Details
Just over a year ago Tomcat USA Inc opened its first regional distribution facility - Tomcat Las Vegas - and the success of that distribution and service centre has presented the opportunity to expand the products and services as well as the staff. Kevin Makalous joined the Tomcat Las Vegas team as the assistant US sales manager on 16 September. Originally from Kansas City, Missouri, Makalous has over 10 years’ experience in the entertainment industry. "Being a former customer of Tomcat’s and experiencing the quality and commitment to service the company offers, it was a natural fit," said Makalous. The Western Region sales manager and Makalous will be working together to ensure all the West Coast customers’ requirements are met aggressively and consistently.

Details
Established staging manufacturer Maltbury has announced that it has expanded its stock to include Morgan Trussing, a product new to the UK, which will complement Maltbury’s own demountable staging systems. The Morgan alloy trussing combines strength and a sophisticated appearance with unbeatable prices to reflect the qualities of Maltbury’s staging systems. Available in a number of truss styles and sizes the individual truss sections can be connected quickly and simply by using the double-ended conical spigots which slot easily into each truss tube and are secured with a pin and clip. In addition to an array of standard angled and jointed sections, Morgan Trussing can also be custom-made to meet particular requirements.

Morgan Trussing also comes in a range of styles and sizes from slender trussing, which is ideal for indoor work to the 400 x 600mm beams that are perfect fo

Details
Pulsar Light has announced that from Monday 23 September, the company will commence full operation from brand new premises. Located just over a mile from Pulsar’s existing building, the new factory will house the design, manufacturing, sales and support teams. With 3,400sq.m of floor space and the potential for growth, the move will allow continued development for Pulsar.

The company’s new address will be: 3 Coldhams Business Park, Norman Way, Cambridge CB1 3LH, UK. Tel: 44 (0)1223 403500. Fax: 44 (0)1223 403501.

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

Details
Following the success of its previous open days and the demand for a repeat event, Caterham-based direct marketing company Smart Sound Direct has confirmed 2pm Sunday 17th November as the date for its Winter show, which will be held at Airport House, Purley Way, Croydon, Surrey.

Entertainment will be provided by various performers and DJs who will demonstrate the company's full complement of MSA PA enclosures, monitors, power amps, mixers, rack-mounted effects and accessories. New product lines include the upgraded version of the newly developed Smartlight range of lightweight speaker cabinets. These include bass bins which, when coupled with a power amp and mixer from the SmartLight line, provide what is claimed to be the lightest, portable, compact PA package available.

Visitors will also be able audition a variety of innovative products, including the CP8SP (currently the only

Details
Apogee Sound International, manufacturer of state-of-the-art sound reinforcement products for the professional audio industry, has announced that Steven Walker has been named managing director, assuming full managerial responsibility for the company.

Walker joined Apogee Sound in February 2002 as general manager. Since then, he has re-directed Apogee's resources, accelerating new products and marketing initiatives, and implementing new manufacturing efficiencies and quality controls at the company's headquarters near San Francisco. Michael P. Fleischer, President of Bogen Communications Inc, the parent company of Apogee Sound, commented: "Our plan has always been to 'let Apogee be Apogee.' We're excited to have Steve dedicated to continuing and enhancing Apogee's reputation for making the finest professional loudspeaker systems in the world. Apogee Sound is in very capable hands.

Details
All eyes were on Hyde Park this July for the annual Party in the Park, the largest single day event in Europe, watched live by 100,000 people.

Now in its fifth year, the Capital Radio Party in the Park had an impressive line up of acts from around the globe, including Westlife, Shakira, Enrique, Natalie Imbruglia and Will Young, and the Prince’s Trust show sold out 100,000 tickets in just over four hours, in the process raising a huge sum for the charity.

ClearChannel Events managed the event production with John Probyn overseeing the licensing and production, whilst Mark Ward was the production manager charged to ensure the 30-act show ran smoothly.

"This year’s production infrastructure included several new products or procedures introduced by suppliers to build on our experience as a team over previous years," said Probyn. "The relaxed nature of the

Details
In what can only be described as a milestone event, the Professional Lighting & Sound Association (PLASA) has cause to celebrate after recording one of the most successful shows in its 25-year history. PLASA's annual show confirmed its status once again as the leading international trade show for the entertainment, communications and presentation technology industries, as more than 400 companies from across the globe filled the Earls Court Exhibition Centre in London from 8-11 September, 2002.

13,810 people (subject to ABC Audit), up by 4.2 per cent from last year, visited the PLASA Show to see the array of new product launches, attend the Masterclass Programme, network with industry colleagues and strike up new business relationships. PLASA managing director, Matthew Griffiths, said the show bucked the exhibition industry’s recent downward trend as many exhibitors conducted good

Details
Following its launch earlier this year, the first European installation of Emphasis has just been completed at the New Stage of the Royal Danish Theatre in Copenhagen, as part of the venue’s major technical upgrade. More than 250 years old, The Royal Danish Theatre is located in the heart of Copenhagen and also houses the Royal Opera and Ballet.

"We were looking to upgrade our existing control system with more functions and channels," said the theatre’s lighting director Søren Nylin, "and we were very satisfied with the WYSIWYG software, which has grown to become the industry standard." Nylin detailed his technical requirements, to ETC’s distributor Bico Professionel A/S, who came up with the perfect solution. "As the theatre’s staff were already using Expression and WYSIWYG, Emphasis was the next logical step, providing a seamless fusi

Details
Coemar UK has taken on the UK distribution for Hungarian strobe giants Hungaroflash. According to Coemar UK managing director, Ian Kirby, this is a direct result of having supplied (via Vari-Lite) five of Hungaroflash’s massive T-Light 85K strobes for use on the Rolling Stones’ world tour.

One of the competitive advantages of T-Light - the latest product from the Budapest-based company - is that it can be purchased outright, rather than being restricted to hire use only. Requiring 63A/230V mains power supply, control is either in the form of the pre-programmed lightning strikes, or it can be created by the operator in the T-Light dedicated controller.

The lamp is low pressure non-explosive xenon - offering a flash length ranging from 1/24-sec to 3-sec - and the beam angle can be varied from spot to wide angle. Barn doors and colour filters are optional extras. The unit ha

Details
The summer of 2002 has seen a significant sales trend for Out Board's TiMax audio imaging and surround animation matrixes as part of sound system upgrades to three diverse, but high profile classical theatre/opera facilities. In Finland, following a prolonged period of detailed evaluation under the supervision of long-standing TiMax distributor Kurt Nyback of Hecom, the Helsinki City Theatre and the Finnish National Theatre both opted for large TiMax Rack Systems, whilst the Moscow Operetta have purchased a system for vocal localisation and special effects programming and control from the TiMax distributor Igor Kovalev from Binar. System sizes ranged from 16-In x 24-Out up to 24-In x 32-Out.

What each of these installations has in common is perhaps not surprising these days - all systems were specified with AES/EBU digital inputs and outputs to interface with a range of mixing and sign

Details
Luminar Leisure has carried out a major £1m conversion of its Chicago Rock Café in Northampton, providing the company with a flagship venue within the former Odeon Cinema and increasing the capacity to 1,500. With the relocation of the stage to its own mezzanine level, the venue is centred around live music. Forthcoming acts will range from Spandau Ballet to the Venga Boys - and this will be played back through a concert-spec sound system. The large venue (with a massive 18 metres floor-to-ceiling height) is divided into three areas - the main room, the restaurant and Cuba Bar, situated inside the main entrance - and this is configured as a 16-zone system.

The primary task facing Lynx Lighting’s head of sound Jerey Denning, was the ability to change the venue’s soundscape - with automatic adjustment of the room’s EQ settings in accordance with the different modes o

Details
PLASA 2002 saw the successfull launch of dmXLAN PoCket from ELC Lighting. This application has been written for any Pocket PC, such as the Compaq or Toshiba, and allows the functionality of ELC’s dmxLAN Software. The advantages of this include not only the compact size, but the wireless LAN functions, allowing wireless control of all DMX nodes, patching and merging of universes, monitoring DMX channels and taking wireless control of any fixture, from any place on the stage or in the hall.

Visit the website below for more information, or to download the dmXLAN PoCket.pdf document from the downloads section. As with ELC Lighting’s dmXLAN main software, this application is free of charge.

(Lee Baldock)

Details
Grandmaster Flash, the founder of modern Hip Hop, took both the 2002 PLASA Show and the Ministry of Sound by storm when he came to London to launch the new Rane Empath mixer, which he has helped to design.

Flash’s visit culminated in a rocking two-hour set at the Ministry of Sound on the Tuesday night of PLASA. It’s the first time he’s ever played the club, and he took full advantage to put the Empath through its paces to a packed audience. This was preceded earlier in the day by two presentations by Flash on the stand of Rane’s UK distributor, Hayden Laboratories, at the PLASA show in Earls Court. Each was followed by a short demo of his own specialist brand of performance art.

In presenting the mixer, Flash expanded on the ‘8.45’ syndrome, which has prompted many of the Empath’s most practical features. This is the common scenario when it&r

Details
The centrepiece of the State Fair of Texas this year is a spectacular pyro show launched from a huge opening pyramid. Onstage Productions’ Charles Belcher was charged with getting the most spectacular show possible from the organizers budget, and he immediately contacted Total Structures to assist with the design, development, engineering and manufacture of this colossal structure.

The square base pyramid, 50ft square at the base and 50ft high, was a combination of stock truss sizes, custom intersections and mechanical fabrication, while the use of Total Structures OMNI connectors added additional flexibility. The top 15ft of the pyramid opens as four ‘petals’ and the inventive and efficient use of two CM Lodestars and a push rod system provides the maximum 'bang for the buck.'

The lower part of the pyramid is provided with a decking system, whilst the platform for

Details
For the eleventh year running, Delta Sound Inc designed and supplied the sound and communications system for the Mercury Music Prize, the aim of which is to celebrate the best of British music. The event, which took place in mid September, saw the independent panel of judges - which included jazz legend Coutney Pine - select Miss Dynamite's 'A Little Deeper' as the Album of the Year. The 21-year-old North Londoner, real name Naomi McLean-Daley, thus performed for over 1000 guests in the elegant surroundings of The Great Room, at London's Grosvenor House.

Delta Sound deployed its versatile L-Acoustics system with the company’s Andy Jackson specifying 12 V-dosc cabinets and eight subs for the main stage, with a further 24 dV-dosc cabinets and four subs used for the second acoustic stage. Six of Delta Sound's Midas consoles (four Heritage 3000s, an XL4 and a Heritage 1000) were used

Details
After embarking on a successful new line-up of lighting fixtures over the past 12 months, Coemar has now turned its attention to developing a range of unique tools that will become a vital part of every lighting operator’s tool kit. The DR-1 is a remote device which virtually eliminates the need to gain access to fixtures when programming or servicing lighting equipment. This diagnostic instrument allows the functions (and history) of a fixture to be monitored and interrogated from anywhere in a venue. Offering bi-directional communication with the fixtures (which ‘talk back’ to the device over a normal 3-core DMX cable), when inserted into the DMX 512A chain, the DR-1 will replicate all functions and information, which until now were accessed only via a fixture’s on-board display panel.

A single DR-1, for instance, will allow the operator to remote access as ma

Details
With top promotion team DAD on board, fabric’s Dave Parry as technical consultant and legendary Back to Basics and Union club nights moving across town, the new 800-capacity Rehab in the heart of Leeds’ Exchange quarter, has gone straight into overdrive. The new venue, which opened this month, is sited on Assembly Street in a Grade 1 listed, 17th century building.

Much of the club’s immediate success is attributable to the explosion of kinetic energy witnessed by punters on the opening weekend, when they queued down the street to experience Leeds’ latest venue. The installation was carried out by Jonathan Reece’s Harrogate-based Funtime Music. The sound and lighting specialists have a history of installing owner, Chris Edwards’ clubs - such as Space in Leeds and Birdcage - and were asked to assist in the conversion of the building previously trading

Details
Industry consultant Peter Ed is all set to achieve exactly that: take on the challenge of climbing 14,000ft over just one October weekend in Morocco. In the name of charity, Peter and his wife will be scaling Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa, located in the High Atlas Mountain Range. The couple will be raising money for ARK - Absolute Return for Kids - a charity established to transform the lives of children who are victims of abuse, disability, illness and poverty. Last year, ARK raised nearly £1.5m from an awards dinner plus a trek to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and they're hoping to top this figure for 2002.

Locally, Mount Toubkal is known as Adrar n'Dem: Mountain of Mountains. The area is the most popular trekking destination in Northern Africa and is home to some of the most beautiful and dramatic scenery in the world. The biggest problem for climbers is the a

Details
CKS Entertainment Systems, one of the UK’s fastest growing distributors of plasma screens, has strengthened its sales focus by expanding to a seven-strong team and appointing Geoff Stevens to the newly created role of sales director.

The new team brings a wealth of individual expertise within the sales and distribution sector. Stevens, previously general manager of the Battery Sales Group at Panasonic Industrial Europe UK, will head the division overseeing sales of all plasma and flat screen technology. He will be supported by three business managers, former CRT flat panel display and projector specialists, Mike Clayton and Geraldine Neilly, as well as Jit Mistry who, until recently, was an AV sales specialist for House of Fraser. Internal sales members Anne Evans, Andrea Horton and Hannah Clemo, complete the team.

The team will report to CKS Group managing director, Chris Ste

Details
Following the continued growth of Cambridgeshire-based 5 Star Cases Ltd, the company has recently undertaken major changes to its management structure. Jim Willis, the current managing director, has taken the decision to plan for his retirement in a few years by handing over the day to day running of the company to the current technical director, Keith Sykes.

Sykes, who becomes works director (MD designate) has been with 5 Star since 1991 when the company acquired Pro-Tect Cases, the Ipswich-based manufacturer which he ran for six years. "The growth of the company over the last few years has seen 5 Star become a leading name in the case industry. It's down to a professional approach and hard work from everybody in the company," explains Sykes. Justin Locks, the current production manager is promoted to general manager, overseeing both the production and administration facilit

Details
Stanton’s new SMX-501 has been designed as a hybrid three-channel, techno/scratch mixer, which will appeal to both the turntablist and club/rave DJs alike. The impressive list of features includes: Effects loop, which can be assigned to each individual channel, plus the mic; Custom high-quality Penny & Giles crossfader with VCA curve; adjustment and crossfader assign; Assignable crossfader (A, B, Bypass); VCA crossfader curve control and reverse; Curve control and reverse on Line faders; Each channel features gain control, slider pan, and a versatile three-band EQ with complete kill; Balanced XLR master output (unbalanced RCA also provided); Booth output; Rotatable three-position phono/line switch with flash feature; Separate channel input and master output LED meters.

Stanton have also announced that the DFX-1, claimed as the world’s first trackball-controlled audio signal

Page 1474 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .