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Quadrant Visual Solutions (QVS), the specialist AV designer and installer and conference specialist, has specified and equipped ‘Host’ - the new media centre in Leeds, recently opened by Melanie B, with a comprehensive range of state-of-the-art multi-media equipment. The centre, funded by Leeds City Council, is situated in Chapeltown and was built as part of the Council's drive towards regenerating Leeds' inner city. Providing office space for small new media companies to rent, QVS equipped the centre with sound, radio and TV studios, conference rooms, multi-media training rooms and video edit suites.

The work was put out to European tender, and QVS account manager Andrew Hogben is delighted to have been awarded the contract. "We worked in partnership with Sony Broadcast

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Tomcat UK has announced that they are now stocking an increased range of Columbus McKinnon Prostar electric theatrical chain hoists. The popular lower capacity hoist range, which already included 136kg and 272kg s.w.l. models are now complemented by 226kg and 452kg s.w.l. units. The new models have the same features as the original versions and also boast the extra capacity without an increase in external size. A variety of different speeds and voltage options are available, including extra fast 10m/min versions. The products are available directly from Tomcat UK or from any of the company’s UK and European distributors.

(Lee Baldock)

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Devon-based rock trio Muse appeared at a wide variety of UK and European venues at the tail end of 2001; Mike Mann saw them in the cavernous London Docklands Arena.

Lighting designer Oli Metcalf has seen his system squeezed into small clubs and stretched to fill a full arena stage - and has managed to keep the CAV-supplied rig intact along the way. Metcalf is using CAV for the first time, a decision, prompted by their stock of up-to-date High End product. "I’m using 16 Studio Color washlights and the same number of Studio Spot CMYs," he revealed. There are also 14 AF1000 strobes in his design and a quartet of modified Cyberlight Turbos - their rear cable entries have been removed to allow them to stand vertically under four fabric cones which form an important part of the set. "CAV seemed to have all the new High End kit I needed, and they had no problem with me wa

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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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Phil Ward identifies some of the key product launches at the December AES Show in New York

New York at the beginning of December is a sentimental place. Horse-drawn carriages trot fur-coated shoppers along 59th Street at Central Park South. Sesame Street’s Big Bird switches on the Christmas tree lights outside the Lincoln Centre. Tourists flock to Ground Zero. And AES delegates - at least the Americans - exhibit, buy, sell and discuss in detail ‘classic’ audio technology.

One whole section of this show was dedicated to ‘When Vinyl Ruled’, and offered tear-jerking insights into valve and lathe technology. Even away from this grotto, microphone and signal processor designs from the 1950s were on display, re-issued and repackaged with loving attention to detail.

Les Paul himself, who pioneered multitrack recording in the 1950s, figured in Gibson La

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The first major European installation by Los Angeles-based artist Hiro Yamagata. Photon 999 opened at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, at the end of last year. Yamagata worked with a team of over 30 specialists to realise the installation. 15 laser systems (from Tarm Showlaser, Times of Change and Dymax Special Effects), including four of Coherent’s new Viper lasers, are placed around the edge of a pool. These are projected to over 200 mirrors installed on 20m high JTE truss towers and Mylar holographic panels applied to the surface of the central walkway. The system is controlled by a custom software package designed by Laser Animation.

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The Wembley studio building that used to house CTS Studios is back in business as a recording facility after industry veteran Pete Fielder secured a lease on the premises, which he has re-opened under the name of Phoenix Sound.

The studio building is located close to Wembley Stadium and was due to be redeveloped as part of the overall stadium rebuild. However, when plans for a new stadium fell through, Fielder acquired the lease from Wembley plc with a view to securing the site’s future as a recording studio.

Fielder, a respected engineer and APRS board member who has extensive experience of the studio industry, told L&SI: "This is a large site that is already very popular with musicians and has plenty of potential as a studio complex. Although we are re-equipping from scratch, the actual studios and control rooms are already in place and will simply be re-decorated and ac

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James Eade has taken on the daunting task of being L&SI’s new technical editor, and so we thought you’d like to know a little more about him.

James is a qualified mechanical and electrical engineer who has been involved with lighting and sound systems since his schooldays. With various roles under his belt, including hire manager of a busy London AV rental house, and as project manager and systems designer for various large AV projects such as the Eagle Class cruise ships for Royal Caribbean and preliminary design work on High End Systems’ Catalyst, he has built an extensive knowledge of the industry.

He also lives near the PLASA office, which is why he really got the job, and has a big black labrador called Baz, who fetches the biscuits.

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There’s one further change to report for L&SI as we enter 2002 - fans of Ian Herbert’s regular Asleep in the Stalls column will be disappointed to learn that the column has come to the end of its 8-year run, although its author, Ian Herbert, will continue to contribute to the magazine on a regular basis.

We would like to thank Ian for providing his amusing, incisive and - above all - punctual Asleep in the Stalls columns over the years, and we look forward to his future contributions . . .

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Ken Achard, managing director of Peavey Electronics’ European subsidiary, received an honorary degree of Doctor of Science at a graduation ceremony which took place in London’s Barbican Centre at the end of last year.

Conferred on him by the University of Westminster, the award was presented by the chairman of the Court of Governors, Sir Alan Thomas. The degree was in recognition of Ken’s lifetime achievements in the music industry.A veteran of 38 years in the music business, he became an acknowledged authority on vintage guitars in the early seventies, publishing one of the first works of reference on the subject - The History and Development of the American Guitar - in 1978. A long-standing business and personal relationship with Hartley Peavey started in 1973 when Achard became one of the initial export distributors for American music and sound equipment manufactur

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The collaboration between the US theatrical equipment consultant, JR Clancy, and UK manufacturer of stage automation systems, Stage Technologies, has moved on another step with the signing of a formal agreement between the two companies.

This agreement, which covers land-based stage engineering installations in North America, was signed at the LDI 2001 exhibition in Orlando earlier this month, and cements a relationship that has been strengthening over a number of years. The companies first worked together in 1995 providing a complete 95-axis power flying system for the Teatre Nacional in Barcelona, Spain. More recently, JR Clancy provided the Conference Center of The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints in Salt Lake City with an automated rigging system complete with a 45-axis Nomad control system.

Tom Young, vice-president of sales and marketing of JR Clancy, explained:

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PLASA Member SigNET AC has been named North East regional winner in the Trade Partners UK National Languages for Export Awards 2001, in the category for small business, sponsored by NCM credit Insurance. The company, which specializes in the design and manufacture of voice alarm, paging and background music systems, won the award for changing its approach to doing business in a number of export markets.

Richard Sice, marketing manager told L&SI: "In order to be more competitive in international markets we have taken a strategic approach to the use of our human resources and policies. We have taken steps to hire people with native language skills and also to employ UK graduates who have studied a foreign language. In addition, we are taking a fresh look at our marketing documents and have translated key brochures and leaflets."

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The Royal Festival Hall production team gave blood, sweat and tears to stage the 2001 festive ballet season, featuring the renowned Moscow Stanislavky Ballet.

The team, led by head of production Nigel March, and in collaboration with the venue’s riggers Vertigo Rigging, transformed the concert hall into a proscenium arch theatre, with all the expected rigging and flying facilities, ready to stage The Snow Maiden and Swan Lake.

This was the most ambitious set and lighting design ever staged at the South Bank, as well as one of the tightest timeframes. The initial task of the Vertigo team, headed by Paddy Burnside, was to install an 18 x 12 metre mother grid in the roof of the Hall. Below this was hung a trussing sub-grid to hold all the lighting and scenery bars and tab tracks. Because the changeover between shows was so tight, scenery and cloths for both had to be rigged at the

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In recent years a growing number of manufacturers have turned their research teams towards the development of large-scale lighting instruments - big lamps with some of the newer features of modern theatre lighting - in-built colour changing devices, moving yoke, etc.

Why? Well, either the manufacturers are trying to drive new markets having saturated theatre, TV, concert and corporate events with smaller, highly developed models, or alternatively the market researchers have been busy and discovered that there is, in fact, a latent demand out there for such lighting equipment. Personally, I tend to the second view, but there’s no doubt that having once created a beast, chances are someone will find a use for it - witness the large xenon-powered searchlights that are commonplace at festivals and special events. But when we turn our attention to buildings, especially in the UK, we

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This lot definitely break the convention: a dance band with a stage presence - and not before time. Faithless are almost a rock combo, a robust and rhythmical form of Steve Hillage, morphing and vibing, rather than worrying about melody and structure. It sounds great, though personally it’s not my cup of tea.

Sequencing apart, this is a very analogue sounding band, real guitars, keys, drums and percussion, yet on the outside their show embraces some of the very latest technology.

Lighting

These are never easy shows to light, the style demanding that you not so much light the artist, as the room. Juan Morandi has strong things to say about the subject: "The fact is you can’t tour a music production at this level with anything original unless you have a lot of money. This is a front and back truss situation with extremely boring moving lights." Sorry? &q

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Lawrence Heron, until recently a motor control specialist with Out Board Electronics, has established his own company - Promanent Automation (International). The company, which will have offices in both the UK and South Africa, will act as consultant for, and supplier of, automation to the entertainment industry. Heron has recently completed his first project for Tell Tale Productions - the automation of a Christmas tree for the Tweenies Christmas show - and has a number of other projects in the pipeline.

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This month sees the first of a regular ‘Technical Focus’ section within the pages of Lighting&Sound International. The aim is to increase the technical content of the magazine, and introduce more equipment reviews and guides, discuss current engineering issues, standards and relevant health and safety topics.

With the entertainment industry becoming, by its very nature, increasingly more technology-based, as well as technologically innovative, L&SI is increasing its coverage to reflect these changes.

In this new section we aim to cover a product review each month, kicking off with an overview of the principal DSP products currently on the market today and aimed at distributed audio installations. Often, our reviews will be condensed for magazine production reasons, and so all the reviews will be obtainable in their entirety from the L&SI website at www.plasa.org/media. Th

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Avolites is continuing its commitment to product training with three days of hands-on seminar style events at White Light North in Halifax. The dates are 13, 14 and 15 February. The Valentine’s offering - for all lovers of the popular Avolites Pearl console - will be led by Avo’s training manager Chris West and Chris Clarke from the sales team. Avolites is expecting to see a wide range of Northern-based customers attending the event.

Chris West comments: "It’s important to get out and about to see people, and open days are an ideal method of reaching a focused public, giving them an opportunity of hands-on experimentation with the consoles."

Avolites also see these events as an ideal chance for socialising, networking and catching up with friends and colleagues from all over the country who are involved in live production and performance.

(Lee Baldock)

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The new H.A.R.D. 212 monitors from Italian manufacturere Outline have been used for the very first time at the Christmas Concert in The Vatican, a high profile event held in the Paul VI hall, presented by Cristina Parodi and broadcast across Italy at Christmas by Canale 5. Since the first edition in 1993, this show has brought together hundreds of foreign and Italian artists, who accept the invitation of the Church of Rome. Different cultures, origins, races, ages and colours, but united to perform in the name of a very meaningful cause.

Once again this year some of the world’s top artists participated, including Cranberries’ vocalist Dolores O’Riordan, Terence Trent D'Arby, Sasha, Josè Feliciano, Russell Watson, Massimo Ranieri, Edoardo Bennato, Elisa, Tiziano Ferro, the Schola Cantorum Cantate Domino treble voice choir from Belgium, the New Millennium Voices Gospel

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PLASA members Central Theatre Supplies, in conjunction with Solihull Arts Complex, is holding a Lighting & Sound Workshop on 2 February 2002 at Solihull Arts Complex, Homer Road, Solihull. This training day is open to schools and amateur theatres, providing an insight into stage lighting and sound, including demonstrations and advice on how to achieve certain effects. The cost for the day is £5, and tickets can be ordered from the Box Office at the Arts Complex, telephone 0121 704 6962.

Following the morning session there will be an exhibition where those attending will be encouraged to meet the manufacturers and view the latest products and equipment. People who do not wish to attend the workshops are welcome to attend the exhibition between 12.30 - 2.00pm. Manufacturers attending will include Zero 88, Selecon, HW International (UK distributor for Shure, QSC Audio and Phonic), Dought

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The Music Company has technical installation landmark at The Works on Birmingham’s Broad Street - a new flagship venue for the First Leisure Corporation, which incorporated the 500th Denon DJ unit the Music Company has installed. The audio brief was to provide a higher impact audio system than those found at other recent First Leisure sites. The 2,300 capacity venue contains three rooms, each with its own DJ booth, and each embracing a different music policy.

Music Co specified two Denon DN-2100F twin-CD players for The Works’ main room and the mezzanine level second room, plus a DN-1800F twin-CD deck for the third and VIP room, Top View, which is high in the rafters of the building, overlooking the main room. The main room also features a DN-M2300R twin mini-disc player, and all the Denon devices were supplied to Music Co by Hayden Laboratories. The Works’ Saturday a

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The UK sound equipment market is set to grow at a healthy 3.0% in 2002, according to a just published analysis from Plimsoll. This will only be good news for some though as growth will not be seen across the entire industry. Studying the latest figures from the largest 244 companies in the sound equipment industry, market analysts Plimsoll revealed that over a third of the industry may not see growth at all and could lose 16.6% of sales on average this year.

Adding to their distress, three quarters of these companies saw profits fall in 2001 and almost 62% are currently loss-making. Despite these factors, very few reduced staff and only 52% made attempts to reduce their asset base.

So who is set to keep grabbing market share in 2002? Plimsoll's First Edition names 68 companies that notched up an amazing 19.8% growth last year. Within this group, 17 companies individually increased sa

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