UK - Stardraw.com reports that their new website is now live. Fully responsive and with dynamic content, the site is optimized for mobile devices and will automatically reformat according to the type of device on which it is being viewed to ensure the best possible user experience; the site is, moreover, highly interactive and extremely fast, says the company.

"We're delighted with the new website," affirmed Stardraw CEO, Rob Robinson. "It's a real pleasure to use and, for technophiles like us, it's exciting to know that it exploits cutting edge technologies. For those that want to know, the site is effectively an html application built using the Angular framework which is the same framework we're using for all our new online applications. The behaviour of the site applies sophisticated Angular and CSS techniques which means we can do everything that we might have

USA - In a lakeside New Jersey community, Pompton Lakes High School prides itself in providing opportunities to meet the needs of a diverse student population. With an award-winning fine arts programme, the high school recently underwent a renovation to upgrade its performing arts space. To guide them during the project, Nelson Enterprises was brought on board as the systems integrator and to control the new lighting system they chose the NEO lighting control console from Philips Strand Lighting.

"In the beginning we were actually provided a sales lead from another company that brought us onto the project to complete the installation of the new lighting system at Pompton Lakes High School," began Bill Nelson, Nelson Enterprises. "As a retrofit installation, the new system consists primarily of all LED lighting instruments that would require multiple control channe

UK - Audient's iD22 made its debut theatre performance, with two-time NSDF Emerging Artist Award winning theatre company at the New Diorama Theatre in London, last month. Sharing the limelight with three performers, including actress and producer Rianna Dearden, the audio interface was used to control the sound on stage for their new play, Goodstock.

Rianna explains how the iD22 worked for the show. "We've been using it along with a Novation Launchkey Mini and Ableton Live to play and control all of the recorded and live sound throughout the show. This ranges from pre-recorded tunes to various DJ beats and loops, triggered with the Launchkey, but controlled by the iD22. There are moments in Goodstock where the levels of the music need to be adapted second by second depending on the action happening on stage, meaning it can be controlled safely and easily by the people right

USA - The 2015 Tony Award winners for Best Musical and Best Play, Fun Home and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, both rely on Meyer Sound systems to carry their stories to audiences. The aural experience for these acclaimed shows is the work of sound designers Kai Harada and Ian Dickinson, with each of the shows winning five Tony Awards.

"I think the role of sound and music is integral to The Curious Incident," says Dickinson, the show's sound designer and an associate of London-based Autograph Sound. "Take them away and it becomes a different and maybe less magical world. One of the production managers once said to me that the play's aural world was like glue binding everything together. I think that is the highest compliment one could pay. I'm absolutely overjoyed for all concerned."

Dickinson's design for The Curious Inci

USA - It was a celebration of epic proportions as the four original members of The Grateful Dead (Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, and Bob Weir) reunited at Soldier's Field, almost 20 years to the day after they played their last concert with Jerry Garcia. They were joined onstage by frequent musical comrades Trey Anastasio, Bruce Hornsby and Jeff Chimenti. Seventy thousand Deadheads filled the stadium each night on 3, 4 and 5 July, while millions streamed the show online and watched on Pay Per View to say goodbye to one of the most iconic bands in history.

2015 also marked the Grateful Dead's 50th year in the business. The show was produced by Peter Shapiro and Madison House Presents. Bandit Lites provided the lighting for the final three shows, where lighting designers Candace Brightman (The Grateful Dead's original, long time LD) and Paul Hoffman used more than 500 fi

South Africa - The Mediatech Africa 2015 trade show was an outstanding success for Audiosure, the company reports. The South African company drew large crowds to see its extensive collection of audio and AV products as well as lighting from Chauvet Professional and Chauvet DJ.

However, beyond being drawn by the opportunity to get their hands on some of the latest gear, show visitors were stopped in their tracks by an eye-popping lightshow Audiosure created using a collection of Chauvet Professional fixtures.

Designed by Sean Crawley with the assistance of Stefan Van Der Walt, the show at the Audiosure stand drew on the intense output of 16 pixel-mapped Nexus 4x4 LED panels to display blinding breakout patterns and stunningly bright text. Adding to the visual feast was the sweeping light from 30 ultra-fast Rogue moving fixtures. The new Strike 4 blinder pumped up the intensity

USA - The Rolling Stones embarked on their Zip Code Tour visiting 15 cities in North America from the kick-off in San Diego in May to the wrap in Quebec City in July. The band's lighting rig featured Clay Paky Mythos and Sharpy Washes.

"The band is playing as well as I've ever seen them," says Ethan Weber, who was crew chief for the Stones in 1994-95 and became their lighting director in 1998, a post he still holds today. The majority of shows on the tour were in stadiums, though they mixed in a couple of festivals and a theatre show in Los Angeles, where the band played the entire Sticky Fingers album. "The venues have been more consistent on this leg than on most in the past couple of years," Weber says. "Not as many clones or fixture changes have been needed on the grandMA2."

Patrick Woodroffe of Woodroffe Bassett Design was the lighting

Sweden / Italy - LumenRadio has announced the appointment of RM Multimedia as the exclusive distributor of LumenRadio's CRMX product portfolio in Italy. Based in the Cattolica, Italy, RM Multimedia is the distributor of high quality products for the entertainment industry across Italy. Their portfolio already includes brands such as Robe, Anolis and Litecraft to name a few.

Commenting on the partnership, LumenRadio's technical sales manager, Marcus Bengtsson says, "We are very pleased to partner with RM Multimedia, a company that shares our strong objective to provide reliable technology, superior technical support and stands by their customers all the way to give the customers the best experience possible with the products."

Enthusiastic to distribute LumenRadio's award-winning CRMX technology and its benefits to the Italian market, Marco Bartolini, sales manager at

UK - A.C. Audio, a division of A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) Ltd, has been appointed as an authorised dealer for the Midas Digital range of audio mixing consoles, with immediate effect.

Midas has been designing and manufacturing live performance mixing consoles for the world's most demanding live sound engineers, performers and production rental companies since the early 1970s.

The consoles are renowned for their exemplary sound quality, leading to their adoption by international clients for high-profile concert, theatre and studio venue installations, as well as touring, events, and other applications.

A.C. Audio, who are already an established reseller for the manufacturer's analogue consoles line-up, now have direct access to the extensive choice of Midas digital mixers, ranging from the PRO1 console up to the PRO X desk, plus related stage boxes and accessories

Singapore - grandMA2 was the control platform of choice for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the recent South East Asia (SEA) Games, staged in Singapore at the New Singapore National Stadium. Lighting designer was Mac Chan, who worked very closely with lead programmer Michael Chan and Muen Huang on the two impressive and highly visual spectacle ceremony shows which marked the start and finish of the 28th SEA Games.

Mac's lighting rig inside the stadium comprised about 900 moving lights - a mix of Vari*Lite, Clay Paky, DTS, Robe and Martin, spots - which were scattered over a series of trusses flown in the roof and positioned around the perimeter of the field of play.

Mac specified two grandMA2 full-size and two grandMA2 light for the show, with full tracking backup. The network comprised 10 x MA NPU (Network Processing Unit), 11 x MA 8Port Nodes and eight MA 2Port Nodes a

UK - PLASA London has announced a number of exclusive and exciting additions to its 2015 seminar sessions, including two new audio panel sessions chaired by industry journalist Phil Ward, three sessions from audio production power house Britannia Row, a further session from the Institute of Professional Sound (IPS), three demo sessions from Adobe and a keynote presentation from Pixar Animation Studios.

PLASA London is delighted to have secured some of the most informative and interesting speakers it has ever had for this year's show. Particular highlights include Britannia Row's sessions, which take a close look at education and industry in this fast maturing sector and the keynote presentation from Pixar Director of Photography Danielle Feinberg and Adobe's Niels Stevens showing off the very latest developments in their Creative Cloud content creation tools and services.

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UK - Acorn has a well-established history of providing temporary structures to prestigious motor racing events and, in June 2015, the company serviced two major sporting events . . .

First, Formula E chose Acorn to supply a range of temporary infrastructure at the inaugural London E Prix, which took place in Battersea Park. The layout of the London park, and in particular the tree-lined avenues that made up the circuit, led the organiser to choose tiered viewing platforms instead of traditional grandstand seating. Acorn provided 50 viewing platforms, totaling over 4,000m2 and providing enhanced viewing positions for 12,000 spectators.

To allow spectators across the track and into the infield, Acorn supplied six pedestrian bridges at strategic points around the circuit. Utilising the Layher Bridging System, each bridge had a unique configuration, the largest of which spanned ov

Germany - The courtyard of the castle St. Emmeran in Regensburg, Germany, has provided the location for the Thurn-and-Taxis festival (Schlossfestspiele) since 2002. The highlights on stage are mirrored by the FoH audio mix: Tonmeister Carsten Kümmel created a concert hall ambience for the performance of Giacomo Puccini's La Bohème, even though it took place in the open air. Key to achieving this was the use of a Lawo mc²56 mixing console.

The natural listening experience of a concert hall was created by using monitor speakers situated below the venue's tribune. These were used to direct effects channels with a high amount of early reflections towards the castle walls, which diffusely reflected them towards the audience. The orchestra itself was not on, or even close to, the stage, but in a ballroom in the castle, where regular microphone techniques were used to pick up

Germany / Turkey - Ankara-based distributor, Atempo, has been appointed by Pan Acoustics as the Turkisch distributor for the Pan Beam, Pan Speaker and Pan Powerline series.

Mr. Volkan Konuralp, MD of Atempo explained their choice of Pan Beam, "With steerable columns being established in the market place over the last 10 years, many companies have engineered their own solutions as part of an existing range of products in an attempt to tap into the growing market. We have looked at the various solutions appearing in the market and all had their strengths and weaknesses. We were looking for a company that specialized in steerable products, that had leading technology and the feature set that the market needed.

"We ultimately wanted outstanding performance combined with simple, intuitive system set-up, so that the installer doesn't need to be a programming expert to get

The Netherlands - Dutch group De Toppers used DPA's d:facto Vocal Microphones for a series of five live shows at the Amsterdam Arena, each of which attracted audiences of around 69,000 people.

The decision to switch DPA was taken by audio consultant John Kriek and sound designer Jeroen ten Brinke, a partner at Audio Design International that provided sound services for the shows.

"I had used DPA microphones in the past and was always impressed by the audio quality they delivered," says Jeroen ten Brinke. "At the end of last year I worked on an All Star show in Amsterdam and that was when I tried DPA d:facto Vocal Microphones for the first time. Even though the mics had a lot of different artists and vocal styles to contend with, they delivered really impressive results in terms of dynamic range, and I was very pleasantly surprised by how good they sounded. This

UK - Vaughan Sound has delivered an impressive audio-visual scheme for multi-national professional services company Arup.

The global independent firm of designers, planners, engineers, consultants and technical specialists appointed the South Wales-based integrator to install a range of audio, video and sound technology at their Cardiff offices.

Working closely with the client's in-house staff in order to meet the complex brief, Vaughan Sound has provided an AV rich, multi-functional presentation suite. It offers an environment for showcasing BIM (Building Information Modelling), video conferencing for efficient communication with clients and affiliate offices around the world, as well as corporate entertainment purposes.

The centrepiece of the project is a stunning landscape video wall, which comprises 15 Samsung UD55D premium large format displays, chosen for their ultra n

USA - The 1966 album Pet Sounds marked a seminal moment in the Beach Boys' Hall of Fame career. It was fitting, then, that one of the Beach Boys' most spirited recent performances took place before a large and appreciative crowds of pet care givers at the American Veterinary Medical Association convention in Boston.

Held at the Blue Hill Bank Pavilion outdoor amphitheatre adjacent to Rowes Wharf, the 38-song set concert offered the audience everything it could hope for on a beautiful summer evening, from a warm ocean breeze to the band's famous tight three- and four-part harmonies, to some evocative summertime images displayed on a video wall made of MVP Ta8 Curve LED panels from Chauvet Professional.

Image Productions Services used 60 of the 8.33mm pixel pitch modular LED panels to create a 20ft by 12ft flat video wall that was flown just behind the drum riser upstage

Ireland - Set up 30 years ago, and today providing a vast range of technical services, including sound reinforcement, radio comms, full AV, CCTV and access control, Kildare-based Mongey Communications needs to maintain its inventory at the cutting edge in order to provide top drawer reinforcement and network control for some of the biggest events in Ireland.

This led to them purchasing a substantial JBL VerTec VT4886 Subcompact system and Crown VRack amps. According to director David Mongey, who runs the family owned business with brother Cyril, the acquisition marks a return to the brand that his company first invested in around two decades ago.

"We cover a wide range of events, from European summits to major sporting events, and provide services from access control to broadband; our policy is to buy only the best," he stated. "Our existing front-line PA system

UK - In addition to working on the John Peel Stage at Glastonbury, Green Hippo was also present with a range of its V4 Media servers elsewhere on Worthy Farm.

One of the biggest touring shows passing through Glastonbury to use Hippotizer was Deadmau5, headlining the Other Stage on Saturday night, operated by touring LD Whitney Hoversten. Designed by Leroy Bennett and programmed by Loren Barton, Canada's most successful electronic music artist brought a stunning stage show comprising two Hippotizer V4 Boreals supplied by Upstaging, delivering a combination of video, to the downstage LED wall, and ArtNet/KiNET from PixelMapper to a custom fabricated 'DJ booth'.

Elsewhere on site Darren Parker Lighting continued their tradition of driving all the West Holts stage's video elements with Hippotizer Media Servers. DPL's hospitality area was, as always, the preferred location for indu

USA - The New York City Center has given life to numerous Broadway productions and its Tony-honoured Encores! musical theatre series has received the highest accolades possible. Dedicated to making the best in theatre accessible to all audiences, the City Center recently completed their production of Zorba! telling the story of a shy American intellectual who befriends an irrepressible jack-of-all-trades. As lighting designer Ken Billington was challenged to transform the historic stage into an island off the coast of Greece, he found his ideal fixture to make this happen in the VL4000 Spot luminaire from Philips Vari-Lite.

"I have done about 30 different productions with the City Center Encores! with many of the most successful productions moving to Broadway," began Billington. "For this production set in Greece, we wanted the lighting design

The Netherlands - Gebr. de Nobel (Nobel Brothers) is a new live performance venue located on the busy, animated thoroughfare of Marktsteeg in Leiden, Netherlands, complete with a new Robe moving light rig specified and supplied by Benelux distributor Controllux to the delight of the technical crew led by head of production & technical affairs, Bart van der Smissen.

Owned and funded by the city of Leiden, Gebr. de Nobel has been cleverly designed by architect Ector Hoogstadt to maximize every centimetre of usable space and ensure that it functions practically and efficiently as a bustling entertainment hub.

Controllux's lighting design was evolved with input from leading Dutch LD Nick van Balen, and has eight DLX Spots, 12 x LEDWash 300s, 18 x LEDBeam 100s and 10 CycFX 8s at its core in the main hall, plus 12 x LEDBeam 100s for the small hall, together with a selection of strob

Italy / Iran - Tehran-based Shidco has been appointed by Italian control and amplification specialists Powersoft to handle their distribution in Iran. Set up in 1960 the country traded in electronic music equipment before advancing into leading professional audio equipment as well as instruments. In 2003 they adopted Shidco as a trading company and expanding into lighting.

By the time they were introduced to Powersoft (by long-term supplier FBT), they already had a number of the world's prominent sound and lighting brands in their brand portfolio, according to sales director and technical manager, Amir Fani Saberi.

"As one of the best-known companies in the market, we were already familiar with both Powersoft and its technology, from working with their customers. As a powerful trading company, we required a leading brand amplifier to cover the full range of professional a

UK / Turkey - Allen & Heath has appointed Info Muzik Elektronik (Infogroup) as its exclusive distributor in Turkey. With more than 20 years' experience, Infogroup is one of the leading sound and lighting companies in the country, representing other well-known names within the audio industry that will complement the Allen & Heath brand.

"Allen & Heath is one of the best brands in the world and we are very excited to be able to add the name to our portfolio. Allen & Heath's superior and diverse range of products, and our focus on quality customer service, will give us a huge advantage in advancing the brand in Turkey. We are certain our collaboration will see many successful sales and installations," comments Emre Abdurrahman Maras, managing director at Infogroup.

"Allen & Heath is delighted to appoint Info Muzik Elektronik as its exclusive distributor in Turkey.

Chile - W-DMX by Wireless Solution Sweden distributor Iluminación Profesional Valook S.A. in Santiago, Chile has been hard at work with a beautiful variety of projects and installations in South America.

Niclas Arvidsson, CEO of Wireless Solution recently caught up with Francisco Yañez Valdivia, product manager for Valook to hear about two successful temporary installations using W-DMX on the Costanera Centre Tower in Santiago, one of the highest towers in South America.

From 4 June 4 to 4 July, 2015, Valook worked with customer Icardi Producciones to light the Costanera Centre Tower for America's Soccer Cup. Icardi lighting designer Toni Amoros washed the building with 4kW searchlights displaying the colour of the teams that were playing. Clay Paky Mythos projected a gobo onto the building and when a team scored, they projected the word "GooooaL". DMX signal was s

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