D video-mapped projections onto and around products, whether built within FSDUs or as permanent installations, DisplayMapper will enhance products and ignite promotional messages, says the company.
Launching in July, the new division's retail display technology system uses bespoke cloud-based software controlled from a central network, which allows clients to develop and automatically deliver their own content to hundreds of daylight visible projections all controlled centrally. In-store equipment is low cost, industry standard and easy to use and maintain.
Major developments in the small-scale projector market have resulted in devices offering exceptional brightness. The DisplayMapper team has harnessed
Canada - CAST Software has released its wysiwyg version R33, the most power packed release with more than 10 new features, giving lighting designers, multimedia and production professionals the ability to create and previsualize "amazing new lighting design like never before".
"This is the biggest release since wysiwyg was introduced twenty years ago" said Gil Densham, president of CAST Software. "R33 delivers new features including LED video wall glow, shaded view optimizations and profiles, templates, and double the number of universes. R33 certainly raises the bar for industry professionals so they become more productive, more professional, more profitable. It's all about our Members."
In creating wysiwyg R33, many new features result from extensive beta testing by some of CAST Software's most experienced wysiwyg users. One such lighting design
UK - Broadcast audio specialist Red TX has joined Europe's leading live recording initiative Remote Recording Network. Whilst contributing to managing and engineering music and broadcast assignments on a global and cost-effective basis, RRN offers bespoke solutions that cater for all kinds of transmission, recording, mixing, mastering, duplication and publishing.
Remote Recording Network GmbH had last year joined forces with Dutch mobile recording company Eurosound bv and had integrated the German 'RemoteTaxi' enterprise to establish the initial 'Network'.
Peter Brandt, head of Remote Recording Network and a man with over 30 years' experience of recording and mixing international rock, pop, jazz, and classical artists, says, "Bringing Red TX into RRN will benefit our European customers by giving them access to a fully digital truck based in Europe that can handle high-end
UK - Founded in 1887, the London College of Music has been a part of the University of West London since 1991. Today it has one of the largest music technology departments of any European educational institution, spread across two sites in Ealing, West London. Over the last few years the College has undergone an extensive building and refurbishment programme, headed by technical manager, Richard Liggins, who is responsible for studio facility design and technical development of the department's facilities. Today, UWL's London College of Music has installed the world's largest RedNet installation, featuring 42 RedNet units.
LCM had used Pro Tools as its primary music recording platform for several years, but with the arrival of Pro Tools 11, the college decided to look into moving over to HDX systems. Although integrating all-Avid systems would have been technically straightforwa
UK - Creative lighting designer Nick Gray of Renegade created a spectacular show for Kasabian's incendiary homecoming gig in Victoria Park, Leicester, UK, realising a long-term dream of playing in front of 50,000 fans as their latest album 48:13 rocketed to number one in the UK charts.
Gray worked in close collaboration with the band's creative director & show designer Aitor Throup on the project which included over 500 lighting fixtures and a large 22m x 11m upstage 9 mm pitch white Winvision LED screen which made up a complete white box lighting and visual environment. Band founder, guitarist and vocalist Serge Pizzorno was also intimately involved in the whole design concept and look of the show.
The show was staged a week ahead of Kasabian's headline appearance at the 2014 Glastonbury festival. Staged on the summer solstice, it was the realisation of a long term dre
Germany - Collaborating closely with communication agency The Outlook Creative Group, XL Video supplied video, lighting, sound and associated rigging for a large conference and gala dinner event at the Sheraton Hotel, Frankfurt Airport for one of the world's leading medical device companies.
The event was project managed on site for XL by Bill Hughes and for Outlook by their head of events, Iain Liddiard. It was designed by Outlook and attended by around 750 of the client's top executives and sales teams within the EMEA & Canada region.
The gala dinner took place on the first night in the hotel's Congress Centre and the room then had to be transformed into the main plenary and conference session for the following day.
XL's crew also rigged sound and lighting systems for the evening after-party in the Skyloft at the hotel.
XL and Outlook have worked together for about 11 ye
UK - Eve will provide 140km of barriers to the Tour de France Grand Départ across the three UK legs, from Leeds to Harrogate, York to Sheffield and Cambridge to London.
Mark Fisher, senior account manager at Eve, comments, "Our teams are well versed in top tier cycling events, having worked on the London 2012 Road Races and the 2007 Grand Départ, so we're really looking forward to it."
As an official supplier to London 2012, Eve delivered and installed all the crowd control barriers for the Olympic road events.
The company has invested a record £14m to add to its already market-leading stocks since, and new kit will be roadside for the Grand Départ contracts with WRG Live and Innovision.
Eve barriers will keep cyclists and fans safe as the Tour passes through Yorkshire towns such as Harewood, Otley and Skipton, Elland, Huddersfield and
Australia - Apex's Australian distributor, Group Technologies based in Melbourne, has enjoyed a busy first half of the year with its key brands including the Apex range of signal processing electronics for the pro audio industry. Recent installations include the Melbourne Athenaeum and the Ding Dong Lounge live music venue, also in Melbourne.
Founded in 1839, the Melbourne Athenaeum is one of Victoria's oldest public institutions. Today, the Melbourne Athenaeum is home to the Melbourne Theatre company and stages a huge variety of productions from comedy festivals, to concerts, opera, musicals and of course theatre all year round.
Due for a complete audio overhaul, the brief was for an audio solution that would be able to handle the extremely broad palette of acts hosted by the venue, whilst at the same time remaining visually discreet and easily reconfigurable by theatre techn
USA - On May 2-4, 2014, the Pro Football Hall of Fame's first-ever Fan Fest was held - with thousands of fans mingling with the star-studded line-up of 100 Hall of Famers. This extraordinary event marked the most Hall of Famers gathered in one place outside of Canton, Ohio, the home of the NFL's Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Held in Cleveland's expansive International Exposition (I-X) Centre, the event included unprecedented access to the Hall of Famers through one-on-one photo opportunities for fans, instructional drills on a 100-yard indoor football field, engaging games and activities, plus roundtable talks. There was a lot going on and, to ensure the capacity crowd could hear everything clearly, a sizeable sound reinforcement system drawn from the catalogue of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio was deployed.
Cleveland based Hughie's Event Production Services, which provides l