USA - One of the highlights of a visit to the famed Opryland resort in Nashville is taking a cruise on the General Jackson Showboat. Visitors can enjoy dinner and a stage show while sailing along the Cumberland River in this 300ft vessel, which is styled to resemble a 19th century paddlewheel riverboat.

But while it's steeped in Old South tradition, the General Jackson has gone strictly 21st century in its theatrical lighting. A new package of intelligent fixtures from Elation Professional was recently installed in the boat's Victorian Theatre, a majestic two-story dinner theatre where the main stage shows are held.

The room's lighting had previously consisted primarily of conventional par cans and Ellipsoid fixtures, but the boat's entertainment and design staff felt it was time to upgrade. "They wanted to move 100% into intelligent lighting," said Peter Vaque of Sp

UK - Media programming and system design company tsg, has installed an Audica Professional MICROseries audio system in the new Cruise store in Chester.

Established in 1984, Cruise is one of the UK's leading luxury retailers, with a reputation not only for designer brands, but also as a showcase for fresh, innovative fashion. Their stores house a selection of menswear, womenswear, footwear, bags and accessories from some of the world's leading brands.

Operating with formats of larger mainline and smaller specialist stores, Cruise Chester is the company's second stand alone footwear, accessory and bag store, stocking international labels including Gucci, Chloé, Dior, Jimmy Choo, Vivienne Westwood, Dolce and Gabbana and Paul Smith. The timber-framed building developed for the new store dates from 1664 and incorporates many of the site's original features including an Eliza

Germany - The Porsche Arena, an events location in Stuttgart's Neckar Park that opened in May 2006, recently took delivery of a lifting system from ChainMaster that will be used to manoeuvre the video cube.

The system consists of four 2,500 kg VarioLifts with two chain-falls each and a computerised control system for installation work. The ChainMaster controller not only synchronises the drives but also supervises the loads. The Porsche Arena is capable of accommodating up to 7,500 people at a time for corporate events, sporting functions and concerts.

(Jim Evans)

USA - With its strong focus on multimedia, the New Vision Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, TN, has become one of the fastest growing Houses of Worship in the mid-South. To accommodate its burgeoning congregation, the church recently constructed a new Worship Centre, while converting its former main worship chapel into a Youth Centre. The construction/renovation project utilised high-tech lighting and staging products from Elation Professional and Global Truss.

Located in a college town - the home of Middle Tennessee State University - the church wanted the new rooms to reflect its orientation toward youth, said Peter Vaque of Springtree Media Group, which provided lighting, staging, audio and multimedia. "New Vision has always had a large following among college students and young people," said Vaque. "It has prided itself on being very state-of-the-art in the area

UK - Wembley landmarks - the Arena and Square of Fame - will be plunged into darkness on Thursday night this week to raise awareness for global warming. The 'Lights Out Campaign', organised by Capital Radio, is urging all London households and businesses to join in a mass energy-saving initiative.

Wembley (London), a wholly owned subsidiary of Quintain Estates and Development, has registered to darken the London skyline by 'switching off' Wembley's most popular landmarks. Only essential lighting and appliances will be left on to comply with safety regulations.

Deputy CEO of Quintain, Nick Shattock, comments, "We look forward to playing a part in creating awareness of a low carbon footprint for all. We aim to create a sustainable, zero-carbon Wembley and this campaign gives us the opportunity to show our commitment to that aim."

The 'Lights Out London' campaign, end

Italy - On the east shore of Lake Iseo, just over 20 miles from the Italian town of Brescia, Le Palafitte Shore Club & Restaurant has undergone a complete audio refit.

The audio systems are all from the new Outline DVS range, and installed in the main room, restaurant and VIP zone are: a total of 14 DVS 8 (full-range two-way) enclosures supported by six DVS 115 SW subwoofers; all powered by T44 power amplifiers and processed by DSP Genius 24 units.

The system installation and fine-tuning was carried out by Morix, the exclusive Outline dealer for the Lombardy region.

(Jim Evans)

Singapore - Robe ColorSpot 170 ATs and Robe DMX 1024 and 512 controllers have been specified and supplied to an installation in the Island Ballroom of the new Amara Sanctuary Resort Hotel on Sentosa Island, Singapore.

The $60 million project is the Amara group's first resort development. The hotel features two ballrooms, seven meeting rooms and 91 deluxe rooms geared to business travellers and family visitors.

The 38 white Robe fixtures are the first phase of a lighting scheme designed by Hong Kong-based Gerard Lee of Light Directions, who was brought onboard as a lighting consultant for the ballroom. His brief was that the ballroom should be able to cater for 'virtually any event'.

The fixtures were supplied to installers Foster AV by Louis Teo of Robe South East Asia, and will be followed by a further delivery of 24 ColorSpot 170 ATs on the completion of phase 2 of the lig

Romania - Kristal Glam Club in Bucharest, recently voted Rumania's best club for the fourth year running, has extended its 20,000-watt Dynacord alpha concept sound system (originally installed at the end of 2004).

The alpha system and spectacular optical attractions - including a state-of-the-art laser show and no fewer than 17 video screens prompted DJ Luciano, in a recent interview with the scene magazine De Bug, to credit the club, which can accommodate up to 1,500 guests at a time, with leading the world-wide techno revival.

(Jim Evans)

Canada - Color Kinetics has announced that its LED lighting technology will dynamically transform the world's tallest freestanding tower, the CN Tower in Toronto. The installation will be unveiled to the public in a lighting ceremony beginning at sunset on June 28.

CN Tower stands 1,815ft tall and is considered an engineering wonder of the modern world. For nearly a decade the Tower was minimally lit in an effort to conserve energy while awaiting a better long-term lighting solution.

Following extensive evaluation, a Color Kinetics system was chosen to visually transform the Tower's appearance while reducing energy consumption and maintenance requirements at the same time. According to preliminary operation, the Tower will consume less energy when fully illuminated by LED fixtures than it did when only partially illuminated by conventional sources.

"The CN Tower is wide

SPain - Following the successful installations of d&b audiotechnik Q-Series PA systems at the Teatre Auditori in Granollers, and Auditorium de Palma in Palma de Mallorca, another local auditorium has chosen to install a d&b Qi-Series loudspeaker system.

The Auditori Winterthur is a convention centre in the heart of the business complex of L'Illa in Barcelona. The Auditori was planned by architect Rafael Moneo, incorporating acoustics designed byIgini Arau and was originally built to present music concerts without the aid of amplification for up to six hundred and fifty listeners.

In due course, with an expansion into new activities such as conferences and corporate events, the need for a sound system became increasingly apparent. The original installation however, proved less than perfect as all the sound amplified through it was reflected back by a curved wall at the rear of

China - The Guangzhou Xinhai Odeum, a 14,000sq.m facility located on Guangzhou Er Sha Island includes a 1500-seat symphony performance hall, as well as a 460-seat indoor performance hall, complete with a 100-seat AV presentation room. There is also a 4800sq.m music culture section.

EM Acoustics' Chinese distributor Jolly ProAudio was invited to participate in the audio renewal project for the Xinhai Odeum and recommended EM Acoustics loudspeakers from UK to improve the in-house audio reproduction system.

The fourteen-enclosure system, flown from the trusses in the Odeum's ceiling includes EMS-152 15" x 2" and EMS-121 12" x 1" full range enclosures, EMS-81 8" x 1" enclosures and i-2 compact enclosures as fills and a pair of the ultra-compact i-8 subwoofers flown in the roof for low frequency reinforcement.

(Jim Evans)

UK - The Metropolis Group of companies based at The Power House in Chiswick has further expanded its surround mastering capabilities by constructing a 40sq.m surround mastering room with the inclusion of PMC's large-scale high definition surround monitoring system.

Such a large room afforded large monitoring, therefore free standing BB5 XBD Actives serve as the front L, C, R and MB2 XBD Actives as the rears, both are in the vertical tower configuration. The equipment list also includes Maselec MTC6 desk, new Maselec multiband compressor, Prism ADA8s, AD2s, DA2s, DSD-SADIEs and a collection of rare Sontec EQs.

Technology development manager of the facility Crispin Murray comments: "We have decided to capitalise on our position as the leading surround music and mastering facility and adding this resource to our portfolio can only strengthen our position. Our commitment to d

UK - Digital Projection International has recently been awarded the contract to supply the XTP (Cross Track Projection) systems within the London Underground network. This contract has been awarded by CBS Outdoor which controls the marketing and advertising rights for the whole of the London Underground Network.

Digital Projection has been working on the solution for a number of years and very closely with CBS Outdoor for the last two.

This unique combination of technologies offers advertisers and companies the opportunity to address 3,400,000 passengers a day with an environmentally friendly display. The images and content can be tuned on a minute by minute basis to best suite the relevant demographics.

One of the primary challenges facing the Digital Projection development team was the architecture of the tunnel network. The curvature of the tunnel wall meant that the scre

UK - The Hospital, housed in the former St Paul's Hospital in Covent Garden, offers film, television, music and other media professionals access to a state of the art 60,000sq ft creative hub with a range of production facilities.

These include a fully equipped High Definition television studio which has been kitted out with a Clear-Com digital matrix system and FreeSpeak wireless intercom systems. The scalability of this system has enabled The Hospital to simply expand the original network to meet increased demand.

"Clear-Com provided our original intercom solution when The Hospital was set up in 2003 and was operating Europe's first HD TV studio," says Paul Daniels, head of engineering & operations. "Now, as part of a recent upgrade of studio facilities at the beginning of 2007, we've expanded the FreeSpeak system as well. This has enabled us to offer greater

UK - Anolis LED fixtures have been specified and installed on the exterior facades of the newly opened Casino at Leicester Square, London.

The 55,000sq.ft, Paul Steelman (PSDG) interior designed venue is owned and operated by London Clubs Management (LCM) a wholly owned subsidiary of the largest gaming company in the world, Harrahs. Burrows Cave International (BCI) continued their relationship with LCM by handling the interpretation and realisation of PSDG interior design scheme from their London offices.

TMC were asked to provide an exterior lighting scheme that would come alive with colour and anticipation, generate interest and excitement among passers by and ensure that the world class venue stood out in one of London's busiest thoroughfares. They asked Robe UK's Bill Jones to collaborate in devising a lighting scheme to meet the client's requirements.

TMC's Martin Tarpy

UK - Drape and stage machinery specialists J&C Joel and Triple E have teamed up to supply and install eight large motorised Venetian acoustic banners to two large rehearsal rooms in the new £4.5 million Centre for Excellence in Teaching & Learning building at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (RNCM).

The Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning builds on the RNCM's international profile and forward-thinking approach to the training of young musicians, and on its impressive record on student employment.

The project was managed for J&C Joel by Tony Griffiths, who comments: "This was a great challenge to get 'just right', but great teamwork with David Edelstein and the Triple E crew made the process really smooth. It's a good illustration of the dynamic partnership between J&C Joel and Triple E on projects like this."

The banners are design

UK - A landmark on the Blackpool dance scene for many years, Rumours the Venue has recently undergone a complete refurbishment. The combined 800-capacity wine bar, night club and party venue enlisted Peter Bawden's Audio Sound Advice to create a new technology infrastructure. The locally-based installers were offered the contract by owners Betawell after having worked at Rumours' counterpart club, the 300-capacity urban nightclub Hush underneath.

Looking to redefine the way Blackpool spends its nights out, Bawden was entrusted with outfitting the venue with a top-spec sound, lighting and video system, and to satisfy the sound reinforcement he turned to Martin Audio.

"We've worked with the venue for almost 20 years, so we know it inside out," he said. Out went the old reinforcement system to be replaced by Martin Audio's new two-way passive AQ architectural range.

F

Spain - Featuring an auditorium, a conservatory, and an experimental theatre in the one venue - powered by more than 30 Lab.gruppen C Series amplifiers - the new Centro Cultural Miguel Delibes, located in Valladolid,, is being heralded as one of the most significant performing arts centres in Spain. The total audience capacity is in excess of 3000 across the three diverse spaces with the experimental theatre being multi-configurable to allow a wide variety of performance styles.

Chemtrol, a leading Spanish audiovisual design and contracting company, created and installed the audio system. Chemtrol División Teatro (theatre division) has vast experience with prestige installations of this type. Since 1987 they have been involved in projects such as the Palacio de las Artes, Valencia, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Teatro Real de Madrid, Palacio Euskalduna, Bilbao and numerous

Spain - The long-established and multi-award winning Space Club Ibiza has recently installed the first VisualDMX lighting control software system on the party island. The system is being used for controlling a 24 x 5 LED matrix positioned above the DJ booth and LED lighting, from AVR, around the main venue of the club. A touch screen with the VisualTouch software was also installed for direct access to VisualDMX.

Pedro Comesana, production manager responsible for all audio, video and lighting systems at Space Club Ibiza, states, "We wanted to create different areas inside the main room. Each bar has its own personality and we wanted to keep them all independent, as well as the different parts of the bars. We also have a matrix behind the DJ booth that we want to control, together with the bars and the ambient lighting."

Comesana continues, "Following on from ear

Spain - This summer a combination of Martin Audio's large W8L systems and W8LMD down-fill boxes and subs were installed in the new 4,000-capacity B3 multi-room dance venue in Dos Hermanas (just outside Seville), in combination with the best from the company's Blackline and AQ series.

Club owner José Miguel Losada was insistent that in keeping his dance music en vogue, he also wanted playback through the current fashion in line array systems - and thus Bernat Camacho and Jordi Rosselló, from Adagio SA, set up a full-scale demo of the maker's different systems.

The Martin Audio distributors were awarded the contract as a result of their close association with the lighting contractors, Stonex SA, while the fit-out was undertaken by installation contractor, Francesco Escoda. Camacho notes, "We could have proposed several solutions using Martin Audio components

West Indies - In preparation for this year's Cricket World Cup, a number of the island nations embarked on significant redevelopment programmess, both to their stadia and the surrounding areas.

The 17,000-seat Queens Park Oval in Trinidad, the oldest Cricket stadium in the Caribbean, received an extensive makeover that covered both aesthetics and infrastructure. The venue, which has long been known as an acoustical challenge, was fitted with a new sound system comprising 109 Community R.5-HP loudspeakers, powered by Crown CTS2000 amplification.

Raj Patel of the global consulting group Arup's New York offices was brought in to see that uniform standards were met for intelligibility and acoustical consistency throughout the various stadia.

As Michael Pereira of Trinidad-based AMR Limited explains, the project presented several challenges, the most daunting of which was the tim

Indonesia - Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH) in Jakarta, has recently opened a new multi-purpose hall, installing a state-of-the-art audio system based around Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system.

Established in 1994 by the Pelita Harapan Foundation, UPH provides high-quality facilities including TV, photographic and scientific laboratories, and an international-standard sports centre. The University boasts 31 departments and 9,000 students. The latest addition to the campus is the 2,200-capacity Grand Chapel theatre based in the University's Digital Campus, which houses the Faculty of Music.

Local installer, Kairos MultiJaya, was contracted to design, supply and install the sound, lighting and video projection system into the Digital Campus. Central to the installation is an Allen & Heath iLive system, comprising an iLive-112 control surface and iDR10 stagerack, which

Greece - One of Athens' few traditional theatres, the Pallas is a gem in the middle of this vibrant city. Built during the 1930s, the Pallas retains its art deco splendour while having just been subjected to a major overhaul. This has included the installation of Midas consoles and Klark Teknik signal processing equipment throughout its three venues, supplied by Greek distributor Omikron Control. The whole procedure was overseen by Omikron's sound system designer Vangelis Petridis.

The Pallas Theatre itself, a 1,500-capacity traditional auditorium, now boasts a Heritage 2000 at front of house, with Klark Teknik Square ONE Dynamics, Square ONE EQ and a DN500 Plus dual compressor/limiter. The adjacent Aliki Theatre has also been installed with a Midas H2000 while the new console in the Mikro Pallas is a Venice.

"It's great to have the Heritage here, and I'm very happy with

UK - The Honourable Artillery Company's new £6.5 million conference and events venue in the City of London was officially opened by HM The Queen on 18 May. The venue's Prince Consort Rooms can accommodate up to 750 people at a reception, or be divided into smaller areas.

The Prince Consort Rooms have been built in the shell of a Victorian drill hall. PSL has been chosen as a preferred supplier of AV and Production, and has already produced custom-designed sets for the venue. The Prince Consort Rooms have an inbuilt pinspot lighting scheme and audio visual infrastructure which will be augmented by PSL's high-tech inventory of display screens, digital sound reinforcement and state-of-the-art media servers and playback devices.

Diane Waldron, head of marketing and events at the HAC, says, "The City is short of flexible, large-capacity venues that can accommodate 300-pl

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