Europe - 'Striking, stylish and slightly strange' are the words that established lighting designer Rob Sinclair uses to describe his eerie lighting design for musical duo Goldfrapp's latest tour. Similar words could also describe the effects that he gets from the Philips Showline SL NITRO 510 strobe luminaires, which Sinclair has specified to deliver cinematic, crisp, cross stage washes alongside stark, ice white strobe effects.

Inspired by the 'film noir' artistry of Goldfrapp's latest album Tales of Us, Sinclair's high contrast lighting design uses 10 x Philips Showline SL NITRO 510's to create unadulterated up-lit washes and acid-flash strobe effects that accompany some of the band's most haunting tracks.

"We worked hard to create a lighting design that would complement Alison Goldfrapp's double exposure photography, which is currently used as the artwork for th

The Show Goes On - AC/DC have said they will not retire following news that guitarist and founding member Malcolm Young is taking a break "due to ill health". It had been rumoured the Australian band would split after a career spanning more than 40 years. However, a statement on AC/DC's website confirmed: "The band will continue to make music."

The band are one of the highest-grossing rock acts of all time, selling more than 200m albums. A message on the band's website confirmed that Young would be taking a break after "forty years of life dedicated to AC/DC", but did not reveal details of his illness.

On Tape - One in 10 young people has bought a music cassette tape in the last month, a new survey done to coincide with Record Store Day suggests. The research suggests that physical formats are still more popular than digital downloads. In t

UK - Commissioned by the National Trust, designer Mike Blacker of East Grinstead- based Blacker Design was asked to mastermind a refurbishment plan for lighting in the museum area of Bateman's - for over 30 years from 1902, the home of author Rudyard Kipling, near Burwash in the Sussex Weald.

Bateman's is now dedicated to the memories of Kipling's life and work. When Blacker Design needed a neat, energy efficient lighting solution to complete the modernisation of a number of period exhibition display cases in one of the upstairs rooms ... they approached Hastings based lighting specialist CLD Distribution for assistance.

The collaboration saw CLD design and install a bespoke slimline warm white LED strip, made from Osram LEDs into each of the cabinets of varying sizes. This illuminates the contents in a fabulous crisp, clear high CRI lightsource that looks really natural and i

Belgium - Belgian-based automation and engineering specialists Wicreations supplied specialist flying and movement system for the recent Reverze event staged simultaneously at Antwerp's Sportpalais venue and the adjacent Lotto Arena, accommodating upwards of 20,000 hard dance music fans.

The event, produced by Bass Events is the largest indoor hardstyle event, and this year's theme was 'Guardians of Time'. The centrepiece of the set - designed by Peter Vervloesem for Amaze Productions - was a 4.5 by 4.5 by 5m high scenic clock.

This was required to move approximately 50m from backstage to the rear of the Sportpalais arena.

Peter contacted Wicreations in the early planning stages of the event. The two have collaborated on many previous projects - including several Reverzes - and Amaze asked WI to apply their engineering genius to make the giant timepiece fly.

The clock had

UK - As PLASA Focus: Leeds 2014 fast approaches, exhibitors are preparing to fill the show floor with the latest entertainment technology. Having grown its reputation over the last five years, the north of England edition of PLASA Focus has cemented its importance in the industry as a platform for building relationships and showcasing new products.

Chris Toulmin, director of PLASA Events, comments, "We're looking forward to welcoming exhibitors and visitors to both exhibition halls, as well as to the extensive seminar programme. The show is known for its vibrant atmosphere and with such a strong line-up of exhibitors, showcasing so many innovative products, we're certain that legacy will continue."

On Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 April, The Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds, UK will come alive with the latest audio, lighting, video and rigging technologies. With the sho

UK - After a successful call for papers and many suggestions and proposals, the Editorial Board of the International Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference has confirmed over 30 topics for ITEAC 2014: The Future of Performance Spaces, 8-10 June, London.

Each day of the three-day event starts with a significant keynote address and concludes with a stimulating collective wrap up session. Between, the topics will run in three or four parallel streams, presented as lectures, quick fire sessions, specialised micro sessions and panel discussions.

David Staples, chair of the Editorial Board said, "Fine-tuning, developing and enriching the format of the three previous Conferences, has assisted with the Editorial Board's goal to create a lively animated challenging Conference Programme, with diverse views and opinions about theatres and their technology.

"As

Germany - When a venue with multiple spaces needs to update its audio system, nowadays a networked solution considerably enhances the usefulness and flexibility of the entire building. This is exactly what has happened in the German city of Velbert, where a Dante-based Yamaha/Nexo system has recently been installed.

Renowned for its long history of lock manufacturing, Velbert is located at the centre of Germany's industrial heartland, surrounded by the cities of Bochum, Dortmund, Duisberg, Dusseldorf, Essen and Wuppertal. Built in 1979, Forum Niederberg is the city's main venue for entertainment and business gatherings. With a theatre and congress hall adjacent to each other, the venue hosts live music, drama, comedy, dance, conferences, exhibitions, other corporate events and private parties.

By last year, Forum Niederberg's old, mainly analogue audio system was in serious ne

UK - As one of the UK's major trade distributors of professional audio, lighting, video and special effects, Leighton Buzzard-based Leisuretec invests considerable time in training, seminars, product demonstrations and meetings with both clients and suppliers. The company has recently opened the TecZone, a new in-house space to facilitate all these and more, with Yamaha's CIS series chosen for its 7.1 surround system.

The TecZone is a flexible, multi-purpose facility, designed so that seating and desks can be easily changed to facilitate different layouts, or removed completely for maximum floor area.

"We had a very good idea of what we wanted. Our designer came back with a few options which, after a couple of revisions, became the final specification of the room design, layout and so on," says Leisuretec managing director Cliff Dounting.

Leisuretec then worked clo

South Africa - DWR Distribution is to host an Avolites User Training Course for operators of Titan One, Titan Mobile and Tiger Touch consoles.

The three day course, from beginners to advanced training, will be presented by Nick Britz from DWR.

The dates are: Johannesburg (6 - 8 May), DWR, Block C, Unit 1, Kimbult Industrial Park, 9 Zeiss Road, Laserpark, Honeydew; Durban (13 - 15 May), Vineyard Church, 22 Salisbury Road, Durban, and Cape Town (20 - 22 May) DWR, Unit 74D, Platinum Junction Business Park, Marconi Beam, Milnerton, Cape Town.

Delegates are requested to bring their own console and a laptop. The cost is R2250.00 - delegates will be requested to pay a 50% deposit to secure their booking.

www.dwrdistribution.co.za

(Jim Evans)

USA - With more and more houses of worship incorporating contemporary style services into their worship programmes as a means of engaging youth, the ability of the sound reinforcement system to deliver a high level of speech intelligibility and music reproduction becomes increasingly important.

If the congregation can't understand what's being said or relate to the music, it's very difficult to engage them. That's why Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs recently upgraded their sound system - drawing upon loudspeakers from the Convert series catalogue of Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.

Colorado Springs, CO-based Sight and Sound Technologies was contracted to design and deploy the church's new sound system. Kris Johnson, the company's C.O.O. was involved in all aspects of the project. He discussed the challenges of the job and his reason for deploying D.A.S. Audio's Convert 15

USA - When Pollstar announced the ticket sales for the first quarter of 2014, the number one most attended concert wasn't a pop star or a rock god, but instead a tour that makes ministry its main focus. The Winter Jam Tour Spectacular, or Winter Jam as it is popularly known, just capped off its most successful year ever, with more attendees than ever before and included performances by NewSong, Newsboys, Lecrae, Tenth Avenue North, Thousand Foot Krutch and Plumb.

Bandit Lites worked with production manager and lighting designer Jerry Holcomb to illuminate the event.

"I tried to create an in the round end stage design, trying to leave as much line if sight as possible," explained Holcomb. "I used one 60ft diameter circle truss, but I broke it into several sections and flew them at different heights. Because all the trusses were covered in LED strips on both the f

UK / USA - Raising money for industry charities both sides of the Atlantic, By Design Day returns this year supported by a galaxy of well-known champions.

Neil Austin; Gregg Barnes; Ken Billington; Paule Constable; Rick Fisher; Wendall Harrington; Howard Harrison; Don Holder; David Korins; Rob Milburn & Michael Bodeen; Ken Posner; Jennifer Tipton; and Hugh Vanstone have all put their name behind the one day in the year when our industry gets together to raise money for Light Relief in the UK and Behind The Scenes in North America.

To date Light Relief has awarded more than £60,000 in grants to help lighting professionals and their families, while Behind the Scenes has issued over $450,000 in grants to professionals working in all disciplines. And calls for our assistance are increasing on a daily basis. Without your support, our work would not be possible.

By Design Da

South Africa - A Robe MiniMe starred alongside Scrooge, played by Marc Lottering, in Lara Foot's adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol held at the Baxter Theatre, which forms part of the University of Cape Town.

On a visit to Johannesburg, Patrick Curtis, production manager at the Baxter Theatre Centre, enquired about a fixture that would assist him to create a phantom effect. "I asked Rob Izzett from DWR Distribution what I could use to project a ghost-like image that could move around the set," explained Curtis. "He suggested the MiniMe which at that stage had not yet arrived in South Africa."

Curtis felt this was a very well-priced moving head projector compared to the larger, more powerful units already in the Robe armoury.

The unit arrived days before the set-up, and with the assistance of Gerda and Philip Kruger, lighting designer

UK - London-based sound hire specialist Podd Sound, using a QSC WideLine-8 PA with associated Shure UHF-R and ULX-D wireless microphone systems, provided PA and commentary facilities for Sony Music's first UK playback of the new Michael Jackson album, Xscape, on March 31st.

Held in the main ballroom at the stylish five-star Bulgari Hotel in Knightsbridge, London, the exclusive playback was attended by international media and assorted celebrities, supplemented by video messages from album producers LA Reid and Timbaland, and hosted by Radio 1 Xtra's Trevor Nelson.

With rooms starting at over 500 pounds a night, the Bulgari is an unashamedly luxurious hotel in one of the most prestigious parts of the capital, and the high-quality finish of the ballroom venue dictated the standard of the furnishings chosen for the playback. Sony Music brought in furniture costing several thousand

UK - Ampetronic is celebrating being named a winner of the Queen's Award for Enterprise. The award is for International Trade, in recognition of achieving sustained high export growth in the company's sector of hearing assistance. Ampetronic, based in Newark, Nottinghamshire, is the world's leading manufacturer of hearing loop products, having doubled its export sales in the last three years, and continuing to grow rapidly overseas.

The company's hearing loop products help millions of people around the world, allowing people with hearing loss to communicate easily in difficult noisy environments and to access audio services (such as the soundtrack in a cinema) wirelessly via their hearing aid or a receiver.

Ampetronic first started to design and manufacture hearing loop systems (also known as Audio Frequency Induction Loops) over 25 years ago. Over this time, Ampetronic's syst

UK - Leading international AV creative house 7thSense Design - specialists in media serving for state-of-the-art digital display experiences - has been awarded the prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise Innovation 10 years after being founded.

Known for some of the highest performance planetarium, 3D cinema, museum, visitor attraction, theme park, projection mapping, and live event installations worldwide, the UK-based team behind the Delta Media Server will be presented with the award by Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of the County in the coming weeks. Recognising the best of British, the Queen's Award is the highest accolade for UK businesses.

As providers of unique technology within the Entertainment industry, 7thSense is renowned for its proprietary Delta Media Server - an audiovisual solution designed to take the highest quality media and play it on any large-scale scree

UK - Leading international AV creative house 7thSense Design - specialists in media serving for state-of-the-art digital display experiences - has been awarded the prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise Innovation 10 years after being founded.

Known for some of the highest performance planetarium, 3D cinema, museum, visitor attraction, theme park, projection mapping, and live event installations worldwide, the UK-based team behind the Delta Media Server will be presented with the award by Her Majesty's Lord-Lieutenant of the County in the coming weeks. Recognising the best of British, the Queen's Award is the highest accolade for UK businesses.

As providers of unique technology within the Entertainment industry, 7thSense is renowned for its proprietary Delta Media Server - an audiovisual solution designed to take the highest quality media and play it on any large-scale scree

UK - West London UK based lighting and visuals rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment has invested in nearly 100 new Robe lighting fixtures for its upcoming summer season including 60 multi-purpose Robe Robin Pointe luminaires ... in readiness for a mega busy summer season ahead.

Last year Colour Sound supplied lighting production, LED screens, LED festoon lighting and crew to over 50 festivals and music events across the UK, and their 2014 summer season looks to be equally busy, kicking off at the end of May with We Are FSTVL in Upminster, east London.

Also included in the order with the 60 x Pointes were 16 x Robin MMX Spots and 16 x LEDWash 600s, together with four of Robe's award-winning Robin MiniMe effects units.

Colour Sound's Haydn Cruickshank (H) explains that the MMXs and LEDWash 600s were to top up their existing stocks of these workhorse products. With this la

UK - CUK Audio, the recently appointed exclusive UK distributor for dB Technologies, has announced a new dealer partnership scheme designed to help retailers provide their customers with the best possible services and support.

Founded in 2005, CUK Audio has rapidly become a tour de force in the installation and pro audio industries. Recognized for their ability to supply complete audio solutions, the company is able to ensure customer projects are successful from conception through to client sign-off. dB Technologies leads the industry in producing outstanding, innovative pro-audio products and shares a mutual ethos with CUK Audio with regard to first class customer service and support.

The new dealer partnership scheme creates an approved tiered network of retail partners and pro partners. Each tier will have access to its own specifically designed and suited range of dB Tech

UAE - To cater for the most recent event called Electric Days, Melody House, a sole distributor of HK Audio in the Middle East, supplied the Third Eye Crew with an HK Linear 5 series sound system.

The system purchased by the agency included two 112XA 12-inch wedge monitors, four 112FA 12-inch speakers, two 115FA 15-inch speakers and two L Sub 2500A subwoofers. The system was selected because of its high SPL capability as well as its small, transportable format.

Third Eye Crew is an agency responsible for organising the famous Electric Days roof top parties that host DJs visiting Dubai for one-night only performances.

"HK Audio's Linear 5 system provides great sound quality with the flexible combination of portability and expandability," commented Manivelu Saiprasad, HK Audio specialist from Melody House Musical Instruments. "And the design makes the perfect sy

UK - Some of R&B's most successful '90s artists were reunited at London's Wembley Arena in February for a mega-concert, lit by Tom Grant using Clay Paky Sharpys and Alpha Wash 700s.

The R&B Superstars show - which featured En Vogue, Blackstreet2 and Teddy Riley - offered up an evening of soul and smooth tunes in the capital's 12,500-capacity venue.

Birmingham-based DMX Productions managed the project, with support from LD Tom Grant who provided a high-impact, super-star style lighting design that reflected the size and popularity of the show and Siyan Ltd, which supplied the lighting equipment.

"I was tasked with designing a rig with considerable of depth and flexibility to it," explains Grant. "The show featured a sizeable number of acts. We also had a specific request from the organisers for the individual sets not to 'all look too similar'; I took the view

Spain - One of the latest companies to invest in a Meyer Sound Lyon linear sound reinforcement system, Use Sonido of Spain is deploying the system on tour with multi-platinum recording artist Sergio Dalma.

"We believe Lyon is a significant technological breakthrough," says Oscar Marchena, technical director of Use Sonido. "It not only has excellent sound quality, but it is also compact and exceptionally powerful."

Lyon incorporates the technology of the Leo family in a more flexible and compact package, and extends the advantages of highly linear self-powered systems to a larger range of venues and applications. For the Sergio Dalma tour, Use Sonido is providing 20 new Lyon linear line array loudspeakers, six 1100-LFC low-frequency control elements, six UPA-1P loudspeakers for front-fill, and a Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system with a Galileo C

USA - Robe Robin Pointe moving lights hit new highs in a series of rooftop concerts at the 2014 South by Southwest (SXSW) music conference in Austin, Texas.

Felix Lighting of La Mirada, California, provided the Pointes for The Guitar Center Sessions at SXSW which took place in March. The event captured a series of incendiary live performances by Soundgarden, Snoop Dogg, Damon Albarn, Phantogram, The Wild Feathers and many more for exclusive future viewing on the Audience Channel.

The show's longtime lighting designer/director of photography, Victor Fable created the lighting design for the event.

Fable has been with The Guitar Center Sessions, which started in 2010, since the third episode. Once a year, the show travels from its Los Angeles home in the GC Hollywood Vintage Room to new locations, and this year's destination was the rooftop of the historic four-story Starr Bui

Spain - The Vicente Calderón stadium in Madrid has recently been outfitted with D.A.S. Audio professional sound systems. Home to the Club Atlético de Madrid, the stadium has hosted the team's games since it opened its doors in 1966. With approximately 55,000 spectators packing the stands for these events the stadium needed a powerful yet precise system and the D.A.S. Audio systems distributed around the venue more than fit the bill, providing crystal-clear sound for fans in the Calderon's four main stands.

Due to the stadium's design, D.A.S. Audio technicians were unable to hang a central cluster in this open-air stadium. Furthermore, they were restricted by UEFA regulations on the maximum height of the billboards, behind which the systems would have to be located. After studying the venue's particular characteristics the team recommended deploying 28 of the new powered

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