Mexico - Mexican rock band Maná has earned four Grammy Awards, seven Latin Grammy Awards, five MTV Video Music Awards Latin America, six Premios Juventud awards, fourteen Billboard Latin Music Awards and fifteen Premios Lo Nuestro awards. The band's sound is inspired by Pop Rock, Latin Pop, Calypso, Reggae and Ska music genres. Recently the band started its new world tour 'Cama Incendiada' with a lighting design by Alain Corthout.

The tour used a grandMA2 full-size and a grandMA2 light consoles, two MA NPU (Network Processing Units) and eight MA 8Port Nodes for lighting control of over 200 Clay Paky moving lights.

"Versatility, robustness and reliability are the main reasons I'm using a grandMA2", explained lighting programmer and operator Menga Cruz. "Versatilit

UK - British loudspeaker manufacturer, EM Acoustics has announced new products in the wake of the inauguration of their new R&D facility, headed by the M-C12 and M-C15 12 and 15" coaxial monitor speakers and the EPX-8 self-powered 8" compact loudspeaker.

The EPX-8 is essentially an updated, self-powered version of the EMS-81X compact, powerful 8-inch loudspeaker. Featuring EM Acoustics' signature passive crossover for unprecedented frequency and phase response, a rotatable horn for flexible dispersion options and a variety of swift, safe rigging options, the EPX-8 also includes a state-of-the-art Class D amplification package with integral stand-alone DSP for true plug-and-play operation. Typical applications range from small FoH duties to front fill and compact stage monitoring.

Whilst the EPX-8 is a logical extension of an existing line, the M-C12/15 monitors repre

Media Pressure - The producers of forthcoming musical Elf will introduce a £30 ticket band after bowing to "overwhelming public and social media demand" for more affordable tickets. The show, which runs for 10 weeks over Christmas at the West End's Dominion Theatre, has been criticised for its ticket prices, which rise as high as £240 for a top price seat.

The producers said that strong sales on more expensive seats allowed them to offer a limited number of £30 tickets throughout the run. "The producers acknowledge the show and the West End itself should not exclude families or anyone who cannot afford the higher priced seats, and have therefore used the incredible sales on the higher prices tickets to offset the cost of the new lower priced seats being introduced at all performances," a statement said.

Under Pressure - Foo F

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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 - Pioneer DJ has announced the forthcoming HDJ-700 headphones, which, the company says, "look good and sound superb". Inspired by Pioneer DJ's top-flight headphones, the robust, fully enclosed HDJ-700s are fine-tuned to reproduce rich, clear mid to low frequencies for monitoring dance music. Features include durable and replaceable cables (1.2-metre coiled and 1-metre straight); soft ear cups for a comfortable fit; rotatable right earpiece up to 60 degrees; tough, durable build.

The HDJ-700s are available from October 2015.

(Lee Baldock)

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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

UK - Flashlight Ltd, a leading UK supplier of lighting equipment to the broadcast, motion picture and theatre industries, has announced the opening of a London sales office and warehouse, headed up by sales executive Gordon Smith.

The new location will also provide showroom and demonstration facilities. Due to the rapid expansion of their southern client base and operations, the company feels the new location will better serve the demands of local rental and sales clients.

The new location will provide sales and support for the company's expanding range of leading lighting products - stocking the brands the company has become renowned for supplying, such as ARRI, Manfrotto and KinoFlo. The company will still have its headquarters at the existing location in Manchester.

Flashlight directors Andy Dodd and Rob Williamson commented: "We're delighted to open a London office;

The Netherlands - Doughty Engineering will be debuting its new Studio Frame at this year's IBC show.

Visitors to Hall 11, Stand number 11.A60 will be able to find out more about the kit, designed to assist small studio spaces eliminate clutter on the ground caused by lighting and trailing cables. The modular system can be easily constructed to suit most spaces and offers a safe working load that is adequate to support most modern day lighting with the addition of pantographs and bars.

Mark Chorley, design engineer said, "The Doughty Studio frame really is ideal for use in studios where space is of a premium. It started life as many of our product ranges do, as a bespoke piece of kit for the animation department at Staffordshire University. The course's specialist technical instructor was looking for a way to enable his students to move more freely around their sets and so

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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 - ArKaos PRO, pioneers in interactive video technologies, invite you to attend a unique event taking place this September in London, at the home of its UK distributor, White Light, on Tuesday 15 September.

During a full day of presentations and through ongoing displays, ArKaos PRO will demonstrate the latest version of its MediaMaster software, which has consistently remained at the forefront of the industry's creative projection and LED applications, the company says.

MediaMaster 4.2 now adds an integrated Cue Player for reliable, accurate playback of visual sequences, and 4K support, which enables three layers of 4K video to be played on servers with a Core i7 processor. With the help of the ArKaos PRO's technical staff present on site, learn how to quickly achieve complex projections and find out how to trigger your show from a lighting desk or how to build a quick cue s

Malawi - Mobile recording studio, Wired For Sound revisits Malawi this summer to record young musical talent in the region, this time with USB interface, iD22 and 8-channel mic pre and ADC, ASP880 as a part of the setup. Three weeks into this third phase of the project, and beset with power cuts and connectivity issues, they have still managed to record forty local musicians. Sound engineer, Simon Attwell reported back to Audient via email and a rare stable connection, confirming that their Audient iD22 "has been flawless".

Attwell explains how they have overcome the problems with the electricity. "We have done all the recordings using our solar set up built into the vehicle, powering a MacBook Pro, the iD22 and headphone amp. In fact, we are going solar all the way, using a Studer 200w pure SW inverter. It gives us excellent clean power free from clicks or interf

Germany - Martin Audio loudspeakers have been specified throughout two recently commissioned cruise liners, operated by German-based TUI Cruises - a joint venture cruise line between the German leisure/tourist firm, TUI AG, and American operator, Royal Caribbean Cruises.

The latest addition Mein Schiff 4 was commissioned earlier this summer, having been built at the Meyer Turku shipyard. It followed on from Mein Schiff 3, built the previous year, and will operate routes across the Baltic, Mediterranean and Caribbean seas, as well as the Canary Islands and Central America. Martin Audio systems have been fitted in all key areas across the 15 decks on both ships.

With these two 99,500 tonne, 2,506 passenger capacity vessels configured identically, installation specialists Funa International created the technical infrastructure, working with consultant Torsten Hirche, TUI Cruises'

USA - Lighting gaffer Matt Ardine is shooting a pharmaceutical industry commercial at DC Studios, a few blocks from Los Angeles' Skid Row. The camera tracks down a drab hospital corridor whose 'windows' are lit by eight ETC Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr luminaires behind diffusion scrims.

Staring at the monitor, cinematographer Larkin Seiple calls for level changes barely visible to the human eye. Bringing a fixture down to 4% output, Ardine explains, "If I were using incandescents, I would start seeing colour shift at around 26% and my crew would be spending time putting in NDA or full blue to compensate for the tungsten effect."

On a set with skylights, windows, fluorescents and practical table lamps, setting the perfect colour temperature can be challenging. "We started out trying to shoot at 3200K, but now we have settled on 4400K. With the Lustrs, I can di

Hungary - Since its birth in 1993 Sziget Festival has become one of the most popular multicultural events in Europe, attracting fans from over 70 countries. The festival is hosted on an island in the heart of the Hungarian capital that has become known as the Island of Freedom and the whole festival is marked by joyous celebration. This year Martin Audio joined the party with MLA making an auspicious debut, its fifth new festival of the season, courtesy of Capital Sound.

Held on a 108-hectare (266-acre) island on the Danube in north Budapest, Sziget Festival broke all attendance records on an expanded site, designed to hold a paying audience of 90,000, and at one point numbered 100,000, including production crew, artists and guests.

For production company Capital Sound, now in their tenth year at the week-long event, the challenges were immense. Tasked with providing world cla

Chile - Community has announced the appointment of Audio Americas as its sales representative for Central and South America, effective immediately.

With its head office in Santiago de Chile, Audio Americas is a Latin America sales agency specializing in professional audio, MI and consumer AV. Audio Americas' support structure facilitates an efficient supply chain with high levels of bilingual customer service, marketing communications, technical support and training programs.

"At Audio Americas we have always sought to partner with the world's most prestigious and innovative audio brands," said Audio Americas' President, Matthew Garfein. "We represent manufacturers who have not only cutting-edge products, but a company culture that inspires confidence and brand loyalty."

Garfein continued: "We believe Community has tremendous potential to position it

USA / Canada - Although electronic dance music festivals were few and far between only a decade ago, their numbers today easily rival those of their more traditional guitar-based counterparts. To best accommodate the ultra-wide sonic range and high-energy reinforcement that DJs and fans of the genre demand, a significant number of EDM promoters are turning to L-Acoustics loudspeaker systems.

This summer, two more of North America's top multi-day festivals called L-Acoustics' flagship K1 system into duty: Spring Awakening, which took over Chicago's Soldier Field, and Toronto's Digital Dreams, staged at The Flats at Ontario Place. With each festival drawing more than 50,000 attendees, Clearwing Productions supplied the gear and crew for the Chicago production, while Solotech did likewise in Toronto.

According to Clearwing's Jamie Earle, chief engineer of audio, Spring Awakening,

UAE - Dubai-based production supplier Protec supplied HQ Creative with lighting, video and rigging for the opening ceremony of the Nad Al Sheba Sports Tournament 2015, held at NAS Sports Complex on 21 June.

The event was created using two d3 4X4 Pro servers which created the mask, blend and warp for the custom made screens as well as integrating the use of primarily Clay Paky lighting fixtures which included 24 Clay Paky Mythos and 14 Clay Paky K10 B-eye, working together alongside eight Sharpys, seven Sharpy Wash 330s and eight Super Sharpys.

The venue had to function as a sports arena post show, so the design had to take this into account, staying out of the way of overhead house lighting as not to form shadows for the TV sports broadcast and not interfere with the games being played below. The rig needed to be light weight but still pack a punch for such a dynamic and fast

UK - When lighting designer Owen Pritchard-Smith from Spirit Design was tasked with the light setting for Nobel Biocare's stand at EuroPerio 2015 in ExCeL London, he met a challenge that led him to test out many different fixtures on the market.

The design and production of the exhibition stand was carried out by Andreas Messerli AG. As part of their stand design, three light boxes were hung from the ceiling. With open top, the boxes were on all other sides covered with white fabric. They were to be lit from above with enough light to travel through the fabric to create an up-lit bar environment underneath.

Owen Pritchard-Smith explains: "With only a metre or so between the truss and the fabric, I needed to find a fixture with a very wide beam angle, and little or no hot spot. It also needed to be bright enough to fight against the general lighting in ExCeL and the MSR PA

Malaysia - Sixteen-time Grammy Award winner David Foster was the star turn at the Arena of Stars in Genting Highlands, the most prestigious performance venue in Malaysia, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. For the concert, Nexo sent a technical team to the Genting resort to provide a complete review and recalibration of the Arena's installed Geo T line array system.

The Hitman David Foster & Friends Asia Tour 2015 dropped into Resorts World Genting for a spectacular concert. Top vocalists performing with producer, songwriter and musician David Foster included Natalie Cole, Peter Cetera, Boyz II Men and Ruben Studdard, a demanding line-up for the house PA system in the Arena of Stars.

System specialist Mark Bollenberg worked with Nexo's Malaysian distributor Concept Audio to implement improvements to the Geo T sound reinforcement system, installed four years ago. The la

USA - PLASA has announced that Steve Terry will receive its highest honour, the Eva Swan Award, which recognizes exceptional long-term commitment to the association. The award will be presented at PLASA's Annual General Meeting on Thursday, 22 October, from 2:30pm-4:30pm at the Westgate Las Vegas Casino and Resort.

Steve, vice president of research and development at Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC), has made a significant impact on the Association during his many years of service with the Technical Standards Program, the Entertainment Technician Certification Program, the ESTA Board of Directors and the PLASA Governing Body.

Steve's unparalleled contributions to the lighting industry include leading the team responsible for the development of the original USITT standard for DMX512 and the formation of the original ESTA Technical Standards Program. He was a founding member of

USA - Italian lighting manufacturer, Novalight, has introduced its latest moving light fixture - the NovaScope; now sold, supported, and serviced in North America by the entertainment equipment distribution company DNJ Pro.

Novalight's Nova-Scope is a weatherproof aerial effect light that can withstand all weather conditions. Using the HTI 2000W/D7/60 lamp combined with a different approach to reflector setup, the Nova-Scope provides a high output light, delivering stunning aerial effects.

This large scale effect light, while best suited for the largest entertainment environments, is still suitable for all forms of live performance, says the company.

The Novalight Nova-Scope can tolerate the harshest of production environments. The fixture boasts a seven option gobo wheel, a kaleido wheel effect, shutter, dimmer, and strobe effects, six colours, white, and CMY colour mixing,

Germany - Absen has announced that it reached a milestone of 5,000 X5 LED panels sold worldwide, less than six months after its first release at ISE2015.

"We are thrilled about the rapid global adoption of the X5 by the rental staging industry," commented Bluesking Zhao, global marketing and product promotion manager at Absen. "Despite a challenging economic climate in China, sales of X5 further boosted our performance this year, and the next six months look very promising."

Asia Pacific and Europe were two prominent regions to adopt the cable-less 4K LED solution which is equally suitable for indoor and outdoor applications. While the biggest sale was made in Malaysia with a staggering 500m², the 5.2mm pixel pitch panel was welcomed to much acclaim in many European countries including Germany, France, Spain, Ireland and Luxembourg.

With 560 cabinets sol

UK - PSCo, the trade only AV distributor and rental specialist, is showcasing the latest innovations from its leading manufacturer partners at PLASA London 2015. Visitors will be able to view PSCo's must-see 3-2-1mm LED line-up of Absen products on its 70m² stand, alongside innovative LCD displays including the new Samsung High Bright and video wall displays, and the stunning new Samsung 105" display - the largest professional display available in the world.

"Following the success of last year's PLASA, we are excited to be showcasing so many new technologies from our rental and sales portfolio for system integrators and live events partners," says Stuart Holmes, managing director of PSCo. "We will have new technologies across multiple platforms, including our new LED display technology, our Ultra Large Format displays, as well as our Video Walls.

"PLA

USA - When frequent and heavy storms hit Texas recently, causing flooding and widespread damage across the Lone Star state, Omar Dawoud, promoter at live music venue, The Marc in San Marcos, felt he needed to do his part to help the community. So he organised Band Together Texas, booking headliner Blue October - with all proceeds going to the United Way of Hays County Flood Disaster Recovery Fund.

In order to provide relief as quickly as possible, the event came together in short order, and Dawoud called on Colorwave Lighting and other rental houses for gear. Colorwave Lighting owner Erik Johnson didn't hesitate to volunteer his equipment, made up of PR Lighting fixtures, for the charity event. "When Omar asked if we would want to be a part of this it was a no brainer," he stated.

The company provided an inventory to The Marc's house lighting designer Alex Soto, know

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