UK - Having delighted audiences since its debut in 1999, Mamma Mia! has embarked on its first ever UK tour with a KV2 Audio loudspeaker system.

As part of the creative team behind the original West End production, renowned sound designer Bobby Aitken decided to "Take a Chance on KV" for the tour.

Bobby's notable West End and Broadway credits include Dirty Dancing, We Will Rock You, Grease and Ghost amongst countless others and he was the sound designer for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the London 2012 Olympic / Paralympic Games as well as consultant for the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics and the f 2016 Opening Ceremony in Rio.

Having heard about KV2's rising reputation in Theatre Bobby and his team visited the main Czech Republic factory to hear what all the talk was about.

Bobby reports, "The Mamma Mia! International Tour has

Germany - 2016 marked the 25th anniversary of Berlin's prestigious Classic Open Air Festival, which features five consecutive nights of live, open-air music in the heart of the city. Helping to mark the occasion were two Yamaha RIVAGE PM10 consoles, which mixed Front of House and monitors.

The Classic Open Air Festival (CoA) concerts take place in the city's Gendarmenmarkt, in front of the Konzerthaus and between the historic Deutscher Dom und Franz

USA - With over 90 years of combined experience, Crescent Events is a premier event management company which produces live events nationwide from their offices in Charlotte, NC and Oxnard, CA.

Dedicated to providing exceptional service, technical expertise and a high level of creativity, Crescent Events recently made a decision to bolster their rental inventory with an LED video system that would allow them to offer their clients a complete live event production package. Through this acquisition of the award-winning FLEXCurve 6mm LED video system, Nashville-based PixelFLEX has announced Crescent Events as its newest production rental partner.

"At Crescent Events we have been working with LED video for a few years now and we have begun seeing more of our clients asking about the creative stage design possibilities LED video can create," began Chris Gerhart, Crescent Events

UK - Leading manufacturer Focusrite has presented an award to a Buckinghamshire New University BA (Hons) Audio and Music Production graduate for the quality of his work.

Mark Timms, 22, won the Focusrite Award for Best Music Production Recording 2016 and received it at his graduation ceremony at the Wycombe Swan theatre in High Wycombe.

The ambitious graduate was recognised for his dissertation work, based around binaural recording, a type of sound recording, and how it could be used to enhance horror films.

He said, "I built my own binaural recording head at home and spent a lot of my time in the studio experimenting and creating effects, then testing it to see if people enjoyed or were scared by this different way of recording."

Speaking about his career after graduating, Mark said: "I am currently working for the BBC as a boom operator on their medical drama

Australia - Jands Pty Ltd and RF Venue, Inc.have announced a new distribution agreement for all Australian territories. Jands will offer the company's full line of RF products for wireless microphones, in-ear monitors, and production communications.

Boston, Massachusetts-based RF Venue, Inc. manufactures products that reduce RF interference and signal dropouts and maximize scarce spectrum resources. Its products include proprietary antenna designs, distribution equipment, RF to optical signal conversion systems, and spectrum analysis software and hardware for audio professionals, broadcasters, and system integrators.

"Over the past few years we have organically built a loyal customer base in Australia and are excited for what Jands brings to local inventory, sales, system design, and support, said RF Venue CEO Chris Regan. "Our team has been extremely impressed with the wi

Argentina - Rock band Viejas Locas, completed their 20th anniversary tour travelling with an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system to venues including the 5000 capacity Salon Rock Sur in Buenos Aires.

Comprising an S5000 Surface and DM48 MixRack fitted with a Waves network card, dLive was selected by FOH engineer, Fernando Parra, who was trying the system for the first time.

"dLive's sound quality exceeded my expectations, the band and vocals were powerful and clear. The control surface is very friendly and the dual touchscreens allowed me to work very comfortably," explains Parra.

"The compressors are excellent, and the parallel compression option is very practical, plus the gate side chain path with filter makes a difference. The low latency is also surprising at 0,7ms, and the 128 channel strips, 64 buses with graphic equalizer, 16 FX racks, and 96kHz sample rat

USA - LumenRadio has announced an OEM partnership with California based Cineo Lighting, a leader in the production of lighting systems available for the motion picture, television and photography industries.

With the addition of integrated LumenRadio CRMX OEM RDM modules to the HSX and HS2 Wave products, users are now able to control and configure their fixtures wirelessly.

The HS product line is highly configurable over RDM, and LumenRadio's RDM implementation means the Cineo Lighting fixtures can now be patched, monitored and configured from a distance.

On a film set where every minute is crucial, saving time during setup can be a huge cost saver. "The choice of wireless provider was obvious to us. Our two companies have a common philosophy in always being innovative and on the forefront of what is possible. We are very proud over this partnership and extremely excit

UK - Live event and technical solutions specialist PR Live continues to expand its video division with an investment in d3 server technology.

With a large amount of LED screen and high powered projection already in the rental inventory, the capacity for doing widescreen, HD, large-format projections and mapped projects required a powerful control solution to handle super high resolution quality video, and d3 was chosen as the best, most flexible and stable option.

PR Live MD Ian Coull comments, "This is part of our planned expansion which will focus on key areas of innovation and building up state-of-the-art technology and expertise so we can deliver imaginative solutions in addition to the more 'standard' conventional options for video packages."

This also follows the recent appointment of Dave Gillett as head of technical at the south London based company. Dave has a

Europe - The ImageCue distributor for Germany and Austria, Lightpower GmbH, reports that the compact and easy to use media server is garnering high customer satisfaction ratings.

The ImageCue is in use on numerous projects. Andrea Wilhelm, owner and CEO of an event management company from Schwetzingen, Germany, has opted to use the device for several of their productions. Andrea says that she finds that ImageCue is useful "for small to medium sized events and corporate meetings. It is a great asset to control images and/or videos with the lighting console. The ImageCue met our expectations and has been used reliably in our accumulated experience to date."

Stefan Krawietz, a freelance consultant for technical and creative services from Berlin also relies on the ImageCue: "For some time I was looking for a simple plug-and-play solution to present images or videos from my cus

Sweden - All Musik based in Skara, is the first rental company in Sweden to take delivery of Robe's VIVA LED spotlight, a fixture which will service their eclectic array of clients covering corporate shows, smaller music festivals and niche events.

The VIVAs are the latest Robe purchase for All Musik which is run by Alf Kjellson, former drummer and big music aficionado who has been in the industry for 37 years - all his working life he emphasises! He founded the company in 1996 and they have been at the current 12,000sq.m warehouse on the outskirts of picturesque Skara since 2012. One of Sweden's oldest cities, it is known for its ecclesiastical and educational history.

The new VIVAs, delivered by Robe's Swedish distributor, Bellalite, join All Musik's existing 12 x DLX Spots from the DL Series and 20 LEDWash 600s which are all constantly working.

Alf first invested in

UK - Artistic Licence, inventor of Art-Net and expert in lighting control, is hosting a dedicated Art-Net stand at this year's PLASA London show. This exciting new initiative - entitled Art-Net 4 Zone (Stand R71) - is supported by PLASA and LSi and seeks to provide expert education and training on the use of Art-Net and related protocols.

Thanks to the support of similar-minded sponsor companies, Artistic's formidable expertise will be complemented by a range of technical experts who are giving their time to make the event a success.

Throughout the first two days of the show (Sunday 18th & Monday 19th September), invited speakers will give 15-minute technical briefings on a range of relevant topics. The line-up has now been confirmed as follows:

Sunday 18 September:

11.00 - Wayne Howell (Artistic Licence) - Introduction to Art-Net 4

12.00 - Geoff Archenh

France - Award winning theme park Puy du Fou located in the Vendée region of western France has invested in Robe's DL series LED moving lights, with eight DL7Ss and 18 x DL4Ss, which are being utilized to light their innovative new show Le Dernier Panache, an immersive fusion of theatre and cinema being staged in their new 19m Euro Le Thé

Mexico - Responding to the rapidly increasing demand for its lighting and trussing products in Mexico, Chauvet has opened a new office, warehouse, service centre and showroom in Lerma, just west of the nation's capital.

Located close to major highway and rail transit channels, the spacious new facility will house an extensive inventory of Chauvet Professional, Iluminarc and Chauvet DJ lighting fixtures, as well truss from the company's TRUSST division.

"The new facility in Lerma represents an important step in our global expansion plans," said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet. "Working closely with our network of dealers and distributors, Chauvet has been fortunate to build up a very loyal following among Mexican customers for our professional, architectural and DJ products. By expanding our capabilities to sell and service our wide range of products, the new facility will a

New Zealand - Tuesday 30 August 2016 was a significant date in the 26- year history of Show Technology.

The date was the official opening of the Show Technology New Zealand office in Auckland with managing director Emmanuel Ziino welcomed officially onto the land in a P?whiri - a M?ori welcoming ceremony involving speeches, dancing, and singing performed by a local school 'Kapa Haka' group. The P?whiri concluded with a Hongi, a traditional M?ori greeting done by pressing one's nose and forehead (at the same time) to another person at an encounter.

"It was an absolute honour to be welcomed onto the land by their chief," commented Emmanuel. "The P?whiri welcomed us (the owners) and our guests (the future users) during a dedication of the building."

The evening was an industry event attended by invited guests who make up the cream of the professional lighting industry in

USA - ESTA's Behind the Scenes Happy Hour returns for its third year as the biggest pre-LDI party in a new location at the Embassy Suites Las Vegas (3600 Paradise Road). Tickets are on sale for the event on Thursday, 20 October from 6pm-8pm. Advance tickets are $60 a person at behindthescenescharity.com/btshh, and tickets will be available at the door for $75 a person.

The Behind the Scenes Happy Hour features an open bar, hors d'oeuvres and music with all proceeds going to benefit the Behind the Scenes charity, the only industry charity that provides grants to ill or injured entertainment technician professionals. Since its beginning in 2014, the Behind the Scenes Happy Hour has raised over $120,000 in sponsorships and ticket sales.

A limited number of sponsorship opportunities are still available. Interested sponsors are encouraged to find out more information by visitin

The Netherlands - For the first time in Europe, Yamaha and Steinberg are showing their implementation of Dolby Atmoswith Nuendo and Nuage at IBC 2016 in Amsterdam this week.

The latest update to Yamaha's state-of-the-art Nuage hardware controller system has brought full support for Steinberg Nuendo 7.1, a fully-fledged post-production system supporting different immersive sound formats. Using the Nuage console and Dante-based audio hardware, a connection to Dolby's rendering and mastering unit allows for easy and flexible content creation for object-based cinema sound, bringing Nuage up to speed with today's fastest-growing immersive surround formats.

Yamaha is providing hands-on demonstrations of the system throughout IBC 2016, on Stand 8.A69.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Bandit Lites has once again increased its touring inventory with even more gear, this time adding Elation's ACL 360i.

Jake Tickle, Bandit Lites director of technical services, praised the ACL 360i as a great compliment to the entire ACL 360 Series. "The included optional 10 and 45 degree frost are great options expanding the use of the ACL 360i," he said. "This fixture is the definition of power in numbers. I feel we have only touched the surface of how creative we can be with the Elation ACL 360i."

The fixtures were recently out on American rock band Shinedown's Carnival of Madness tour, where lighting designer Sooner Routhier used them for accent and back lighting, placed behind Plexiglas. "You do not know that they are there, and then when they come on, they pop through to give more depth to the stage," explained lighting director Carter Fulghum before adding, "I

South Africa - In search of a solution that would cater for their AV needs, a server with multiple output points and one which would accommodate both small and large events, Johannesburg based Solid Rock Event Technical has taken ownership of a new ArKaos Studio Server.

The story began at Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt earlier this year, when Nick Britz from DWR Distribution introduced Solid Rock's Keith Mac Intyre (founder) and Rolley Maphosa (audio engineer) to the ArKaos team. "From what I understand, within half an hour of Rolley seeing the system for the first time, he was already mapping spheres and cubes with the product" explained Andrew Temblett, business development manager at Solid Rock. "So I think the marriage was made there, and when Keith came back to Johannesburg we started looking at the software available on-line. It seemed a very simple solution that would be

USA - After 20 years of performing, 16m records sold worldwide, and eight Top 40 albums to their credit, Hanson have branched out into other endeavours.

This includes forming a company to make their own craft beer, MMMhops, a play on their smash hit MMMBop. No word on whether or not the group's suds were served at Brews and BBQ, an annual Labor Day gala at Rockford Speedway, but Hanson showed that even though they may have a few fingers in other ventures, their heart and soul are still planted firmly in music.

The group delivered a nonstop high octane performance at the speedway turned festival site. Keeping pace with Hanson step for upbeat step during Brews and BBQ was a fast moving eye-searing lightshow anchored by 20 Intimidator fixtures from Chauvet DJ.

Lighting designers Jeff Hinton of 815 productions and Jared Borchardt of JBE, Inc. teamed up for this prod

UK - Cambridge Live has announced at its Annual General Meeting that it is taking over the running of the e-Luminate Cambridge Festival.

e-Luminate joins Cambridge Live's portfolio of events, giving the Festival a stable footing for the future, helping it to thrive and ensuring its growth and development in coming years.

e-Luminate Cambridge Festival was founded in 2012 by Alessandra Caggiano and Hugh Parnell. They wanted to create a festival of light which would bring together the two sides of the city, uniting its technological talent with its cultural and artistic vivacity. Each year, residents and visitors discover the richness and diversity of Cambridge's iconic buildings and public spaces through a range of light installations, family activities, talks and concerts.

Cambridge Live and e-Luminate recognised that they have a shared vision for arts and culture in th

South Africa - Enchanting audiences year after year, the FNB Starlight Pop Opera was hosted at the Chris Saunders Park, Umhlanga in KwaZulu Natal on 6 and 7 August. Headliner Patrizio Buanne, the Neapolitan-Austrian baritone singer, songwriter and producer, along with local South African artists such as Arno Carstens, were accompanied by the KZN Philharmonic Orchestra.

The event is a gift from First National Bank to their top 1,500 clients where all service providers rise to the occasion to provide an extraordinary evening. For the fifth consecutive year, EPH Production supplied the full technical, while lighting designer Johan Ferreira from BF Production Services created tender moments on a grandMA2 light.

The lighting rig consisted of 10 x Robe Pointe, 18 x Robin 600 LEDWash, 12 x Robin 1000 LEDBeam, 10 x Robin 100 LEDBeam, 24 Clay Paky Sharpy and six MAC 401 Dual LED wa

Costa Rica - The Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica, the country's historically and culturally significant national theatre located right in the heart of capital San Jose has made its first purchase of Robe moving lights, choosing the LED DLS Profile.

This important move was instigated by the theatre's technical director, Claudio Schifanni and the eight DLS Profile units were delivered by Mas Musica also based in San Jose, which is a Robe distributor in Costa Rica.

The theatre is both a producing and a receiving house, and stages at least three shows a week. They wanted a 'best quality' LED moving light product and started looking at Robe's DL range which has been specially developed for theatre and performance applications.

They wanted powerful fixtures with lower power consumption and absolutely no compromises in the quality of light output if it was an LED source. They a

Korea / USA - API has announced a new partnership with Korea-based distributor Dasan, headquartered in Seoul. Founded in 1999, Dasan has been providing innovative media solutions for recording studios, concert halls, religious institutions, and sports facilities, among others, for over 15 years.

"We are proud to partner with such a distinguished and experienced distributor," said API managing director Gordon Smart. "Dasan is dedicated to providing only the best professional audio equipment, and we're extremely pleased to join forces with a distributor whose values align with ours."

(Jim Evans)

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