USA - It's natural for modern, Seattle landmark concert venue Benaroya Hall to be used for performances by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Specified by Jaffe Holden, it's fitting that the audio infrastructure be serviced by a Seattle integrator, Carlson Audio Systems. But it's just that little bit special that a key element of the audio system inventory is made by a Seattle manufacturer: Symetrix.

Benaroya Hall is a purpose-built home for the orchestra, but it also hosts lectures, jazz concerts, rock gigs and guest orchestras, including a recent visit by the London Symphony Orchestra. Its main space is officially called the S Mark Taper Foundation Auditorium, but Taper Auditorium is how everyone here knows it.

Classical, rock or jazz, the audio management of the Hall has been transformed. A re-drawn DSP infrastructure now facilitates an advanced networking solution: a hybrid D

Germany - Fritz Kalkbrenner, the younger brother of musician and techno music producer Paul Kalkbrenner, is also a music producer and singer. In his solo projects, he combines techno rhythms and melodic elements. Kalkbrenner broke through with his second album Sick Travellin' and is now on tour to promote his third album Ways Over Water.

The production director Bastian Weinert and operator Thomas Dossman are in charge of the tour. The lighting was designed by Cue Design Gmbh. Among the lights used for the shows are 24 Clay Paky Mythos, together with a grandMA2 light console and an MA onPC command wing.

Jan Bohl, general manager of B&G Promotion GmbH which is in charge of technical production and equipment, stated, "We opted for Clay Paky Mythos because they are currently the best performing hybrid lights on the market. They can be used in a variety of ways: as beam

Edinburgh Rocked - Edinburgh's position as the world's pre-eminent festival city faces challenges from the digital revolution, public investment and city infrastructure, according to a new report. Thundering Hooves 2.0 is a £50,000 report commissioned by the city's festivals forum, the umbrella body for public organisations that have a vested interest in the success of the city's 12 key festivals. It builds on an original 2006 report when it was feared that the "thundering hooves" of other cities could be heard overtaking Edinburgh's status as the UK's preeminent festival city.

The new report makes 38 recommended actions, across six themes, which it says will allow the city's festivals to evolve and cope with future challenges. The festivals are described as being "behind the curve on digital innovation". To combat this, it is recommended that th

The Netherlands - Working for show designers BIND Film, Jurlights were tasked with providing a technical concept for the captivating launch presentation of Maasvlakte II Terminal, Rotterdam on 25 April 2015. On an unprecedented size and scale, the launch ushered in a new era in port operations at APM Terminals with a little help from BlackTrax real-time motion tracking solution from CAST BlackTrax Ltd.

The opening of the world's safest, first fully automated, zero emissions container terminal was attended by The Netherlands' Monarch King Willem-Alexander and 500 senior representatives from the global shipping industry and world governments.

"The only way to accurately track the Lift-Automated Guide Vehicles (AGV) across the 400 by 200ft area was by using BlackTrax," explains Menno Broere, creative director at Jurlights.

In describing the project workflow, Broere sa

Italy - The new Sonic Rose sound spatialisation operatic multimedia experience from Paris-based art and design collective Danny Rose made its debut at the The Eyes Of The Resistance during April 2015.

The Eyes of The Resistance was held across two locations including the House of Memory in Milan to mark the occasion of the Italian Resistance's 70th Anniversary, as part of INSMLI - Italy's National Institute for Liberation Movement Studies. It was also staged for an inauguration of the Resistance Museum in Milan, Italy.

The event marked the world premiere of Sonic Rose, Danny Rose's system for multi-channel sound spatialisation, which was developed specifically for Danny Rose by Emanuele De Raymondi and Jacopo Carreras.

Sonic Rose allows the audience, the stage and the actors to all become more deeply immersed in an affecting universe of sounds and images which

UK - In order to upgrade their existing theatrical lighting equipment for the new season, The Point Theatre in Eastleigh approached White Light to help them find the right solution. The Point became an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation in April 2015 and is known as a regional powerhouse for contemporary dance, theatre and combined arts.

Determined to make their theatre spaces more environmentally friendly, The Point wanted to reduce their overall power consumption and saw the use of LED lighting as a natural way to do so. They were also eager to maintain the best possible theatrical dimming and colour options by having a flexible and varied lighting set-up whilst at the same time working towards a particular budget. "We needed to be flexible with fixtures and ensure that they would allow for use across different applications" comments Timothy Slater,

UK - XL Video recently supplied key video technology to support the BBC Worm's verdict show produced by BBC News for the live Leaders Debates. XL supplied PPU/mixers, control systems, lighting, audio and comms for two temporary studio setups, one in Media City, Salford, and one in New Broadcasting House, London.

Working with BBC News senior producer, Bernadette Kitterick and Cameraman, Julius Peacock, XL Video's broadcast director, Malcolm Whittall project managed the creation of the 'mini-studios' which were both located in common areas of the BBC buildings.

The initial studio set-up took place at BBC Media City, Salford for the debate with all seven party leaders, and the second, with five party leaders, took place at the BBC's New Broadcasting House in London.

For the coverage of both leader debates, the studio was used to create pre-recorded segments with presenter Reeta

UK - Following Chelsea FC's success in lifting the Barclays Premier League and the Capital One Cup this season, Bank Holiday Monday 25 May saw innovision manage the Club's triumphant victory parade through the streets of West London, with over 70,000 fans out in force to celebrate the team's achievements.

Joining Jose Mourinho's First Team on the open-top parade was the academy side who enjoyed a stellar 2014/15 season, picking up the FA Youth Cup and UEFA Youth League trophies.

Working closely with the Club, innovision project managed all elements of the parade, as well as creating a strategic event framework for the delivery of complex road closures, crowd management and health and safety programmes.

With agreement from London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea and the Metropolitan Police, three open-top buses left the Stamford Bridge we

UK - Lighting designer Matt Button used an array of Clay Paky Mythos and Sharpys for the launch event of the Adidas x Pharrell Williams Superstars Supercolor range.

Button teamed up with long-time collaborator Marshmellow Laser Feast for the event, which took place at the Hackney reservoir. Sixty Mythos fixtures, supplied by HDO Productions, lined the venue where they projected stunningly pure beams into the night sky. The light show was interactive with guests able to choose the colours of the beams through Twitter and took place in time to a live performance from dubstep artist Koreless.

"Our creative brief was to basically light up the sky over London in waves and auras of differing colours," says Button. "I made up a quick 3D model which demonstrated our ideas to adidas and they really liked it. We knew we wanted to use Mythos as it has a very quick and almo

USA - Water and electrics usually don't mix unless you were at Wet Electric in Tempe, Arizona, in April for America's largest waterpark music festival where Creative BackStage of Phoenix lived up to its name by creating an extraordinary stage visually brought to life using Elation Platinum Beam 5Rs and Opti Tri PAR lights with Elation EVLED LED video panels used for a high-impact backdrop LED video screen.

On 25-26 April, Wet Electric took over Big Surf Waterpark with headliners Tiesto and Dillon Francis providing the party beats for the biggest pool party in the country. What separates Wet Electric from other electronic music festivals is a professional production stage built into the U.S.'s largest wave pool with a dance floor the pool itself.

Designing a full production stage amid a wet pool environment, the mix of water and power cabling posing their own challenges, matter

UK - Showmagic has confirmed PCM Distribution Ltd as a new distributor for its ShowMagic Control Software. Peter Maddison from PCM Distribution comments: "This product will make a great addition to the ever growing portfolio of products we distribute".

ShowMagic is an integrated lighting, audio, video, digital signage and device controller, with built-in scheduling and triggering features. It gives users complete control of their lighting and AV, controlling, combining and synchronising all the elements of a live show or fixed installation, the company says.

Its power and flexibility make it the ideal solution for a wide range of applications. From spectacular light shows to subtle mood lighting, immersive spaces to corporate presentations, ShowMagic is used worldwide across a range of industries.

UK - AV equipment supply and integration company SSE has completed an audio and video installation project for Phillips, the internationally renowned auction house, at the new European Phillips HQ in London's Berkeley Square.

As part of the construction of the new six-floor complex, which incorporates auction rooms, client presentation and hospitality areas and offices. SSE installed a Q-Sys audio routing and management system, based around a Core 250i processor, to distribute and control networked audio and video throughout the building. Several channels of Shure's ULX-D wireless microphone systems have also been installed; these can be linked into the SSE-installed, building-wide Layer 3 audio network. The Shure and QSC equipment was supplied by Shure Distribution UK.

The Berkeley Square building had been Enron's London HQ, but it was completely gutted and reconstructed when

Puerto Rico - Pop singer, composer and actor Chayanne is currently touring with a lighting design by Belgian-based designers Alain Corthout and Ignace D'Haese, who have many top Latin stars in their current portfolio, and the skill of lighting this lively and demanding genre honed to a fine art.

They designed the lighting - including 59 Robe Pointe moving lights - set and video for the tour, his first for the artist, based on an integrated package that is ultimately flexible and can be set up in multiple formats according to the available stage space. He also wanted to create multiple levels onstage and a playground for the musicians and dancers.

Fifty-five of the 59 Pointes are positioned over the stage, rigged on four triangular trusses which move into different positions throughout the show.

The Pointes are the only effects lights on the rig and they work hard and look fa

India - Music Group has announced the appointment of Alphatec Audio Video Pvt Ltd as distributor for Midas, Klark Teknik, Turbosound, Behringer and Bugera for India.

Alphatec director, Mr. Devasis Barkataki, commented, "We are proud and excited to be given this opportunity to represent such prestigious brands in India. These world class brands are strongly recognised and favoured by the Indian market. We will heavily invest in our our customer service to further open the Indian market to provide comprehensive solutions for our clients." Prior to Alphatec, Devasis spearheaded Ace Acoustics which is Harman's master distributor in the Indian Eastern Region.

Graham Rowlands (VP sales, professional division at MUSIC Group) commented, "The Alphatec team comes with great experience in both the installed and distribution domains, which ensures the MUSIC Group brands wil

USA - Drummer Bill Kreutzmann knows a thing or two about helping friends. A founding member of the Grateful Dead along with Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir and Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan, Kreutzmann made rock history when he invited fellow percussionist Mickey Hart to join the band. This made the Dead one of the first rock groups to have two drummers. The synchronicity between this pair of percussionists helped forge a new sound and earned them the nickname, the Rhythm Devils

Given his penchant for friendship, Kreutzmann (who played in all 2,300 Grateful Dead performances during the group's lifespan) could undoubtedly appreciate the bond between lighting designer Manny Newman and his friend Ronny RedRocks. This is especially true since that friendship resulted in a collection of Rogue R1 Spot fixtures from Chauvet Professional adding an eye-popping visual element to his performance

Austria - The city of Schärding on the Inn River on the border with Germany, had the whole city illuminated with a multimedia spectacular over the winter season. The bridge crossing the Inn was illuminated as well as the monastery and the water front.

However, it was not only conventional illumination effects that lit up Schärding. The whole city centre was covered with a multimedia projection, the facades of the buildings were covered with video mapping and video projections and the orchard was covered with laser projections.

Additionally, multiple information projections were displayed alongside the ring road in the city centre. HB-Laser, a company that specializes in multimedia and laser projects, set up the whole show installation. The video projections in the city centre were created with six video projectors, all controlled with two special Titan multimedia workstation

Canada - The Audio Engineering Society (AES) will hold its 59th International Conference, focusing on Sound Reinforcement Engineering and Technology, on 15-17 July, 2015, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

This is the first AES International Conference to focus on sound reinforcement in over 25 years. A select group of leading technologists, scientists, developers and users in the sound reinforcement industry will gather to discuss the latest innovations in sound amplification and control systems for live performance, to share their insight on current and advanced techniques and technologies, and to present their visions for the future of the industry.

The programme will include tutorials, papers and workshops covering topics of practical approaches to system design; case study analysis; and the measurement, optimization, installation, and testing of sound systems. Topics to be addr

UK - Since his breakthrough in 2012, the career of singer/songwriter Sam Smith has skyrocketed from relative unknown to household name. The four-time Grammy winner recently embarked on a world tour with an L-Acoustics K1 and K2 sound system that made a potentially difficult range of venues a straightforward proposition for the audio team.

Sound provider for the UK and Europe was Britannia Row. With the tour playing a wide range of venue sizes, they turned to L-Acoustics for a system that could be easily and quickly adapted to any circumstance.

Brit Row systems engineer for the tour, Adam Smith (no relation to Sam) explains, "We were doing arenas like the Brussels Forest National or the Amsterdam Ziggo Dome, and the next night, scaling down to theatres, Academy-sized and even club shows. Capacities literally ranged from 10,000 to a few hundred, so it was a challenge."

UK - The end of April saw Blur release The Magic Whip, their first album for 12 years. To celebrate, the Britpop legends played two secret shows at London's Mode club, where a pair of DiGiCo SD10 consoles helped tame the acoustically tricky venue.

With both shows - one for friends and family, the other for 300 competition-winners - taking place at the Westbourne Park venue on the same day, monitor engineer Dave Guerin, Front of House man Matt Butcher and PA tech James 'Kedge' Kerridge had a very busy time. But with Dave and Matt each mixing on a DiGiCo SD10, supplied by rental company Entec Sound and Light, what could have been a very challenging event ran very smoothly.

"When we tour, there's a balancing act between what we need and the available budget," says Dave. "We decided on the SD10 for these shows because it's a big enough console to do what we n

UK / India - Lighting and video control specialist Avolites has appointed Integrated Entertainment Solutions (IES) as its sole distributor for the Indian market. The announcement comes ahead of the two companies combining their efforts to exhibit the latest from Avolites at the PALM Expo at the end of May.

IES is an 18-year-old distribution & trading company based in Mumbai, pioneering in the fields of intelligent lighting, pro-sound & control systems. Their expertise stretches beyond distribution to encompass solutions from entertainment-related venues such as nightclubs to architectural installations.

Avolites' story in India stems back over 20 years, and directors Steve Warren and Koy Neminathan conducted the first workshop there in 2002. Regular training opportunities continued, and so grew the relationships with the local LDs and rental companies.

As the sole distributo

South Africa - SABC TV Outside Broadcasts has invested in an Avolites Quartz console, part of the Titan Mobile Family, and a Lumen Radio CRMX Nova FX RDM transmitter and receiver, their second LumenRadio acquisition. South African based DWR Distribution supplied the equipment.

Andre Rossouw, the specialist production lighting electrician for the SABC TV Outside Broadcasts, was introduced to LumenRadio a couple of years ago when Peter Kirkup visited South Africa for a LumenRadio Roadshow. "The system is rock solid," said Andre. He used LumenRadio for the second time at the South African elections in 2014. "I had two different areas which needed camera lighting and it was no hassle. I have sat under an escalator before with dimmers around the corner and the rig set up inside a hall. LumenRadio has a decent frequency." He also used LumenRadio, working with Kurt

USA - Barco is establishing a national footprint for its factory certified training programmes, collaborating with AV partners to provide a course for the E2 4K screen management system in select locations throughout the United States.

Barco is launching the expanded training programme with its E2 courses, with plans to add additional classes at authorized training centres in Orlando, Florida; Chicago, Illinois; Dallas, Texas; and, Las Vegas, Nevada. Orlando is an especially advantageous location because of its popularity as a business meeting destination and live show venue.

"With the immensely growing popularity of the new E2 screen management system, we want to ensure that our customers can quickly get up to speed on the product at a place and time that is convenient for them," comments Scott Nipper, technical training manager for Barco. "Based on our excelle

USA - In many educational theatre environments, students are often confronted with the challenges of learning their craft on outdated equipment, but every so often, a school district gets the opportunity to create a performance space filled with all the latest technologies available. At Denison High School, the newly created Smith Auditorium is one such case as Batts AVL was given the chance to install a completely new lighting system filled with lighting, dimming and control from Philips Strand Lighting.

"In the design of the new space, we were very fortunate to not only get what we needed, but also what we wanted," began Amy Jordan, Denison High School Theater Arts Department chair. "For the new Smith Auditorium, I wanted the students to have the most advanced lighting technologies so they could be best prepared to move onto careers in the theatre industry once

USA - - A weekend at the ocean can be entertainment enough, but Alabama's Hangout Music Festival took that sentiment and expounded upon with multiple stages scattered across the sandy beaches and ocean backdrop with lighting from Bandit Lites.

The event provided not only a view of paradise, but the sounds of the Foo Fighters, Beck, the Zac Brown Band, Umphrey's McGee, Skrillex, My Morning Jacket, Foster the People, Paramore and Spoon. With a Ferris wheel, a beach house hangout, VIP areas, gourmet beach fare and a viewing tower known as the Mega Drop, this year's festival also touted a hip craft beer courtyard that boasted draughts from Goose Island, Lagunitas, New Belgium, Straight to Ale, Southern Tier and Abita.

Designed by Dizzy Gosnell, Bandit provided six trusses for the main stage's overhead lighting rig loaded with VL 3000 Spots, VL3000 washes, VL 3500 washes, Sharpys,

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