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When bwa-uk was asked to organize this year’s International Gathering of Champions by the Kingsway International Christian Centre (KICC) they once more turned to Summit Steel to rig the event for sound and lighting. Summit had rigged for them last year at the London Arena. "We chose Summit again because we have found them efficient and helpful," said Peter Willis of bwa-uk. "Ninety percent of an event like this is founded upon the pre-production and planning stages, and Summit’s input to this process was invaluable. They worked with us all the way to ensure the event ran smoothly and that clinched it for us."

This year’s event was held in two giant marquees pitched at KICC’s headquarters in Waterden Road, Hackney. The bigger of the two marquees

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Coe-tech has recently supplied Futurelight moving head luminaires to Hertfordshire-based technical production company Universal Events. Owned and run by Steve Butcher, the company has been providing sound, lighting and AV equipment and design for a wide array of events since its formation two and a half years ago. Universal services all its contracts from stock and doesn’t sub hire in or out. Butcher first saw the new Futurelight MH660 (spot) and MH640 (wash) luminaires in autumn 2000: the time was right for a moving light investment, and he sought a bright, reliable versatile fixture. The Futurelight 6 series met the spec at exactly the right price, so Butcher bought nine of each type in November 2000, and quickly followed up with another purchase of five more wash fixtures and six of the new MH860 spots earlier this year.

Recently, Butcher utilized his full Futurelight rig at t

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Pioneer is launching its next generation twin-CD player, the CMX-3000, at PLASA 2001. Stylishly designed, with black rubberized buttons and a carbon finish, the CMX-3000 incorporates ground-breaking features only previously seen on Pioneer’s CDJ-1000, such as Wave display, onboard memory, hot cues and new pitch bend buttons. It also boasts a high-quality scratch mode, which allows scratching, scratch cue and backspin. The CMX-3000 brings the twin-CD player platform not only to the mobile DJ but also to small clubs, music bars and serious bedroom DJs. The Wave Display, patented to Pioneer, is a visual mapping of the landscape of each track. This is graphically represented in the display panel, showing the peaks and lows in the WAVE, and thereby guaranteeing accurate cueing on CD.

A further creative highlight of the CMX-3000 is the Hot Cue/Loop function, which memorizes up to eithe

featured content

Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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Enliten has recently lit the statue of George Washington on horseback which stands outside Washington Cathedral in Washington, USA. The challenging brief was to light the statue, and nothing else, and the acute angle of the lighting posed the problem of light spillage. As a distributor for DHA Lighting, Enliten’s Paul Simson knew how the company’s products could be used to best advantage, and turned to them to solve the problem. A DHA line-up grid was projected over the statue, and used to calculate the distortion of the statue’s image caused by the positioning of the luminaire. Then, using Photoshop and Illustrator programs to manipulate the image, an accurate gobo mask was created. Fitted onto the luminaire, it was a perfect match for the outline of the statue, ensuring that George Washington was the only thing in lights.

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Vertigo Rigging was called in by Silent Associates International Ltd to rig for the high profile Dealer Event revealing the new Mini to North American Dealers. By far the most ambitious Mini venue - one of three - on the menu that day was the Mezzo restaurant in Wardour Street, Soho, London. The mission for the Vertigo team, led by the unflappable Ken Mehmed, was to lift a Mini from the service bridge, at street level of the venue, into and across the downstairs restaurant area below - where the event was staged. Scenic aspects were designed by Hottopp Associates from the USA. Like Silent Associates, they were also under direction of California-based Route 66 Productions for the project.

Starting at 4am on the Sunday morning of the event, the glass panels from the bridge leading to Mezzo’s kitchen area on the top floor were removed along one side. This allowed the Vertigo crew to

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The jewel in the British Film Industry’s crown, the National Film Theatre is generally acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest cinemas, offering the biggest and best choice of films dating back to the origins of the industry (it is the only public cinema that can still show inflammable nitrate film).

With three screens showing over 2,000 films, head of technical services, Richard Boyd knows that while they face a critical audience of purists, technologically times also move forward. The principal auditorium already boasted digital sound and recently the NFT decided to review its projection equipment. The 450-seat NFT1 boasts a 12.5ft high screen, and when it came to researching the market for the new generation of DLP digital video projection Boyd scrutinized the market closely before opting for a fully-featured, three-chip DLP Christie Digital Roadster X4, fitted with

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When this flagship vessel sets sail in late 2003, she will be the largest passenger vessel ever built - over 345m long, 45m wide and 72m tall - making her five times longer than Cunard’s first ship, Britannia. All 45 on-board entertainment systems will be designed by Nautilus Entertainment Design (NED), based in La Jolla, California. Since designing its first lighting systems for Carnival Destiny in 1996, NED has built its capabilities to not only include lighting systems, but audio, rigging, video, broadcast and large-format projection systems as well. NED’s QM2 project manager Bill Havens and the NED design team will be working closely with Harbor Marine Systems (HMS), the French-based entertainment contractor selected by the Shipyard to install the entertainment systems. HMS has previously installed entertainment systems for cruise ships constructed throughout Europe. Thi

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The Lyric in Hammersmith - one of the few surviving Frank Matcham-designed theatres - has returned to Marquee Audio a year after making a major investment in sound mixing, playback, processing and sound reinforcement equipment, to have them configure a new hard disk recording studio. The theatre’s sound technician Nick Manning (pictured in the new recording studio) explained that the new studio equipment fell into the remit of the theatre’s IT upgrade, which is being funded by an Arts Council grant.

"While the theatre was working on replacing its business systems, I set about drawing up a scheme for a dedicated sound computer, which would enable us to produce sound effects for shows," explained Nick. "I then spoke to Andy Huffer at Marquee Audio about designing a hard disk recording system based around the industry-standard Logic Audio software package."

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The White Light Group will be returning to its regular location on stand F4, just inside the main doors of the exhibition hall. The familiar White Light bar will be back - and this year the company will be in party mood, as it celebrates its 30th birthday! It will be sharing the party with younger members of the White Light Group, including The Moving Light Company, The Service Company, Enliten, Modelbox and Colourhouse.

On show on the stand are a selection of products for which White Light is the exclusive UK distributor. This will include the complete range of Robert Juliat followspots, including the new Marius 1.2k followspot which is a nominee in the PLASA Awards for Product Excellence, as well as smoke and haze machines from Look Solutions. White Light's new adjustable and fully-rated LOLER Lighting Ladders will also be on show, holding the latest addition to The Moving Light Comp

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Stage Accompany has launched its new Friend Series, specifically designed for the installation market and smaller rental market. This new series of small speaker systems consists of four models - F1, F5, F7 and F9 - and has a high grade of finish, with double Speakon connectors, steel grille and flush-mounted speakers to prevent baffle-reflection. Their rigid trapezoidal cabinet design, in combination with SA’s Protexture coating and a wide range of mounting options, make the Friends also suitable for mobile applications.

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PRG ran its annual Used Equipment Auction in July. The event, a joint effort between two PRG companies - Fourth Phase and ProMix Electrotec - sees hundreds of items going under the hammer. Fourth Phase inventory featured miles of cable, dozens of intelligent moving head units, and hundreds of Lekos and Par cans, while ProMix Electrotec offered professional sound reinforcement mixing consoles, power amplifiers and loudspeaker systems. Bill Groener, north-east regional vice-president, told PLASA Media: "There is tremendous interest in professionally-maintained equipment that is being sold from our rental inventories. Intelligent buyers have figured out that they can stretch their budgets through the acquisition of this kind of gear. By turning over our rental inventory to these savvy buyers, we are able to purchase new gear to offer our rental clients." PRG is also running a used

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On August 20th, TMB’s Los Angeles staff held a monkey installation ceremony to celebrate the signing of the lease on the company’s new international headquarters. As part of the celebration, TMB’s signature surf monkey statues were placed on the building’s rooftop, making the new home official. The newly-built headquarters is a 40,000sq.ft facility, overlooking the Hansen Dam Golf Course in Los Angeles’ San Fernando Valley. The building is located approximately 10 minutes from TMB’s current Burbank location. Over 8,000sq.ft of customized office space, plus training rooms and a fully-featured demo/showroom are currently under construction. The 32ft high shop area will contain over half a mile of small parts shelving, plus space to house over 1,000 pallets on a VNA (very narrow aisle) pallet racking system, using a digital, wire-guided forklift. Addition

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NHL Hockey Team the Nashville Predators have purchased a Fat Frog console from Zero 88 through local dealer Bandit Lites in Nashville. Jimmy Corn of the Predators, whose home stadium is the Gaylord Entertainment centre in Downtown Nashville, specified the Fat Frog after an exhaustive process of looking at different consoles and decided that the Fat Frog "offered the best bang for buck" and "the most features in the price range". The console is running eight Martin Pro MAC 2000s, four High End Systems Cyberlights, a host of special effects and conventional lighting. The main focus of the effect lighting is pre-game and intermission entertainment, and for highlighting each goal when it is scored. A concern of Corn's and the rest of the lighting team was that their new console be easy to learn for inexperienced operators, but still be powerful enough to perform edits on

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grapevinejobs is a new internet jobsite, designed exclusively for professionals in and around the broadcast, film and music sectors. The site launches on 6th September 2001 and aims to become the destination of choice for jobseekers and employers in those sectors.

Created by specialist recruitment consultants, Searchlight, the service will be free for jobseekers, with only a minimal cost to advertisers. A year in the making, the site can filter out jobs that aren’t likely to be of interest to a particular user and will monitor new job postings and send an e-mail alert if a relevant job comes in.

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Event design company, Beautiful Neptune Design, turned a crisis into an opportunity after an office break-in earlier this year left the company without computers and software. The company, a partnership established in 1995, offers lighting and set design, technical drawing and visualisation for live events, performances and exhibitions to producing companies.

Company director Steve Hicks decided to turn the situation to his advantage by investing in new IT equipment. Clients can now expect greatly reduced modelling and rendering times during design development and final presentation. Through the use of ‘bi-directional drawing linking’ and parametric modelling, designers will be able to easily manipulate and modify elements in a 2D or 3D environment.

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At this year’s PLASA Show, the Association has moved its stand to a new, bigger area towards the back of the main hall - stand K19.

The move from the usual spot at the very front of the hall on stand F1 has been made in order to provide more room for the PLASA stand - which will now incorporate the PLASA Technical Bookshop - and also to allow us to develop the PLASA Clinic, which will run adjacent to the PLASA stand, on J52 (see below).

Equally importantly, the move puts us right next to the busy after-show bar (inside the new Pizza Express restaurant), which will be open every evening after show closing, allowing everyone at the show a little extra time to continue those all-important conversations!Upstairs, meanwhile, Lighting&Sound International is sponsoring the New Technology Showcase - a major display of every product nominated for a 2001 PLASA Award for Product Excellenc

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West London-based Ampekko was recently contracted by Lasalle Investment Management to supply a sophisticated voice alarm and public address system for the Swansgate Shopping Centre, situated in the heart of Wellingborough.

Ampekko worked closely with project manager Neil Horswood of Neil R Horswood Services, after winning the tender to design a dual-purpose system to be integrated into Swansgate’s four spacious shopping malls.

Before finalising the system, the company’s design team performed a number of acoustic modelling tests on-site, including a full RASTI test, required because of the harsh nature of surfaces throughout the centre. They then decided on an integrated PA and voice alarm system, based around Bouyer’s digital GD 2299 - a specialist spot-messaging hard disk recorder and player that allows for up to 100 voice messages to be stored and accessed when n

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Victoria Park in Hackney, East London, exploded into life in June as legendary French pyrotechnic artists Groupe F performed their high-energy Garden of Light spectacle - with live fire and music.

The result was an unforgettable incendiary experience; Groupe F used the park environment as a backdrop, filling the surrounding space with sparks, flames, bangs and flashes - as well as a colossal jet-flamed Catherine wheel. Groupe F’s relationship to fire and ‘fireworks’ is certainly not a classical one. The show opens with an alchemist character,stoking and playing a ‘keyboard’ of fire - and just as alchemists changed the properties of real substances, Groupe F transformed fire into water for the finale of the 45-minute show.

Thousands crammed into the park to enjoy the two nights of free performance, part of the month-long London International Festival of

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As one of Germany’s biggest distributors of lighting equipment to the entertainment industry, German distributor Lightpower handles brands such as Clay Paky, MA Lighting, Rosco, ETC, Eurotruss, Rainbow Colour Changers and Pulsar. The Paderborn-based company recently provided L&SI with an insight into its role in two very different projects in southern Germany.

Known as ‘the Tent Event’, the Zelt (or ‘tent’) Musik Festival (ZMF), took place in Freiburg this summer, for the 19th consecutive year, in the heart of a very hot and humid Black Forest. With more than 100 events spread over 19 days, ZMF has a diverse appeal, attracting around 150,000 people of all ages and musical tastes, from across Europe. It also has a strong family appeal, with a cosy beer garden atmosphere, and entertainments for children during the day.

Lightpower’s involvement, which

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Members who participated in the survey will now have received their free 22 page overview and will shortly be receiving the reports that they have ordered. The research is available to participating members as follows:
- Free overview (for anyone who participated in questionnaire)
- Product sector reports (lighting, pro-audio, staging, AV) at £125 (plus VAT) each
- Detailed market sector report at £250 (plus VAT)
- Free Global report (for anyone who purchases any of the above)

Qualifying members can order all of the above reports at a special price of £500 sterling (plus VAT) - an overall saving of £250.

Members who did not participate can still gain access to all the above invaluable information by completing a questionnaire and undertaking to participate in the equivalent survey next year.

Any queries on the research project should be directed to research@plasa

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Firepower is the new Royal Artillery Experience, set in the historic buildings of the Royal Arsenal on the River Thames at Woolwich.

The attraction was designed by Event Communications, whose main challenge was to overcome people’s discomfort with the reality of war. They tackled this by highlighting the role in the fight for democracy and freedom played by the armed forces, especially the Royal Artillery, which has been present at all major theatres of war involving the British Army over the last 300 years.

The centrepiece of Firepower is the ‘ground-shaking’ Field of Fire - a spectacular multimedia presentation that recreates what it feels like to be in the middle of a real battle. On entering, visitors are surrounded by various pieces of artillery. Suspended above these are four 5m wide front projection screens. Projecting onto each screen is a Barco 6300 LCD Vid

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