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L&SI was out and about in July and called in at the newly established UK offices of Coemar, based in Ashford, Kent. The new 6,000sq.ft office, warehouse and demonstration facility will incorporate a full inventory of stock and spares - as well as featuring the new product range from Coemar, which has been launched over the last 10 months. Pictured above is Coemar UK MD Ian Kirby (second left) with (from left to right) operations manager Julie Kirby, technical manager Chris Hale and Stacey Smith, office sales. Since our visit, it has been announced that Coemar UK will handle distribution of the Antari range of products in the UK (see separate news piece on page 14). Coemar UK can be contacted at Unit 4, KPC Business Centre, Canterbury Road, Ashford, Kent, TN24 0BP, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1233 6366

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What will the world be like in 50 years time? It’s a moot question: for a filmmaker of Steven Spielberg’s stature it’s a central debate. Casting your net a few hundred years hence makes no odds - by the time reality comes around you’ll be long dead - but 50 years? Many who see Spielberg’s latest film Minority Report will still be around when the actual time arrives.

"It was the first question I asked myself when looking for a venue," explained Amanda Davis of AD Design, on her brief for the movie launch. "What is the most futuristic building in London?" Spielberg had done the groundwork, he’d consulted with think-tanks and city planners, but Davis didn’t have that luxury, "so I read through the synopsis again and asked myself, ‘what will London be like?’"

By an outrageous coincidence, a brand new buil

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As part of its re-branding exercise, today UK distributor HW International, launched it's revamped website www.hwinternational.co.uk. The website boasts many new features including, the new online 2002/03 HW Product Catalogue, with the facility to browse through extensive product ranges from Shure, QSC Audio, Phonic and PreSonus. Another development is a Press Room, where you can keep up to date with any news relating to HW and the products it represents. Plus from the new Image Library, high-resolution images can be downloaded.

Regular competitions will also be a feature of the site; the first is to win a new Phonic MX202 DJ mixer. Another refreshed facility is the searchable Stockist List, where visitors can locate stockists in the UK and Ireland. HW has also updated its range of merchandising which now represents each distributed brand. All merchandising can be ordered securely onli

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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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As Vari-Lite Inc continues to expand its network of sales distributors worldwide, the automated lighting pioneer has entered into a partnership with TSP, granting the Moscow-based dealer exclusive rights to the sale of Vari*Lite products in Russia. Through the distribution agreement, Russian customers will, for the first time, have direct local access to first-class sales, service and support of Vari*Lite products, including the Series 2000M product line and the new VL1000 ellipsoidal reflector spotlight.

"The Russian market is very important. It is a sophisticated market and we are excited about it's potential," said Vari-Lite vice-president of sales and marketing, Bob Schacherl. "It is vital that we have well-known and financially sound partners to work with, which is where TSP comes in. TSP is deeply involved with both the theatre and rental markets, so they are an ex

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PLASA 2002 will be a much more comfortable show this year, thanks to a new R'n'R area in the Gallery, where visitors can have a 10 minutes massage to relieve those aching shoulders and tired feet!

The initiative is part of a fund-raising exercise by Light Relief: thanks to sponsor companies DHA Lighting, ETC, Forester Health, Harmer PR, Martin Professional, PLASA, Stage Electrics, Strand Light, Vari-Lite Europe and WWG, four trained masseurs will literally be dispensing light relief throughout the show. Each massage will cost £5 - but additional donations will be more than welcome! All the money raised goes straight to Light Relief, the industry charity that supports lighting designers with personal difficulties.

The Light Relief area can be found near the New Technology Gallery on the Top Deck.

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Dare Pro Audio is launching the RT Series at PLASA 2002. Also showing will be the New Micro Series products, as well as custom laminate metal and natural wood finishes. The POD RT Series is the natural progression from the award-wining Eclipse Series, and incorporates the patented Tractrix horn device, and therefore gives unprecedented levels of audio quality. The series consists of several modules designed with a building block philosophy in mind, consisting of POD-2 Passive, POD-2 Active, POD-2 Passive Wafer, POD-2 Active Wafer, RT-1 Bi Amp, RT-1 Tri Amp, RT-1 Bi Amp Wafer, RT-1 Tri Amp Wafer, RT-1 Single Sub and the RT-1 Twin Sub.

The RT-1 is an Active/Passive 3-way full-range enclosure that is also available in a tri-amped version - RT-1Tri, utilizing the patented POD Mid-Hi device in an unusually powerful one-box format. Custom drive units are used exclusively, comprising: one 15&

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High End Systems/Flying Pig Systems Europe, UK (HES/FPS) has announced further recent promotions at its London office. Chris Hunt has been named director of operations for HES/FPS Europe and UK. Hunt started at the London office two years ago as accounts manager. He worked on the introduction of a new Syteline computer system in London after the merger, and has also been involved with London manufacturing systems.

David Catterall, recently made managing director of High End Systems/Flying Pig Systems Europe, comments: "Chris joined High End just after the merger with Flying Pig and has been at the centre of the integration process ever since, in accounts, systems and procurement. He loves the fast pace of our industry and is used to hitting deadlines, having previously cut his teeth in the multi-national publishing industry. He now adds line management responsibilities to his new

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FX Rentals recently supplied a selection of recording equipment to sound recordist, Angus McPake, for use on a short graduation film that has already won an audience award and has been entered for a new talent BAFTA. Entitled Dead, the film was produced by Jamie Goldblatt and directed by Mark Henrichsen, both graduates from the Edinburgh College of Art. It tells the story of a mild-mannered businessman who returns home from work one evening to discover that he has been murdered. He soon realises that being dead is no laughing matter, especially as his family seem more inconvenienced than upset by his untimely demise."Graduation films have a reputation for being extremely original in their creative approach, thus gaining much recognition at home and abroad," Goldblatt says. "Our aim was to make a film that was both creatively and technically excellent, which is why w

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BSR E1.4, Entertainment Technology - Manual Rigging Systems, is available for public review through the end of the business day on 19 November 2002. This draft American National Standard describes the design and construction of manually powered rigging systems to enhance the safety of these system. These systems are used in theatres to raise and lower scenery, properties, lighting equipment, and similar loads over the stage. The standard does not apply to raising and lowering people, or to motorized systems.

Copies of the document may be obtained from the ESTA website at www.esta.org/tsp/ or by requesting a copy from ESTA's technical standards manager by writing via mail, fax, or e-mail. Comments on the document should be received at the ESTA office before 17:00 Eastern Time on November 19. Comments submitted after the deadline may not b

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So here’s the thing. I’m no expert in this theatre lark - is anyone? - but it seems to me that if your message is that the music business has gone bad, producing fake stars who do dull dance routines synchronized to synthesized backgrounds just to extract the maximum amount of cash from the fans . . . then the best medium for presenting that message is perhaps not a musical which heads dangerously close to that style, and for which you charge in the order of £40 per ticket.

But hey, a couple of thousand screaming Queen fans a night (after a slow start, ticket sales picked up following the cast’s promotional efforts at the real Queen’s Jubilee celebrations) suggest that the producers of We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre (the Queen back catalogue in the style of Stars in their Eyes, with Nigel Planer reviving his own old Young Ones role as an ageing hippy)

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Optocore, the digital optical multicore system, was recently used by TMC for a Royal Appointment at Harewood House in West Yorkshire, when Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Stately Home during the recent Golden Jubilee tour around the UK. The Optocore LX4 system which consists of a stage box with 48 inputs and two active splits one for monitor purposes and one for broadcast feeds, together with two AES /EBU inputs, RS232, 422, 485 and DMX plus one video was the only solution to TMC needs for this important job.

TMC's Roland Higham says: "We had a major problem with transfer of audio from the performing areas to the FOH control area, the main one being that we could not lay cable across the main road in front of Harewood, due to the amount of traffic involved in this event, plus the distances involved would have put 'copper' alternatives

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Martin Professional A/S has consolidated its Scandinavian distributors to form a new joint venture, Martin Scandinavia, with responsibility for the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish markets. The new company will maintain offices in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm with the express goal of strengthening its position in the market for entertainment lighting.

Martin Scandinavia is an expansion of Martin’s home country subsidiary, Martin Danmark, and is expected to be fully operational from January 1, 2003. Brian Friborg, long-time managing director of Martin Danmark, will head the new venture, which will handle all three Martin brands: Martin, Mach and Jem.

Management, sales and administration will operate from a headquarters located in Copenhagen with warehousing, distribution and service functions based in Lystrup, Denmark. Martin’s Norwegian distributor, EHS, holds a small shar

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PLASA 2002 marks the international launch of L.U.C.A.S. XT, the latest addition to the highly acclaimed HK Audio active series. Featuring all the trademark performance specifications which have made the HK Audio active series such a huge sales success, from corporate to consumer use, the L.U.C.A.S. XT again offers premium quality, high-detail sound; this time in an even more compact unit size.

Utilising the established L.U.C.A.S. system format of subwoofer plus two satellite cabinets, the XT’s extremely compact design enables it to be placed in locations where available unit space is minimal, yet a powerful, punchy and detailed high-quality sound is required from a non-install sound reinforcement system.

Compact, lightweight and very portable indeed, the simple to operate L.U.C.A.S. XT offers a power amp-driven 250w RMS from its 10" sub driver, with 2 x 60w RMS power amps

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Following the success that AVW’s motion control system Impressario, culminating at this year’s ABTT show in London where it won the prestigious Product of the Year Award in the Engineering category, AVW has today introduced Impressario Advance! - a new product at PLASA 2002.

The most obvious change is the new-look silver console, but underneath its modern exterior Impressario Advance! makes use of the latest computer technology in the form of Windows XP. Hardware developments mean that a floppy disc is no longer necessary, being replaced with a CD R/W drive, whilst the Pentium II board had been replaced with a more powerful and faster Pentium IV.

Changes to the software include a new Cue List and Equipment List facility, which enables users to look at all cues/equipment on a single page rather than scrolling through as is currently the case. To provide more relevant info

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One of the most talked-about live music mixing consoles of recent months - the DiGiCo D5 Live - was launched at PLASA yesterday, with and Dave Webster and Bob Doyle making a special presentation to members of the press over an enjoyable Sunday roast. On stand D28, the D5 Live system is on demonstration in a fully working set-up with a digital multitrack concert recording sync’d to video.

Designed from the ground up to deliver high sonic purity and powerful, instantly accessible controllability, the D5 Live comprises the D5 Live console itself, a front-of-house Digirack containing A/D converters and I/Os, a matching stage Digirack and 100m of fibre optic cable. This is a complete, self contained system that does away with the need for a multicore, splitters, line drivers, dynamics processors and - optionally - an entire effects rack too. The D5 Live can even record live to multitr

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The 2002 PLASA Show got off to a positive start yesterday as the industry congregated in Earls Court, London. With another bumper crop of new product innovations on show the PLASA Show is providing an unmissable opportunity to see and discuss the state of the art in entertainment, communications and presentation technology. Comment from exhibitors was upbeat - one first-time exhibitor told PLASA Media he had been overwhelmed by the attention his company had received on stand, and wished he had more staff to deal with enquiries.

O Sunday night, PLASA’s 25th anniversary party took place to round off a highly successful day on the show floor. The event - staged at The Bridge - was attended by over 500 exhibitors and visitors who participated in numerous side shows at the Party including a bucking bronco, sumo wrestling, boules and the highlight, a full-on seventies disco.

On the

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Responding to popular demand, ETC is bringing extreme dimming within the reach of any budget with the extreme portability and low cost of its new SmartPack dimmer, launched at PLASA 2002. If density and economy are critical but modularity is not required, SmartPack is the answer. ETC has put Sensor-level, thyristor-based technological elegance into a 19", 2U rack-mount unit - without messy wires and no sacrifice in performance, with 6 or 12 channels of dimming density in a highly compact space and maximum density at a competitive rate.

SmartPack’s all-magnetic circuit breakers are 100% rated to avoid nuisance tripping and users can safely plug in more lights, with the assurance of uninterrupted operation and extreme reliability. With built-in presets and a sequencer, SmartPack can run on its own - without a console - automating permanent displays and presentations. The Auto

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Martin Professional has launched the MX-10 - a high speed 250W scanner with a top quality achromatic lens system. Ideal for use in larger disco and nightclub environments, the MX-10 houses 12 replaceable colours with split colour possibilities, eight rotating gobo patterns, and a rotating, three-facet prism. For added flexibility, the prism, gobos and colours are all replaceable, allowing the MX-10 to be tailored to a wide variety of environments.

Martin Professional can be found on Stand E54/E56.

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Mobil Tech UK is to take on the manufacture and distribution of selected items from the Mobil Tech France range, which will include the ALP, Standtech and Alutech lines, and will also see the reinstatement of some of the company’s most popular stands from previous years. The move comes after Mobil Tech France had experienced some problems with its manufacturing capability. It is also envisaged that Mobil Tech UK will change its name to Mobil Tech International to reflect this change in emphasis.

Mobil Tech can be seen on stand D28.

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The Martin Audio stand at PLASA 2002 was the site for an important announcement yesterday, and the first appearance of the Synco W8L Line Array System by Martin Audio, a specially configured version of the Martin Audio W8L line array system which is exclusive to the Synco Europe Network. Fred Heuves, MD of Synco Europe, and David Bisset-Powell, MD of Martin Audio, announced the signing of the deal that will see Synco Network members equipped with the system.

The deal represents Martin Audio’s largest single European sale since the launch of the acclaimed W8L system in the spring of this year. The Synco W8L Line Array will be operated in parallel with the existing stocks of the network’s Renkus-Heinz Synco Touring System and proprietary Synco floor monitors. "The network has grown very fast in the five years since we launched it and reached over 1000 cabinets but still

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Announced at the PLASA Show, Chameleon Audio has appointed the UK’s leading export company, Expotus, to source potential distributors for its products throughout Asia, and the alliance has already borne fruit, with three companies now handling the line.Total Solution, Singapore, Stagecraft International in the Philippines and Phoenix Audio & Lighting Technology, Hong Kong, are now official distributors of Chameleon amplification.

According to Chameleon MD, Paul Houlden, the decision to appoint Expotus was based on the company’s imposing track record of successfully marketing other UK brands overseas, particularly the Far East. Says Houlden: "Trying to break into the Asian market has been a particularly tough nut to crack. However, thanks to Expotus’ expertise, it’s already beginning to pay dividends for Chameleon."

Following a series of field trials,

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