News

NORTH PLATTE, NE — Time will tell if JaCee Pilkinton, who was named Miss Nebraska from a field of 16 finalists at North Platte High School recently, will be crowned Miss America, following in the footsteps of Miss Nebraska 2010, Teresa Scanlan, pictured here. (Scanlan was crowned Miss America in 2011).  Clyde Reimers, owner of Lexington, NE-based CL1 Productions, used a Soundcraft Si Expression 3 digital live sound console to support the June 8, 2013 event. Pilkinton plans on competing in the national competition Sept. 15 in Atlantic City, NJ.

DETROIT, MI — Thunder Audio provided a sizable JBL VTX-based system for the Red Bull Music Academy main stage at the Movement Electronic Music Festival here over Memorial Day Weekend, May 25-27. The soundco provided more than 90 JBL VTX Series line array elements for the event, including VTX 25 full-size line arrays, V25s, S28 subwoofers, V25 line array elements, G28 subs, JBL VerTec VT4888 midsize line array elements and VT4888s. Pictured here are, from left, Andy Combs, Innovative Audio Sales; Sam Fotias and Jason Huvaere, Movement; Paul Owen and Tony Villarreal, Thunder Audio; and Mike Fotias, Movement.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL — Waves Audio notes the increasing use of its products by live sound engineers, citing Tom Wiggans (UB40, Squeeze, Wet Wet Wet, and Roni Size & Reprazent) as a case in point. Wiggans has recently adopted Waves’ SoundGrid on tour with Irish alt-rock mainstays The Cranberries.

BUENA PARK, CA — Gand Concert Sound helped River Edge Park kick off its first season by providing a NEXO Geo T sound system along with Yamaha PM5D-RH and M7CL-48 consoles for the opening weekend. The 30-acre park has a 10-acre Music Garden, with its John C. Dunham venue seating 8,500 including the lawn area. With the size of the venue, the NEXO Geo T sound system gave even coverage from the front to the back allowing audiences to enjoy the summer season.

LONDON — Mark Fisher, founder and managing director of Stufish, died June 25 after a long illness at Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead, U.K. with his wife Cristina at his side. He was 66. Fisher played a key role in the creation of some of the most complex and successful stadium rock shows ever produced, for artists ranging from Pink Floyd to U2 to the Rolling Stones and many others.

NEW YORK – Matilda The Musical, Pippin and Kinky Boots (with Kinky Boots sound designer John Shivers pictured here) have two things in common: multiple 2013 Tony Awards and DiGiCo’s SD7T systems. The SD7T builds on the DiGiCo D5T, which is still being used on such shows as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella.

MINNEAPOLIS, MN – The University of Minnesota’s Golden Gophers football team requested improvements to the audio playback system in their locker room. Alpha Video & Audio was contracted to design and install a cost effective, new system centered on the powerful, but easy to use, Symetrix Jupiter 4 app based turn-key DSP. The new Symetrix Jupiter 4 app audio system allows for two iPod docks, a DirectTV input, and a cable input to satisfy the needs of the players, coaches, and support staff.

NILES, IL — The 2013 Tony Awards broadcast was a critical and ratings success, posting a 20 percent increase in viewership. With the show’s move from the Beacon Theater back to Radio City Music Hall, the theme for the night, as stated by host Neil Patrick Harris in the epic opening number, was to “make it bigger.” To cope with the show’s expansive production requirements, RF systems provider Firehouse Productions went with an all-Shure approach to wireless microphone systems and in-ear monitoring systems. Firehouse Productions supplied 48 channels of Shure UHF-R wireless and 8 channels of Shure PSM 1000 personal monitor systems.