ROTTERDAM — Extending a tour attended by close to a million fans, Queen and Paul Rodgers are supporting the recent album The Cosmos Rocks this fall with a four-month, 14-nation European tour. An LED screen measuring 17 meters wide and five meters high is traveling with the tour, flashing images of Freddie Mercury.
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LAKE FOREST, CA — Saddleback Church recently purchased two For-A HVS-500HS switchers through CCI Solutions for an HD video system used for The Refinery Project, an auxiliary facility used for youth programs and worship services. The new gear will give the church the ability to switch an HD/SDI 1080 signal on a budget.
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AARHUS, Denmark — Martin Professional announced the addition of the MAC III Profile to its line of MAC moving lights. The 1500-watt luminaire is the first product in Martin’s third generation of MAC moving heads, with improvement in optical efficiency and color mixing.
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LONDON — Its 2.2 million members in 150 countries and regions have a joint mission of exposing and documenting human rights abuses. But if its mission is deadly serious, Amnesty International also relies on live comedy and music for part of its fundraising activities. A case in point is the 14th incarnation of its Secret Policemans Ball, recently staged at London’s Royal Albert Hall and broadcast the following day on U.K.’s Channel Four.
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MAINZ, Germany — Robe’s international road show, titled “The Future is Digital,” had a two-day stop recently at SKY Europe's Mainz-based TV Studio, in the same neighborhood as ZDF Television’s headquarters complex. The two-day event included hands-on product demos, and was attended by visual designers, operators, programmers, technicians and other industry professionals from across Germany and Austria.
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PENDLETON, IN — Tyler Truss Systems, Inc. announced that its True Fold Truss (TFT), designed to save space and money on trucking as well as labor, is now available on a custom order basis. Spigoted for easy assembly and field-tested in 2007 and 2008, TFT comes in sizes ranging from 20.5 inches by 20.5 inches to 36 inches by 42 inches, in lengths of five, eight or 10 feet. All sizes fold to a nine-inch width. With folding internal braces, TFT provides a load capacity of 10,160 pounds for a 36-inch by 42-inch by 80-foot span with double diagonals and snap braces. A total of 400 linear feet of 36-inch-by-42-inch truss fits into a single 22-foot long box truck.
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SANTA MONICA, CA — Using a fashion-show runway built into a private airplane hangar, Ferrari revealed its California model at a charity event with an assortment of AV elements supplied by AV Concepts. Arnold Schwarzenegger and about 1,000 other guests attended the event, followed by a charity auction for one of the cars.
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PARIS — Traditional pipe and drape may not have gone the way of the horse and buggy yet, but LED displays with video graphics are becoming increasingly dominant in the trade show world. Barco reports that for this year’s Mondial de Automobile in Paris, its LED displays are used on over 70 percent of the booths at the show.
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LAS VEGAS — The Eyecandy Sound Lounge at the Mandalay Bay Hotel & Casino has a touch-activated dance floor made of LED tiles using an array of 140 pressure sensors that track the dancers’ steps and generate interactive visuals under their feet. The 20-foot-by-14-foot dance floor was integrated by Canadian-based Réalisations.net using a Medialon Show and Media Control system, which uses a database of still images and videos for the underfoot visuals.
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BURBANK, CA — Electrosonic has named Leonardo Freitas to the new position of associate vice president of product distribution. He will be based in Burbank and report to Electrosonic president Jim Bowie. Freitas was formerly regional director for Latin America at Tandberg.
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SURFERS PARADISE, Australia —The lighting rig at the Gold Coast Arts Center has been updated with eight new Robe ColorWash 750AT Tungsten moving lights. Robe’s Australian distributor, the ULA Group, provided the Arts Center with the Tungsten lights. “We needed some new fixtures, and the Robe Tungsten’s were the best choice for excellent reliability and great features,” said Chris Dbais, technical manager
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KANSAS CITY, MO — Melissa Etheridge makes no secret about her concern for the environment. She won an Academy Award for her song featured in An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s film on global warming. She also posts “Green Tips” on her Web site, www.melissaetheridge.com . So it’s only fitting that for her 2008 Revival Tour, Etheridge’s lighting director David Hamilton helped keep things green with an LED fixture that saves energy, lights the stage with fewer fixtures, and has lamps with a long life, resulting in less waste for landfills.
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