USA - Clair Brothers Systems recently upgraded the audio system at the RBC Centre in Raleigh, North Carolina. The Centre's new system features a combination of JBL VLA and Vertec line arrays, as well as Application Engineered (AE) series loudspeakers.

The RBC Centre is home to the Carolina Hurricanes of the National Hockey League and the North Carolina State University men's basketball team. The arena seats 19,722 for basketball and 18,680 for hockey, including 75 luxury suites and 2,000 club seats. The arena also hosts numerous other events, ranging from WWE contests to rock concerts.

According to Jim Devenney, senior audio designer, for Clair Brothers, the audio system at the RBC Centre was due for an overhaul. "The system originally installed in the building had lots of clusters and lots of overlap that degraded the system's intelligibility," he said. "The sy

UK - French lantern manufacturer Robert Juliat, has provided a full complement of lighting equipment to Curve, the new theatre in Leicester, which opened this November. Robert Juliat fixtures supplied include long-throw profile lanterns, follow spots, and fresnel- and pebble-convex lens spotlights - including the versatile Lutin with interchangeable lenses.

Designed by renowned architect Rafael Viñoly, Curve Leicester features two auditoria: a main auditorium of 800 fixed seats and a smaller versatile space of 400 seats. 32 tonne steel walls separate the stage from the foyer and can be lifted out to make the stage visible from street level. The open plan foyer is enclosed by a glass façade offering views onto the café, bars and across the stage. The resulting transparency reflects the concept behind the design, which is to make the arts accessible to the public at every

UK - The Arcola Theatre was honoured at the Growing Business Awards in London on 27 November, jointly winning the Green Award for commitment to sustainability. The awards - run by Real Business magazine and the CBI - are designed to recognize innovation and entrepreneurial spirit amongst Britain's business community.

The theatre, which is run by Mehmet Ergen, Leyla Nazli and Dr Ben Todd, aims to be the world's first carbon neutral theatre. The installation of a fuel cell in February 2008 made the venue the first in the world to power its main house shows and bar/café on hydrogen.

Other winners of Growing Business Awards include several household names. Will King, founder of King of Shaves, collected the Company of the Year award. Judges felt that King's men's grooming brand had proved that constant innovation was the key to continued growth. This year, the company he se

UK - Arena Seating was a key part of the winning team when it came to creating a new look studio for the current series of X Factor. Series production manager Paul Viollet of PAV Productions, working with Talkback Thames, created the setting for the entertainment experience. The seating system had to fit around an expanded stage while giving the producers a number of flexible seating options.

Arena Seating installed 505 of its In Style temporary seats, finished with handrails, carpets, drapes and timber sides, all in muted black, rendering it almost invisible to the camera. The company's scaffolding expertise allowed the seating to fit snugly into the restricted studio space. In addition, it provided camera platforms and the supporting structure for ITV 2's Xtra Factor studio. An additional 165 Milano floor seats were provided by Spaceworks.

"Arena Seating designed

UK - The latest production of Living's Most Haunted Live was set in a location that would raise the goose bumps of even the most pragmatic onlooker. The derelict and dilapidated Denbigh Asylum, was the setting for the live shows produced by Antix Productions and broadcast for four hours live each consecutive night for the week leading up to Halloween.

Antix Productions worked with Stage Electrics on the project having already delivered 13 Most Haunted Live programmes together over three years. The location, due to be demolished and redeveloped after filming had ceased, was initially visited by Antix, Stage Electrics and lighting director Warren Hodge in September, just eight weeks before the show. Its potential as the perfect location was instantly recognised.

Due to the dilapidated state of the buildings, Stage Electrics' Live Events team had first to ensure the

Singapore - The Singapore skyline was transformed by a fusion of creativity and knowledge as the long-awaited Fusionopolis development officially opened in October at One-North.

The centrepiece of the development - designed by the late Japanese architect Dr Kisho Kurokawa - is a S$20m (£8.6m) performing arts space suspended six storeys up between three 24-storey towers. Designed to look like a brain, the theatre - Genexis - is a flexible, curved performance space set to become a magnet for Singapore's most exciting artists.

The 120,000sq.m complex is intended to become a hub for the media and information technologies of the future and a creative environment where brilliant ideas are born: a nerve centre and, almost literally, a neural network.

Keeping with the idea of neural signals, Genexis glows and flickers with an interactive light show programmed to synch with act

Korea - Banpo Bridge in Seoul, South Korea used to be a rather ordinary connection across the Han River. But no longer. Thanks to a special fountain feature that dramatically shoots jets of water from the sides of the bridge, and a Martin Exterior range lighting scheme that dynamically illuminates the water show after sundown, the extraordinary water and light display has become a major attraction in the capital city.

The Banpo Bridge water feature shoots 60 tons of water every minute from some 380 nozzles located on each side of the 1.4k long bridge. The fountain was unveiled in September as the world's first large-scale water fountain from a bridge.

The jets of water 'dance' to music in 100 different choreographed movements. Creating an even more fantastic scene at night is a dynamic lighting scheme from 190 Exterior 600 colour changing luminaires.

Water management and tec

Italy - Last summer, Italian DJ Joe T Vannelli took over a second discotheque: the Canniccia Versilia in the Tuscan resort of Marina di Pietrasanta. For the Canniccia Versilia, he opted for the same formula that worked so successfully in his first club, the Area Venezia in Venice.

While architect Massimo Cadamuro concerned himself with the refashioning of the interiors, installation engineer Dario Juka selected and assembled the requisite equipment; Juka's first decision was to replace the existing audio system with an alpha concept system from Dynacord.

Dario Juka notes, "Our watchwords are 'state-of-the-art in every respect'. Since we engage as resident and guest DJs only the very best in their fields, we cannot and will not tolerate any compromises. All the experts - whether DJs or music producers - are convinced of the qualities of this system."

(Jim Evans)

USA - Harbour Marine Systems recently installed a Bosch Praesideo public address system on Carnival Cruise Line's ship Carnival Triumph. Since working with the new system, Carnival has determined that they will retrofit all of their ships with Praesideo.

Mauro Jacobellis of Harbour Marine Systems comments, "Praesideo provides excellent audio performance and ease-of-use, and has impressed a number of our major clients. Praesideo is perfect for Carnival because it fully complies with every rule and regulation set down by maritime authorities.

"In our business, working with marine applications, we have specific issues to address. For example, our client needed a public address system approved for ship use (for insurance purposes), and we needed to replace our previous system quickly in the dry dock, because the ship can't sail if the system isn't working. We always try

Canada - When the City of Edmonton Community Service Department wanted to enhance the night time appearance of the Muttart Conservatory they wanted to utilise the energy efficiencies of LED, so contacted ElektoLED's Canadian distributor Optilume Engineered Light Corporation for a solution. Elektor-FLEX RGB System was chosen, enabling the operators to choose from a palette of 16.8 million colours.

The Muttart Conservatory is Edmonton's premier horticultural attraction, featuring four glass pyramids filled with rare and exotic plants from all over the world, therefore the lighting needed to be equally as stunning.

The installation of the Elektor-FLEX was carried out by specialist contractors, assisted by Optilume, with commissioning carried out by ElektoLED Technicians from the UK.

Comprising of nearly 400m of RGB Elektor-FLEX and utilising over 30,000 LED's, the total install

France - A Butterfly Outline array was used at the Cité de la Musique, in the heart of Paris, on the occasion of two concerts - Histoire de Melody Nelson by Serge Gainsbourg and L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches by Jean-Claude Vannier.

Outline's French distributor, AUDIO, installed a system made up of 24 Butterfly CDH 483 Hi-Packs and eight CDL 1815 Low-Packs (respectively 12 and four per side); all powered by Outline T7 digital power amplifiers. DVS 10 multi-purpose enclosures were used for the front rows of the audience and four Subtech 218 for the very low frequencies.

Bruno Morain, head sound engineer at Cité de la Musique comments, "I found the Butterfly system's performance in the theatre exceptional; I was particularly struck by the total absence of 'aggressiveness' and the aptitude to naturalness of its acoustic reproduction - practically s

Qatar - The Qatar Equestrian Federation centre has installed Meyer Sound systems as part of a major refurbishment.

The premier venue in the complex is the main outdoor arena, where the 120m diameter circular show grounds are flanked on one side by a covered grandstand with seating for 1,500 spectators. To project uniform, high-fidelity sound into the seating area, AV-TECH installed eight clusters of two M1D line array loudspeakers each along the front wall. The VIP area is served by a pair of the compact UPM-1P loudspeakers, while the vast expanse of the arena grounds - about 120m in diameter - is covered by three ground-stacked arrays of three M2D line array loudspeakers each.

"The old 100 volt distributed system had very harsh sound quality and poor intelligibility," says Hadi Arzouni, general manager of AV-TECH, the Doha, Qatar-based designer and installer of the

UK - The biggest and best All Star Lanes - the UK's original boutique bowling concept - opened this month in London's East End. Situated on 22,000sq.ft of prime real estate at the Old Truman Brewery in Brick Lane, the third ASL, from co-founders Mark von Westenholz and Adam Breeden, has built on the same successful formula as its predecessors - including the multimedia infrastructure.

The public and private bowling lanes, cocktail bar and authentic '50's-style, 200-cover diner/luncheonette are all served by audio visual systems designed by The Sound Division Group. Their integrated system is based around Harman Pro sound reinforcement products.

In Brick Lane there is a total of nine lanes (six on the ground floor, the remaining three forming a 1950's penthouse-style private lounge on the first floor), with a stylish drinking den specialising in classic American cocktails, pitc

USA - Audio-Technica reports that its SpectraPulse technology has been selected for the newly-remodelled boardroom for a high-profile Menlo Park, California-based venture capital group. California corporate system integrator Anderson Audio Visual chose SpectraPulse to provide clear, secure wireless audio for the boardroom's teleconferencing system.

"In boardroom settings, clients often have problems with group conference calls, in which the parties on both ends of the call have difficulty hearing the audio," said Andrew Hancox, Anderson Audio Visual representative. "So we had to design a system that would help them make the calls more effective. In addition, security was a concern, as these calls are often confidential and they need to be certain that no one else has access to the frequency, and also that no other devices can interfere with the clear signal.

&qu

Germany - Dortmund's Domicil Jazz Club opted to replace its existing sound system with Adamson SpekTrix Series. The fairly new Domicil was recently voted one of the top 100 Jazz clubs in the world by Downbeat Magazine.

The entire club's footprint is about 1500sq.m and includes a café, a clubroom for smaller concerts for up to 100 people, and the main concert hall with 300 seats and standing room for 500. Hamburg based Adamson European Tour Support Jochen Sommer executed the sound design using Shooter v.2.7.0. The new P.A. in the main venue consists of L and R flown arrays of two Spektrix (5 degree) with a two-box Adamson SpekTrix W (15 degree) under-hang.

Two SpekTrix double 18" Subs per side are placed on the floor. The previous system was made up entirely of GAE Panorama speakers and some still remain as near fills and as a delay line for a balcony, as wel

UK - No.1 Leicester Square is recognised as one of the most famous clubbing sites in London. The place where Home launched, (prior to the Penthouse moving into the sixth, seventh and eight floors), it has now reopened as the 750-capacity Vertigo, under the new ownership of Alan Dugard's Interguide London.

With Sound Too trading further down the building, the new management team quickly realised that the inherited hybrid sound system was something of a mismatch.

One of the club's experienced DJ's, Southend-based Andy Smith, told marketing and promotions manager Arron Curtis that the seaside town was awash with high-octane KV2 systems, installed by local integrators, Essex Sound & Light - and soon ESL's MD, Mike Glover, was up in Leicester Square measuring up.

The first stage of a phased upgrade has seen him install a KV2 ES system in the main sixth floor clubbing area and the

Chile - Estadio German Becker in Temuco is the latest in a long list of large Latin American sports venues to install sound systems from Electro-Voice. Prosound Ltda. of Viña del Mar, Chile completed the system design and installation of EV Sx600 dual element/single enclosure line-array loudspeakers at Estadio Germán Becker. Designed specifically for stadium-type environments, and proven around the world in Olympic and World Cup soccer stadiums, this marks the first major Sx600 installation in Chile.

The new stadium was officially inaugurated on 5 November 2008 with a Women's World Cup soccer warm-up match between Chile and Brazil. The first official match of the Women's Soccer World Cup was played on 10 November. The President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, visited the site to check on the work progress, and congratulated Prosound for the job.

"This installation raises t

USA - Kanbar Hall at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco (JCCSF), one of the city's newer performing arts venues, recently upgraded its sound system with the installation of an L-Acoustics ARCS and dV-SUB loudspeaker setup.

The 468-seat theatre now benefits from twin horizontal arrays each comprised of two ARCS enclosures flown above the left and right sides of the stage accompanied by a single dV-SUB enclosure per side down on the deck. L-Acoustics LA Series amplifiers power each of the loudspeakers.

According to Michael J Graphix, production manager and technical director for Kanbar Hall, "We've wanted to upgrade our system since we opened in 2004. We present many European and Israeli performing artists, and L-Acoustics equipment is usually their first request on the tech riders."

In addition to the new ARCS/dV-SUB system, Kanbar Hall has also utilised L

Russia - In Omsk, one of the largest cities in Siberia, the General Court has commissioned a Nexo line-array sound system installation. The remarkable historic interior of the Courthouse calls for an aesthetic solution as well as a sonic one, and the loudspeaker modules have been supplied in white to complement the sky-blue walls and white detailing of the main courtroom.

Design and installation of this sound reinforcement system has been carried out by Light Sound Systems Company in Omsk City. LSS's Alexander Muravitsky had to propose a solution to the challenging acoustics of the courtroom, which has a ceiling height of 9m, and large picture windows down one side of the room.

"It was not an easy installation, but, from our point of view, the Nexo Geo S8 arrays provided the ideal way to minimise problems with reverberation, while still giving us the perfect dispersion cu

UK - Latymer Upper School in Hammersmith, West London, is continually looking at ways to improve its facilities. Its most recent project was to develop a centre of excellence in the performing arts, to which end a bespoke building was constructed, which includes an impressive distributed audio system designed and installed by leading professional audio company, Autograph Sales.

The building, which owes its existence in large part to an anonymous donor, is connected to the existing arts centre by glass bridges, includes 110-seat recital hall, a dance/drama studio, a suite of teaching rooms that can house between one and six students and a music room that can accommodate a full orchestra.

Autograph designed an extensive audio infrastructure allowing analogue and digital audio signals to be routed to and from any room in the building, allowing many digital and analogue audio/medi

Singapore - The Victoria Theatre in Singapore has been refurbished. A new MA Lighting dimMA solution consists of four 19" racks with 228 channels of 3kVA and 12 channels of 5kVA. Each dimmer rack was equipped with one MA Network Dimmer Processor (NPD - two to operate the dimmers and two as a backup. If the main MA NDP fails the backup system takes over 'control' without interruption.

In the second phase a grandMA2 full-size console will be installed for control. As the shipment of the grandMA2 consoles will not start until 2009 a grandMA full-size series 1 will be used until the new console arrives.

Raymond Yong was the project manager. Desisti Asia Pte delivered the lighting equipment. The electrical contractor was Xin Bao.

(Jim Evans)

Dubai - IIR Exhibitions has pledged greater focus on the Install market - in both the Commercial and Residential sectors - for PALME Middle East 2009.Exhibition director, Alex Heuff, has confirmed that a dedicated Install Middle East vertical show will provide the hub of this year's show on April 26-28 2009 at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre. As part of the continuing evolution of the PALME brand, Install Middle East will have its own dedicated space and entrances, and will host more than 150 exhibitors. The show will also feature for the first time an Integrator Pavilion, which will allow up to seven of the region's major project consultants and installers to show their portfolios.

Heuff states: "The Pavilion is specifically for regional systems integrators and is aimed at attracting the property developers and consultants who work with them.

UK - One of London's latest high profile office and leisure developments, Kings Place offers high quality public arts facilities, including a concert hall, recital rooms, art galleries, waterside bars, restaurants and corporate event spaces.

Also acting as the headquarters for two orchestras - the London Sinfonietta and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - the Dixon Jones-designed building has been developed with acoustic excellence at its heart, with the inclusion of three Ampetronic induction loop systems ensuring that as many people as possible can appreciate the outstanding programme of events that the resident King's Place Music Foundation is providing.

Installed by Edinburgh-based Northern Light, two Ampetronic ILD1000G loop drivers power a pair of induction loops in the main concert hall at Kings Place. With an all-seated capacity of 420, the hall features a narr

UK - A.C. Special Projects has designed, supplied and installed full technical facilities for the Sidney Stringer School's multi-purpose theatre and drama studio. The School has built a reputation as an innovator that encourages experimental teaching practices, and offers a range of BTEC vocational courses including drama & theatre arts, and music, for students aged 11-18.

After losing its original theatre in a fire, the School's head of drama, Michael Collins, approached A.C. Special Projects to provide complete technical facilities for the new installation. Starting with an empty shell and power feed, the company specified the entire lighting, rigging, audio and AV products inventory for the theatre. Also, various equipment was supplied for a separate drama rehearsal space.

The lighting equipment includes an extensive list of ETC, Robe & Chroma-Q conventional, moving light &

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