Italy - The latest tour of renowned Italian artist Jovanotti kicked off with two concerts at the 105 Stadium in Rimini on 19 and 20 November.

32 concerts are scheduled, most of them in Italy with additional shows in Belgium, Germany, Slovenia and Switzerland.

Jovanotti is the only artist who has managed to fill the San Siro football Stadium in Milan over three consecutive concerts, during the previous Lorenzo negli Stadi 2015 tour which took place last summer.

Forty Evo moving heads, installed by the rental company Agorà, illuminate the entire tour which will end on 14 January 2016 with a concert at the Mitsubishi Electric Halle in Dusseldorf.

(Jim Evans)

Poland - The new National Forum of Music (NFM) in Wroclaw, which houses an 1800-seat concert auditorium and three smaller chamber halls (ranging from 250-450 seats), will become home to all Wroc?aw's major orchestral and vocal ensembles and festivals. In addition to staging jazz and pop concerts, it will also double as a movie theatre.

Designed by APA Kury?owicz & Associates, it is also believed to boast one of the biggest and most advanced technical implementations in Poland, with signal distribution and routing over Optocore.

The Optocore system, which provides 768 inputs, was approved by the consultants, Artec and supplied by the German manufacturer's dealer, M. Ostrowski. Installation and commissioning were handled by ESS Audio, who oversaw the audio, video and intercom. The company formed part of a two-way consortium with PS Teatr, who were responsible for the mechanica

Adele Live - Advance tickets for Adele's upcoming UK and Ireland tour went on sale this morning. Members of Adele.com were able to register for advance tickets on the singer's website, with tickets available from 9am this morning. General tickets go on sale on Friday 4 December, also at 9am. The tour kicks off in Belfast on 29 February and finishes in Antwerp on 13 June next year. It also includes four dates at London's O2 Arena. It will be the first time Adele has toured since 2011.

Motown Legend - A play about the life and death of Motown legend Marvin Gaye is to have its world premiere in Northampton. Roy Williams' Soul will open in May 2016 after several years' close collaboration with members of the singer's family. Gaye, whose hits include Sexual Healing and Let's Get It On, was shot dead by his father in 1984. "It's a dramatic thriller, n

UK - Christie has announced the launch of AccuFrame Pro. Pro software reduces visual artifacts, like smear, that contribute to "negative training" - a simulated environment that gives false visual and motion cues by targeting low-to-mid intensity content at the pixel level, without reducing brightness caused by shortening the time each frame is displayed in a simulator.

"By reducing smear at the pixel level, images appear sharper and moving images look more realistic," says Curtis Lingard, product manager, Christie. "AccuFrame Pro eliminates the need for additional projectors to compensate for the loss of brightness by targeting low-to-mid intensity content, where most simulated content falls."

AccuFrame Pro is activated via a licensing process for any Matrix StIM WQ, Matrix SIM WQ and Mirage WQ-L projector in the field, thereby improving existi

Europe - After many years of a successful cooperation with Sennheiser in the UK, France and Scandinavia, Apart Audio NV, the Belgian based manufacturer of fixed installed audio products for small and medium sized projects has together with Sennheiser decided to end this distribution relationship.

Says a statement from Apart, "With Sennheiser's focused approach towards corporate and meeting room applications it was decided that the strategic fit was no longer fully there in the European market, with Apart also aiming other vertical markets like food & hospitality, retail, education & religion and outdoor.

"We are happy that Sennheiser has helped us grow the Apart Audio brand in Europe to where we are right now and sincerely want to thank them for their contribution. We have always cooperated in an open minded and respectful way and in the same philosophy both compan

UK - With the confirmation of a substantial new contract and the continued growth of major events in the region, UK conference and live event technical services provider Saville Audio Visual has welcomed two new faces to the North West events team.

Sam Ward started her AV career with Saville before moving on to embrace a diverse range of roles within the industry over the last 17 years. Working as business manager from the Manchester office Sam will draw on her wealth of experience in live events to establish new levels of engagement with both existing and prospective clients.

Supporting her in this mission is sales and account manager Jennifer Toothill, herself a specialist with over seven years' experience in high profile corporate client events, venue support and business marketing/advertising management

"We are pleased to announce that our existing contract with

USA - Apollo Design Technology has announced the appointment of Zane Sade as a customer care representative. In this role, Sade provides technical information, product recommendations and helps customers with quotes, processing orders and tracking deliveries. In addition to ensuring customer satisfaction, Sade supports the sales team at Apollo Design.

Prior to joining Apollo Design, Sade worked in various sales and customer service positions. He is also an actor, comedian, voice over artist and theatre technician and works extensively with local theatre groups.

"We are happy to have Zane join our team. He comes from a theatre background, a big plus when helping dealers and understanding our products," said Joel Nichols, president of Apollo Design Technology.

"Apollo is by far the best company I've worked for. I can't wait to develop relationships with my de

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has announced the appointment of industry figure, Karen Fairlie to the newly created role of business development manager for Scotland.

Karen brings a wealth of local market knowledge and experience to the position, having forged strong relationships with customers and suppliers in Scotland over the past 20 years whilst working in sales management and various support roles.

A well-known figure in the Scottish theatre market, Karen has overseen the supply of leading entertainment technology systems to designers, specifiers, venues, rental and production companies. She has also worked on high-profile projects in the film & TV and public services markets.

Karen is based in the field, with support from AC-ET's Leeds office, and will work alongside the company's sales, marketing and purchasing departments to develop and implement th

USA - PRG Post, a subsidiary of Production Resource Group (PRG) has announced that they will now offer original music creation on site as Bruce Aronson, renowned composer for film and television, has joined their New York studio. Aronson is available to write and record original music during the post-production and production processes.

"It's a major advantage to PRG Post's clients that I am now located at a facility where last minute changes to music tracks can easily be made," says Aronson. "It's also tremendous gaining access to PRG Post's leading-edge surround sound audio mixing suite.

"Clients already come to PRG for their post-production and production needs, making use of PRG's state-of-the-art video editing rooms, colour-grading rooms, and the 5.1 surround sound audio mixing suite. Now for the first time, they can enjoy the benefits of original mu

UK - Creative producer Artichoke has revealed the scale of London's first Lumiere light festival, 14-17 January 2016.

More than 20 pioneering international artists have been commissioned to transform buildings and streets of the capital for the first Lumiere London festival, free event that will take place over four winter evenings.

Designed to chase away the January blues and show the city in a new light, this major new festival will feature installations for some of the city's most iconic buildings and locations on a grand scale. Lumiere London will explore London's urban landscape and architecture from Leicester Square to Piccadilly, St James's, Carnaby Street and Oxford Circus in London's West End, to the German Gymnasium and Granary Square at King's Cross.

Aimed at Londoners and visitors to the capital at what is traditionally one of the quietest times of the year Lu

USA - Bakersfield's Valley Baptist Church provides three worship services every Sunday in its 1,800-seat Worship Centre - two services with a choir and orchestra to appeal to a diverse age group, and a third with a praise band playing guitars and drums. As its congregation grew and more young adults with children crowded the centre for the contemporary service, the church's leaders decided it was time for an update of the hall's technology.

A decade ago, the church had installed video projection screens, so the faces of the pastor and other celebrants would be very visible to everyone seated in the hall. The church also projects song and hymn lyrics on the screens, a feature that significantly increases the congregants' participation in the service.

A stage filled with musicians and a choir feels grandly spiritual, an effect that appeals to many people attending - but a deep

UK - ASGB has recently completed a significant order for five 200kW generators for Warner Bros. Studios in the UK to support their film and TV production. These five power generator units were delivered on 18 ton Mercedes Benz Antos chassis between July and late September.

These ASGB-built power generators use the tried and tested combination of Cummins QSL9G-3 engines and Mecc Alte ECO40 alternators together with an array of continuous improvements over previous builds of this model. The major improvements have been in the way the handed inter-cooler and radiator are connected to the engine, with simplified water pipe routes and connections, making the regular servicing items even more accessible than before. Improvements were also made to the exhaust routing. Pipework has now been designed and drawn up on CAD models, enabling accurate manufacture and easing the assembly proce

UK - Regarded as the master of psychological illusion, Derren Brown recently returned to London's West End with his latest show Derren Brown: Miracle. Featuring astonishing illusions, unfathomable tricks and a magic spectacle, the show has already achieved mass critical acclaim. Following its work on Derren Brown's previous shows, WL once again provided the lighting support for the illusionist's latest outing.

Derren Brown: Miracle is currently playing at The Palace Theatre before it tours the UK, visiting cities such as Glasgow, Brighton & Hove and Bristol. Tim Mascall is the lighting designer on the production, having already lit four of Derren Brown's shows since 2006.

Tim comments, "Miracle is a really unique show. The aesthetic is led by Simon Higlett's beautiful set design and contains stunning video projection by Simon Wainwright. When lighting the

Japan - Clay Paky and PRG KK, the Italian company's sole distributor in Japan, held a workshop at the TFT Building Complex in Tokyo on 14 and 15 October. It was mainly focused on the Scenius, the Clay Paky spotlight that recently made its debut on the world market.

The Scenius features an exceptionally high CRI (96) and fits a 1400 W - 6000 K Osram discharge lamp. Together with the optical unit designed and developed by Clay Paky, this lamp ensures much higher light output than previous older 1500 W lamps. Thanks to its wide 8° - 50° zoom, modern focus tracking system (autofocus), extensive range of effects, and full colour and white light fidelity, the Scenius is a really versatile spotlight, essential for any top-ranking application.

The workshop was presented jointly by Alfonso Zarate Takano, Clay Paky area manager for the Asia-Pacific market, and Giulia Sabeva, a

UAE - Eclipse Staging Services has purchased two Green Hippo Hippotizer V4 Taiga media servers to add to their video inventory.

Simon Harris, Green Hippo's user experience / training manager went out to Dubai at the end of September to provide the busy video crew at Eclipse with three days of Hippotizer media server training. The Eclipse video team were in the middle of supplying and setting up full technical production for Dubai Music Week, so it was convenient for them to be able to have training at their video warehouse.

"I thoroughly enjoyed training the video team from eclipse. They took to Hippotizer V4 like ducks to water and to see the product quickly exceed their high expectations was an absolute pleasure. Eclipse have a very talented team of technicians and I can't wait to read about the projects they use their systems on in the near future," commented Si

Germany - The all-in-one Laser Show control software Laserworld Showeditor 2015 comes standard with the LAN interface Laserworld ShowNET and has a ready-to-go live laser show interface as well as professional timeline-show programming capability.

The software is delivered with 100 free laser shows plus pre-configured MIDI profiles for easy software control - in live mode as well as for laser show programming. The import and export of files in the ILDA (*.ild) standard protocol is supported, so the figures created in Laserworld Showeditor can easily be shared between different software and can be used for playback features.

Laserworld Showeditor supports both DMX input and output, so it can be remote controlled through DMX controllers or software, and it can control fixtures by itself - basic ones and intelligent lighting.

The enhanced MIDI capabilities allow for the creat

Canada - wysiwyg R36 lighting design and previsualization software from CAST Software now has a completely revised and enchanting look as well as highly anticipated compatibility improvements.

wysiwyg R36 will deliver highly efficient and accurate looks to any design. Depending on requirements, wysiwyg R36 will be available as three, six or 12 month lease and also for purchase as of December 2015. The new release is free for all wysiwyg Members in good standing.

Key additions include a new graphical user interface, customizable work layouts, and many importing improvements.

Key to the new release, wysiwyg has increased compatibility with the latest Sketchup 3D modelling software SDK and associated file formats. Users can import drawings directly from Sketchup into wysiwyg, and textures, layers, surfaces and object groupings are now preserved as they were created.

In ad

Europe - Swedish rock band Backyard Babies are currently on a tour of Europe with Allen & Heath's dLive digital mixing system.

"I have been a loyal iLive user for the past four years, and have done about 500 shows, so the move to dLive is natural," explains the band's FOH engineer, Stefan Ljungkvist.

Stefan selected a dLive S3000 Control Surface with DM48 MixRack, accompanied by Neve pre amp, Sennheiser in-ears, Audio-Technica mics, and an Allen & Heath ME-1 personal monitor mixer for the drummer.

In-ear monitors are also managed from FOH, and in total the show it set up with 19 scenes.

"Eight shows in with dLive and I am comfortable with everything. The feel is very nice and warm, and the EQ and FX are high end. When I use A&H, the band say it is like playing in a studio," concludes Ljungkvist.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Getwell Road United Methodist Church in Southaven, MS, had clearly outgrown its stage lighting system in 2012, when Jeremy McCullough joined the vibrant house of worship as its technical director. "Stage design wasn't even an idea at that time," he recalls. "Yet the church was actively seeking to reach worshippers with dynamic new events that required a better stage presentation."

After trying to add isolated fixtures "here and there", McCullough decided something more had to be done, so he journeyed to the WFX conference seeking expert advice. He found it in the person of Greg Persinger of Vivid Illumination. What resulted was not only a new lighting system anchored by a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures, but an expanded and more impactful role for the church in its community.

"I went to WFX Dallas in October 2014 and atten

USA - At the 43rd annual American Music Awards, held at Microsoft Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles on 22 November, amplifier manufacturer Powersoft made its presence known with over (100) K10 DSP+AESOP amplifiers on site. With approximately 7,000 people in attendance, the programme was broadcast to over 10m viewers across the U.S. and featured performances by artists including Coldplay, The Weeknd, Demi Lovato and many others; the show was highlighted with a moving performance of Hymne à l'amour by Celine Dion, which eulogized victims of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris.

In addition to hosting an evening of lively performances, the AMA presented awards to a range of chart topping artists including One Direction, Ed Sheeran, Rihanna, Fall Out Boy and many others. Country artist Sam Hunt was recognized with New Artist of the Year, while superstar Taylor Swift scooped

USA - Equipped with a Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system, the new Halloran Centre for Performing Arts & Education in Memphis, Tenn., can be instantly optimized to host a wide range of diverse events. With the push of a touchscreen button, Constellation adjusts the acoustics in the 361-seat theatre to host everything from educational programs to a regional film series, dance recitals, and music concerts of varied genres.

"As much as I understood what Constellation did before the system was installed, actually hearing the different acoustical presets is still stunning," says Alice Roberts, vice president of programming and education at the Halloran Centre. "It's astonishing how you can experience the subtle characteristics of an acoustical space just by clapping your hands. This alone will be a tremendous boost to our technical training programs in sound for

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