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UK - The ceremony for the handover of the torch Olympic from Beijing to London (2012) was reinforced by Britannia Row's Butterfly systems. Visa London 2012 Party was transmitted live by the BBC with a Beijing-London link-up.

Along The Mall, the road running from Buckingham Palace to Trafalgar Square, several scaffolding towers were set up with a total of 100 Outline Butterfly CDH 483 Hi-Pack enclosures installed.

The main stage, the hub of the event, hosted a spread of acts including Will Young, James Morrison, The Feeling, McFly, Scouting for Girls, Il Divo, Katherine Jenkins, Sophie Ellis Bextor, Heather Small and the cast of the musical We Will Rock You. Here, the sound was entrusted to 44 Butterfly Hi-Packs and 16 SubTech 218.

In St. James Park, there were 24 more H

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France - Lighting effects from PR Lighting dominate the new nightclub, Le Sens, which opened recently in the French town of Moulins-Les-Metz.

The imaginative design scheme, created by Gerard Giraudon of ColorSonic, incorporates 10 of PR Lighting's Solo 250 effect - which took full advantage of the available space.

The Solo 250 features nine colours, seven interchangeable rotating gobos, an independent shutter for strobe effects, a rotating prism and remote focus. And with its stand-alone and master/slave operating modes (as well as conventional DMX) it suitable for a wide variety of applications.

Additionally, Gerard Giraudon's clever use of LED lighting strips at the bar counter ensures an ever-changing environment in this lively new venue.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - A new three-floor, 32,737sq.ft, 2,600 capacity venue, named matter, is part of the successful O2 Arena Complex in London's Docklands. The new all-concrete, heavily soundproofed building is the brainchild of fabric owners, Keith Reilly and Cameron Leslie, and represents a multimillion pound investment.

Their brief to Most Technical's Dave Parry was to take the use of entertainment technology to a new level.

This he has done by a bespoke integration of sound, lighting and video, with the mainstay of the sound system being a Martin Audio W8L Longbow line array, which incorporates Timax Outboard Processing; this allows the sound to be mapped in three dimensions and be manipulated around the entire space by the operators. Another core element is Djenerate's new BodyKinetic interactive dance floor system with some 75,000W of sound pumped through the floor, which is underfitted

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UK - PSL was on hand to greet the triumphant Jetman Yves Rossy, as he zoomed into the record books last week, flying across the English Channel strapped to a single jet-powered wing, with only a helmet and flight suit for protection.

His 22-mile France-to-England journey took 13 minutes, and ended when he opened his parachute system and floated down to a ploughed field not far from the White Cliffs of Dover.

PSL's production team had turned that field, which belongs to the National Trust, into a veritable media village for Rossy's sponsors, the National Geographic Channel. Handling all the site issues, including the management of the landing site, PSL's Neil Smith and Stuart McLaren had to contend with the extremes of British weather - just like the Jetman. "On our first day of build, we got absolutely soaked; later in the week, conditions were still not right and Yves ha

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UK - Sennheiser's two new condenser microphones, the MKH 8020 and MKH 8040, were given their maiden outings this summer in the company of respected front of house engineer Dave Wooster.

The first mission for the new mics was a sequence of shows with reggae and hip hop-influenced singer-songwriter Jamie T and his band.

"The first two shows with Jamie T were small warm-up gigs in August at very small venues in London and Southend," says Wooster. "Both venues proved to be great tests for the rejection characteristics of the 8040s which I used on the hi-hats and the snare drum. I also used a pair of 8020s to capture the cymbals, close miking the underside of the two crash cymbals.

"The next two shows were at the V-Festivals, playing in large marquees. At both shows the mics really proved what they could do going through a very substantial PA system, producing

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UK - Midas reports strong demand demand for its new PRO6 Live Audio System, the company's second networked digital audio system, which employs technologies developed from the XL8 in a compact package.

Among the first clients to place orders for the PRO6 are Irish rental companies MG Audio and Murt Whelan Sound and Lighting, who have each purchased a PRO6 system from local distributor Sound Communications. The companies are located on the east and southwest of the country respectively, and work closely together on a number of festivals and larger events. Both companies feel their PRO6 purchases will further enhance this arrangement.

Whelan's console inventory is exclusively Midas, offering Veronas, Siennas and Venices for rental. "I've been a Midas user for eight years and have been looking at upgrading to a higher spec console for some time, so it seemed a seamless transi

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Europe - Queen, fronted by Paul Rodgers, have called on Power Logistics to ensure the electrical supply on their current world tour is entirely reliable and smoothly delivered. The tour opened recently at a large charity concert in Kharkov, Ukraine and will have passed through Riga, Berlin, Antwerp, Paris, Rome and Zurich before arriving in the UK on 10 October.

Power Logistics' managing director Pete Wills remains with the band as tour electrician for the duration of the 2008 tour.

"We are delighted to be able to help Queen on their current European Tour," says Wills. "We have a long standing relationship with Queen's production team built on our reputation for making doubly certain the show must go on."

(Jim Evans)

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USA - A Tale of Two Cities, Dickens' epic story of Revolution-era Paris and London, has been brought to life in musical form for the Broadway stage by Jill Santoriello; a Midas XL8 mixing console from New York-based theatre sound design specialists Sound Associates is making its Broadway debut with the show.

Having completed its debut run in Florida at the end of 2007, and having had a stellar preview run on Broadway in August this year, A Tale of Two Cities ...the musical moved to its new home at the Al Hirschfield Theatre, where it opened on 18 September with Warren Carlyle directing. Sound Associates' Carl Casella and Domonic Sack are sound designers for the show; Wallace Flores (Sound Associates) is associate sound designer. Ty Lackey is mixing the production.

Sound Associates' Wallace Flores has been part of the XL8's development since the beginning, working

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USA - At this week's AES Convention in San Francisco, Renkus-Heinz unveiled the Versys VLX3 line array which is optimised for large and medium scale live sound reinforcement applications from touring and other rental tasks to fixed installation in arenas, stadiums, large houses of worship and the like.

VLX3 is expressly designed for use with external processing and amplification, as well as being fully optimised for the latest generation of multichannel amplifiers that provide integrated digital loudspeaker control, processing and monitoring.

The essentials are a comparatively lightweight (190 lbs / 86.2 kg) marine birch ply cabinet that delivers over 133dB SPL; integral flying hardware; a truck pack-friendly cabinet design; high versatility, suitable for applications ranging from corporate and regional acts and tours to full sized arenas; and fast, accurate flying and aiming

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UK - Modern in-store radio is instant, flexible, convenient and, according to PEL Music and Media, it works: it helps increase high street sales. PEL Music and Media, owner of the 'Mediainstore' radio system, has been conducting trials with some of the major high street department stores and the results are extremely positive.

What's different about the modern breed of in-store radio is its exceptional flexibility and immediacy. 'Mediainstore', for example, uses the latest foolproof audio scheduling technology, enabling it to transmit radio programmes to every location that is set up to receive the service.

Content can be stored digitally, allowing for regular updates by ADSL, Broadband or CD, making the system far less vulnerable from equipment failure than other broadcast methods, and also making it extremely fast in the case of ADSL and Broadband.

Because of this incredib

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UK - Uckfield-based Scarecrow Bio-acoustic Systems, the leading international innovator in bird dispersal technology, has announced the appointment of two new board members; Tom Diamond as gropu commercial director and Lee Pannett as operations director.

These key appointments have been made at a time when Scarecrow is experiencing significant business growth and achieving recognition for technical excellence from leading authorities worldwide. Developing and launching Ultima, its next generation technology, in February 2007 was a major turning point for the company, not only in terms of raising the company's visability in the sectors in which it operates, but also confirming its position as a market leader.

Both Tom Diamond and Lee Pannett have been driving forces behind the company's recent success. Tom joined as group commercial manager in 2006 and will now have greater inv

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Australia - Showtech Australia was commissioned to deliver six performers on the roof of the MCG, and the AFL Premiership cup, the most prized item in the AFL, for the opening ceremony of the AFL Grand Final 2008.

Showtech was contracted by event organizer Peter Jones Special Events to deliver the two special rigging items for the production. The Engineering and OHS considerations of delivering these two effects were several months in the planning and had to meet the strict guidelines of the Victorian OHS regulations, the guidelines of the stadium management, and the challenges of not impacting on the playing surface. The match begins 20 minutes after the ceremony was completed.

The first effect was six singers appearing high on the scoreboard roof. 50m above the field. The performers, camera operators, audio, and pyrotechnics crews all had to be closely coordinated so as not

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USA - Melissa Etheridge makes no secret about her concern for the environment. For her 2008 Revival Tour, Etheridge's lighting director David Hamilton switched to a new LED fixture that saves energy, yet is so bright that a handful of units can light up an entire concert stage. The new fixture also creates less waste, since its lamps last for 100,000 hours, generating less throwaway for landfills.

That 'green' fixture is the Impression from Elation Professional, a compact LED moving head with RGB colour mixing. Powered by 90 high-power Luxeon K2 red, green and blue LEDs, the Impression produces a light output that's at least as bright as a 575W discharge fixture with no less than a 50% power savings, says the company.

Etheridge's tour manager Steve Girmont first saw the Impression at a trade show and brought it to the attention of Hamilton. "We were wanting to go L

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