UK - The K-array loudspeaker system installed by Stage Electrics at the Royal Opera House is "so discrete it is almost invisible".

The installation is the result of an out of the blue phone call with an invitation to the opera in Verona for the Royal Opera House's head of sound, Steve Zissler.

"I was asked if there was anyone I knew that I'd like to take to Italy to see the opera and listen to some sound systems," says Jamie Gosney from Stage Electrics, who designed the system at the Royal Opera House. "I hadn't been at Stage Electrics very long, I didn't really know anyone then and I didn't even know the K-array products that well. But Dave Wooster, [now part of 2B Heard, K-array's new UK distributor], had already said that the K-array products were perfect for opera."

That particular trip was not to be, but it wasn't long after that Stage Elec

UK - Orbital Sound reports that UK specialist Event Light & Sound (ESL) has taken delivery of a sizeable new Nexo 45°N-12 Line Monitor system, investing in the innovative wedges to service its growing corporate and high-end event schedule. Supplied by Nexo's UK main dealer and service partner Orbital Sound, the system was selected after a comprehensive market review, with the 45°N-12 standing out for its unique design, innovative technology, and arrayability.

ESL was introduced to the 45°N-12s by one of its regular monitor engineers, Chris Wibberley, commenting, "I was offered the chance to try out the NEXO 45°N-12 monitors a couple of years ago. I have found them to be the loudest and clearest wedge I have ever used! I like the way they couple as pairs and also how narrow their pattern is, so you don't have one mix bleeding all over another?. A truly excell

Australia - TDC - Technical Direction Company is recognised for their achievements at Vivid Sydney 2015 by being shortlisted in the Best Technical Achievement and Innovation category of the Australian Event Awards.

Winners of the awards will be announced at a glittering ceremony on 17 November, 2015 at Doltone House in Pyrmont, Sydney.

TDC's involvement in Vivid Sydney this year included providing video expertise in cutting edge mapping techniques and core video technology across an unprecedented 10-kilometer distance as the festival expanded into Chatswood and Central Park inner-city precincts.

The company worked with Destination NSW, the NSW Government's tourism and major events agency, as well as various artists for each installation. TDC broke all records by providing nearly 9,000sq.m of video (or 7,464,960,000 video pixels) projected onto the stunning architecture of ov

UK - Steve Angello - innovative international DJ and music producer - doesn't believe in doing anything by halves, and so asked his lighting designer Jon Trincas to create something spectacular, full-on and completely unique for his pumping headline set in the Size Matters arena Creamfields 2015, the UK's premier EDM festival.

Jon chose 48 x PATT 2013 luminaires as part of a highly distinctive upstage wall of lights aesthetic.

The 48 units were rigged on 12 25ft high upright pre-rigged truss towers, each of which was loaded with four PATT 2013s together with an array of moving lights and blinders.

This is one of the largest collections of PATT 2013s used in a single show to date. They formed a grid that Jon was able to map through his grandMA2 lighting console allowing him to produce a selection of mad, quirky and trippy effects.

PATT 2013 contains a 750W tungsten softligh

World - Lighting designer Ed Warren has commissioned a large number of pioneering LED PAR can frames from LED design and manufacture house Light Initiative (LI) to add an extra punch to his design for Mumford & Sons' world tour and headline festival dates.

The folk rockers have been traversing the globe in support of their latest number-one album Wilder Mind. To reflect the slightly edgier sound of their new material, Warren took his usual tungsten-based design to the next level. To do this the designer incorporated some new elements such as strobes, unusual colour contrasting and LED.

"To maintain the Mumford vibe amidst all the new tricks, I decided to use a back wall of 120 PAR cans positioned in a 10-fixture wide by 12-fixture high grid," explains Warren. "However I felt it'd get old quickly if all they did was flash on and off for a whole set, so cam

USA - When Basement, the melodic rock/emo band from Ipswich, Suffolk, UK, added a 21-date US leg to their widely anticipated reunion tour, they didn't pay much attention to lighting. Captivating crowds with their raw, honest grunge-tinged songs, the group got by with house lights at jam packed performances from San Francisco to Austin to New Orleans. Then as they headed east for the last five nights of their tour, Basement moved its lighting rig up to a new level of visual excitement with some help from the Rogue R2 Wash moving LED fixture from Chauvet Professional.

"The band wanted to blow out the remaining five shows on the tour in Washington, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Boston and New York with a good light package," said LD Lenny Sasso. "There was a lot of enthusiasm for Basement in the early leg of the tour, and they wanted to play on this by engaging the audie

USA - Founded in 1994, Audio Geer is an independent sales representative firm based in Huntington Beach, California. The firm's 12 professionals average 10 or more years' experience serving integrators and consultants in Southern California and Southern Nevada including Las Vegas.

President Alan Geer says, "We strictly limit the brands we represent and always aim for a specific calibre of company. Community fits well with the products and services we provide to integrators and consultants. They're a truly professional company with great people and technology. I'm very excited about representing them in our territories."

Steve Young, Community's director, North American sales, added, "Our Southern California and Southern Nevada integrators will immediately benefit from the expanded coverage provided by Audio Geer. We are proud that Audio Geer has chosen Community

Czech Republic - The Macula, a leading Czech videomapping company, recently mesmerised a private audience of 600 VIP guests at the Rudolfinum music auditorium with the SIM/NEBULA: a 45 minutes long video mapping performance accompanied by the Czech Philharmonic orchestra, led by internationally renowned conductor Jiri Belohlávek, the former principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

The project involved a live orchestra of 118 musicians and projections on four sides of the auditorium (front, two sides and ceiling).

The content was broken into seven themes (Matter, Technology, Message, Mission, New World, Rendez-vous and Birth), expressing visual futuristic poems, and shaping the emergence of a cybernetic organism counting down its time code in acoustic waves of classical music. The project was developed in collaboration with 11 international artists (from UK, Fr

Canada - As the one of the world's largest international multi-sport competitions, the 2015 Pan American Games hosted close to 7,000 athletes from across North America, Latin America, South America and the Caribbean.

To inaugurate the opening of the games in Toronto, event organizers enlisted the assistance of 45 Degrees who brought on Martin Labrecque to oversee the lighting design. Working with Solotech, Labrecque would be challenged to create a hybrid design between theatrical and rock-n-roll and he did so using 60 VL4000 Spot luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite.

"This was actually my first time working with the Pan American Games and my first time lighting a stadium event," began Labrecque. "Knowing that the directors of the show wanted a cross between theatrical and rock-n-roll, I needed to bring in automated luminaires that could offer me a wide range of cap

UK - At 9,500sq.ft over three floors, Lush's new flagship store on London's Oxford Street is 13 times larger than the average size of its stores, and sets the bar high within the international cosmetics and skincare retail industry.

In line with the retailer's eco-friendly credentials and ethos, the interior blends recycled products with exposed steel girders and a floor-to-ceiling full-width glass frontage to showcase all that is innovative and inspiring about Lush.

Bose pro partner, Crossover, a team known for their expertise in creating great sounding retail environments, were brought in to create the wow! factor in what is set to become an iconic store. As well as specifying and installing a multi-zoned background music system, the brief included requirements for some innovative display and interactive elements, and Lush also commissioned the Crossover team to work collabo

UK - SAGE (Safety Advisors Group in Entertainment) have raised concerns of the competence of some event safety advisors and have launched a campaign with the support of IIRSM (International Institute of Risk and Safety Management) to help event organisers and promoters to ensure they know what the really should be looking for in a prospective safety advisor when planning an event.

The role is safety critical and therefore a high level of competence is required. SAGE is recommending the prospective candidate should meet the following criteria:

•Membership of a Health and Safety Institute (IIRSM or IOSH)

•Qualified to NEBOSH Diploma Level (or equivalent)

•Membership of an event industry trade association

•Five years of event industry experience (not necessarily health and safety experience)

•Taking part in a Continuing Professional Development (C

USA - Veteran front-of-house engineer Toby Francis, whose extensive résumé ranges from Aerosmith to ZZ Top, is currently out on an 88-date tour with pop princess Ariana Grande and a DiGiCo SD7 digital mixing console. The Honeymoon Tour, which takes in North America, Europe and Asia before wrapping up in South America at the end of October, also includes an SD7 at the monitor position, helmed by engineer Justin Hoffmann.

Francis, who is approaching his eighth year of using DiGiCo consoles almost exclusively, comments, "It's very, very easy to mix music on this console and it works in a very straightforward manner. It's got everything you'd ever need onboard. For the last two years I've been using a Waves SoundGrid server, but prior to that I didn't - I just used the console and nothing else."

Although he typically favours DiGiCo's SD10 desk, Franc

Mexico - The Premium Staff Group is a large rental and production facility based in Mexico City, founded seven years ago and owned by the charismatic Francisco Estrada, who is also a prolific Mexican music show promoter.

A successful entrepreneur, he started purchasing sound, lighting and video kit when he realised that his own concerts could benefit from higher production values - at more cost-efficient prices.

Premium Staff has recently invested in 84 x Robe Pointes, delivered by Robe's Mexican distributor, Vari Internacional.

Their main equipment warehouse is located in Toluca, the bustling capital of Mexico State about 60k south west of Mexico City, DF, and Francisco also has an office in the suburb of Polanco in downtown DF.

He thinks keeping up with the latest lighting and equipment trends is crucial to the success of his production company, and buying the Pointes wa

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will launch their new sales division, A.C. Film & TV, by showcasing the division's portfolio of specialist brands and related services in their exhibition zone (stands F30 - F38) at the PLASA 2015 Show on Sunday, 4 October.

The AC-ET Zone will feature the latest lighting, control and grip technologies from a selection of leading brands in the division's extensive portfolio. Marques stocked include Chroma-Q, Fiilex, Mole-Richardson, ARRI, Jands, Manfrotto, Avenger and LumenRadio, amongst others.

Drawing on the company's extensive experience supplying to this sector, the new division has been formed to offer a comprehensive one-stop inventory of lighting and related equipment solutions for film, television, studio and location applications. A.C. Film & TV will promote a range of key brands - many of them exclusive to AC-ET in the UK -

UK - PLASA Show 2015 is just a few days away, but the organisers are working right up to the wire to bring in the best speakers for the PLASA Professional Development Programme. Four new sessions have just been announced, respectively addressing lighting, sound and video.

Emmy Award winning lighting designer Al Gurdon, of Incandescent Design, will discuss his design philosophy in State of the Art Today, Passé Tomorrow, covering what is lighting for, what should it do, why do we need it, as well as taking a look at whether your lighting is relevant and focused now, and if it will stand the test of time.

In Going Over To The Dark Side - From Lessons To Lighting, founder of DX7 Design Tom Sutherland will discuss how he dropped out of education to pursue a highly successful career in lighting, a decision taken neither lightly nor without opposition. This sessi

USA - On Saturday, 26 September, 2015, Pope Francis visited the Festival of Families on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Chosen to capture the Pontiff's audio was an Audio-Technica AE6100 Artist Elite hypercardioid dynamic handheld microphone, custom-painted white by Audio-Technica especially for the occasion.

(Jim Evans)

UK - The annual PLASA Riggers Forum taking place at PLASA Show 2015 is an open floor discussion on issues that affect everyday working lives in the entertainment rigging industry. The conference will be presented by 20 plus international speakers and panellists and will begin with a keynote presentation by Hedwig de Meyer, StageCo's founder and president, whose long experience of building ground-breaking structures for the entertainment industry speaks for itself. Sessions following this will focus on the management of chain hoists, the impact of CDM regulations, an update from PLASA on the NRC and trainee rigger scheme, as well as the subject of trusses and their design.

Now in its sixth year, it is the go-to event in the calendar for riggers, rigging companies, venue management and safety professionals alike. The Riggers' Forum takes place once again on Sunday from 2pm - 5pm f

UK - At PLASA Show 2015 today, Chris Withers, Elliot Griggs, Johanna Town and Kelli Zezulka will present a seminar session entitled: 'How many lights do you need? The work of the lighting designer on a budget'.

How do the limitations of equipment, venues and money as well as the increased requirements of additional jobs in small-scale theatre affect the creative role of the lighting designer? Do they limit the choices that can be made, or does it allow creativity to flourish? How will the developing technologies impact on choices and working methods in the medium term?

The ALD seminars at PLASA are always very popular and this year is no exception. Today's topic is 'How many lights do you need? The work of a lighting designer on a budget', concentrating on fringe and small-scale venues.

The panel will be chaired by Kelli Zezulka (lighting designer and editor of the ALD's Foc

UK - Today at PLASA Show 2015 Eurovision 2016 technical director Ola Melzig and lighting designer Fredrik Jönsson discuss the complex processes involved with LSi editor Lee Baldock in a must-see session entitled: 'Planning the Eurovision Song Contest 2016: How do you begin to plan the production of the world's biggest televised music event?'

How do you begin to plan the production of the world's biggest televised music event, to be viewed by two hundred million people worldwide? How do you set about designing unique looks for more than 40 individual acts? And in a show that habitually pushes the boundaries of technical production, how do the technical and creative processes drive each other forward? Join the session in the AV, Broadcast & Stage theatre at 4.15pm - 5.15pm today.

(LSi Online)

UK - At PLASA Show 2015, Soulsound will present four seminar sessions: Audio and Conciousness; Time Aligning Inputs and Outputs; Is Mixing Personal?; Setting Up a Small Business. The sessions will be presented by Tony Andrews, Justin Grealy, Jon Burton & Darryn de la Soul

"The Soulsound Seminars this year address the esoteric, technical and practical aspects of being an Audio Engineer," says Darryn de la Soul. "We can get so bogged down in products and marketing that it's time to remember how we, as humans, interact with sound, what it does for us and how it makes us feel - cue Tony Andrews and his talk Audio & Consciousness."

Jon Burton gets stuck into a thorny question - how much artistic freedom do you have as a FOH engineer when working for... an artist! Justin Grealy and Marcel van Limbeek follow up last year's talk, The Nature Of Phase with Time Align

UK - As PLASA Show 2015 opens its doors at ExCeL London, visitors from 101 different countries, with a combined purchasing power of over £3 billion, have registered to attend.

With headline sponsors Robe, Clay Paky and TMB, this year's show features over 300 brands, many of which are showing new products and services, and sees PLASA Show adopting the successful 'Focus' model of a sector-specific, zoned layout, which will allow both visitors and exhibitors easier networking and navigation.

Over 50 leading brands from the pro audio sector are in attendance, with many new names joining that list including A.C. Entertainment, Autograph, d&b Audiotechnik, FACE, FBT UK, Flare Audio, POLARaudio, Ten 47, Unity Audio, White Light, Yamaha, SSE Audio and Wigwam Acoustics.

The lighting zone features manufacturers such as Altman, Avolites, Elation, ETC, Laserworld AG, and Robe, whi

Europe - With his eighth solo LP Tracker receiving much acclaim, guitarist and vocalist Mark Knopfler is in the midst of an eight month, 88-date world tour. A pair of DiGiCo SD7s is ensuring every nuance of these musically complex shows is heard clearly.

The tour is currently playing European arenas and festivals, with US and Canada theatres to follow. Front of House engineer Dave Dixon and monitor engineer Kerry Lewis are both mixing on DiGiCo SD7s.

"As well as Mark on guitar and lead vocals, the band features drums, bass guitar, two sets of keyboards, a second guitarist and two multi instrumentalists, who play a lot of different things including citterns, flutes, pipes and acoustic guitars," says Dave. "Mark and the second guitarist also play an array of electric and acoustic instruments, so there are around 90 inputs in total."

Due to the comple

Australia - On 16 August 2015, the Australian Netball Diamonds crowned their 2015 Netball World Cup campaign with their eleventh title, beating out 15 other nations, including arch rivals New Zealand in the grand final. A crowd of just under 17,000 at Sydney's Allphones Arena watched the Diamonds emerge triumphant, and Novatech Creative Event Technology were on hand to make sure that the final, and every game in the 10 days leading up to it, were presented with the best possible audio and technical production.

Novatech partnered with the Netball World Cup SYDNEY 2015 as their Technical Production Team, overseeing production for all their games, events around Sydney's Olympic Park. In addition to providing PA and support in the Arena itself, Novatech also handled preliminary and qualify games in the neighbouring Netball Central, the opening and closing ceremonies, presentations,

UK - Starcloth, drapes, miniature lights and LED specialist S+H Technical was asked to provide a special magic touch for the Stargazing episode of the BBC's latest series of Marrying Mum & Dad, a popular programme on the CBBC channel where children take control of their parents' and step-parents' wedding days.

The requirement was for the stylish black wedding dress and matching waistcoat to twinkle joyously like constellations as bride Madeline and groom Shaugn took their wedding vows atop the world's tallest sculpture, Anish Kapoor's Orbit in London's Olympic Park.

The idea was the brainchild of children Jade (13), Grace (9) and Seb (10) who took all the major decisions - theme, venue, outfits, entertainment, etc. - for their parents' Big Day, with a little bit of assistance from series presenters, Ed Petrie and Naomi Wilkinson.

Infracombe, Devon based S+H's T

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