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ETC (Electronic Theatre Controls Inc) has promoted Dick Titus to the new title of President. Titus has held directorship and executive positions at ETC for over 13 years, including his most recent tenure under the title of Chief Operating Officer, from 1997 to 2002. Titus is credited with improving the efficiency and productivity of internal operations, focusing factory efforts and helping to develop ETC's quality system.

According to founder and ETC Chief Executive Officer Fred Foster: "This change in title truly acknowledges and honours Dick's role in managing and directing ETC. At a time when many companies have struggled with the challenges of a waning economy, ETC has prevailed and become even stronger. Dick has helped make these things happen."

Foster meanwhile continu

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Lighting designer David Agress approached this year’s Radio City Christmas Spectacular with two specific problems in mind - how to maintain the artistic integrity of his lighting design for the show when there were multiple companies touring that same production simultaneously, and how to cut the load-in time at each move. Agress, working with programmer Paul Turner, turned to three separate building blocks and put them together in pre-production to accomplish both goals - the Prelite Studios in New York, XYZ positioning on Whole Hog II and WYSIWYG.

The team began work with the show file from the 2001 production. Two focus grids had been constructed, which the team called a Map. The first focus grid was built on the downstage 20’ of the deck, with 4’ centres stage left to right and 3’ centres downstage to upstage. The second grid was further upstage, with the

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The Jewish Free School's new campus in North London was officially opened by PM Tony Blair in October. Designed by leading UK architects Terrence O'Rourke, the new campus provides a base for approximately 2000 students.

In charge of the development of the 22,224sq.m facility was Jarvis plc, a facilities management and infrastructure services group, and the first company to win a schools project under the government’s Private Finance Initiative. The Jarvis team worked in partnership with the local education authority to create the facility, and also with a number of sub-contractors - amongst them Maltbury, who fulfilled the staging part of the contract.

As the facility's main hall is used for school presentations and exams, the Jarvis team wanted to provide under-stage storage for the exam desks without lifting the height of the stage. To achieve this, Maltbury designed and buil

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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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Metropolis Studios has consolidated its position as one of Europe’s leading recording studio complexes through the reconstruction of two of its main rooms around SSL consoles. The 72 channel SSL XL 9000 K Series will be fitted into the customized 5.1 and stereo Studio E and an SSL 9000 J into Studio A.

The move is certain to be seen as adventurous in the current climate and watched with interest by senior industry figures. The studio industry has been in a state of flux for a couple of years with a change in the way records have been made, resulting in a number of mid to large studios closing. Metropolis created studio E, one of the world’s first purpose-built music surround mix rooms in 1996 and was the first major studio complex to embrace the ProTools revolution in the early 90s. The Group was also unique in offering ProTools workstations for every session with Prism con

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21st century audio technology has joined 11th century history in the first ever Renkus-Heinz ST-STX installation in Europe. The Dala-Husby Church in the very heart of Dalarna, Sweden, has chosen the high powered Renkus-Heinz ST7, with built-in Class D amplification and integral processing, to deliver sound throughout its large, highly reverberant main hall.

The installation was supervised by DAT AB, Renkus-Heinz’s Swedish distributor. DAT installed the new Renkus-Heinz ST7/94 (90 x 40 degree dispersion) loudspeaker and a series of distributed nearfield speakers in the church, to minimize the effects of a long reverb time while projecting vocal and musical clarity throughout the building.

Faced with a limited budget and the requirement for a compact, simple, but state-of-the-art sound system, DAT measured the reverberation time at almost 4.5 seconds and created an EASE model of

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Cadac Electronics Plc reports that its J-Type Live Production Console features on three of the current Mamma Mia! productions. September saw the show's debut in Sydney at the Lyric Theatre, Star City, underlining the Australian's continuing enthusiasm for the sunny musical. In November, the first ever non-English language production premièred in Hamburg - at the refurbished Operettenhaus an der Reeperbahn. The Umi Theatre in Tokyo completes the picture for 2002, where Mamma Mia! opened on 1st December.

For this latter, Mamma Mia! is being staged by the Shiki Theatre Company at this brand new 1200-seat theatre, which is located in the new Bayside Tokyo Shiodome SIO-SITE complex. The show is the latest in a long line of large-scale musical productions under the Shiki banner, including Phantom of the Opera, CATS and The Lion King. The Shiki team was responsible for the design of the Umi

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Urbium plc notched up their 26th venue this month with the opening of the expansive Tiger Tiger in Newcastle. In keeping with their policy, the venue forms part of a new £70m leisure and retail development called The Gate at the top of Newcastle’s Bigg Market drinking circuit, in the shadow of the former Mayfair Ballroom.

To maximize an ideal location, Urbium brought back interior designers Tibbatts & Co to deliver this 1800-capacity multi-bar concept. With a large ground floor Tiger Bar, Moroccan-themed Kaz Bar, Manhattan-style Loft, colonial-style Raffles Bar and the retro feel of The Den, as well as a clever tunnel which acts as a bass trap into the industrially-appointed club, the venue caters to all tastes. There is also further evidence of the company’s move towards fine dining with the stylish, silver service restaurant. Yet where Newcastle has become truly groundbr

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Could LDI capitalize on the renewed focus on business demonstrated at PLASA just a few weeks earlier?Ruth Rossington headed to Vegas to find out.

With PLASA providing a much needed fillip to the business, the question everyone wanted answering about LDI was whether it could pick up the baton and continue where PLASA left off. Well the jury’s marginally out on that one - certainly, the first day got off to a blistering start, but there were definitely times when things felt quiet on the show floor. That said, all the exhibitors I spoke to reported good levels of business and that’s the only yardstick a trade show should be measured by.

Much of the product on display had already made its presence felt at PLASA, but there were some real innovations and some noticeable trends. The undiminished homage to all things LED continues, to the point where Ellen Lampert-Greaux, part o

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St. John's Church in the Lebanese city of Achkout, 15 kilometres north of Beirut, has recently had a brand new sound system installed. With seating for 750 and a maximum capacity of 1,000, St. John's is one of the largest Christian churches in the area.

Installer Tony Abou-Khair outlines the brief: "In terms of speech intelligibility, the old system was not capable of doing justice to the demands of today. As an ever-increasing number of people have been frequenting the services, the sound system had to be expanded. The budget was tight so the loudspeaker cabinets we chose had to be capable of producing a balanced sound with excellent speech intelligibility, even without any type of external controller. As a result, we opted for the HK Audio Linear 3 Series. The acoustics in the front portion of the church are problematic because of a potentially unpleasant build-up of mid to hig

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L&SI’s series of industry networking events got off to a flying start on 10 October when 58 delegates joined the PLASA Media team and the technical production crew at the London Palladium for a backstage tour of the world’s most technically-advanced musical production, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

After a welcome drink in the Palladium’s Cinderella Bar, delegates were welcomed to the theatre by L&SI editor Ruth Rossington, before being given a fascinating potted history of the site and the venue by theatre manager Nick Bromley. Following this, the delegates were split into groups to begin the behind the scenes tour, which took in the automation control position, the lighting control room, the lighting rig, FOH sound desk, the under-stage engineering and the radio racks, plus a chance to view the amazing car itself, built by Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd. At each point, deleg

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Birmingham's SSE Hire has recently completed the first sale of a Nexo GEO loudspeaker system by a member of the UK GEO reseller network. Supplied as a complete package to Litton Lane, the system includes speaker enclosures, amps, processors, flying hardware and flightcases. As an existing Nexo Alpha user the addition of GEO to Litton Lane's hire stock was a natural progression for the Dublin-based company.

The system supplied by SSE included 18 GEO-S cabinets, four CD12 cardioid subs, two Nexo NX241 digital controllers, four Camco Vortex 6 amplifiers and flying hardware to suit. To complete the package, SSE also supplied its custom GEO cases, capable of holding seven GEO-S cabinets and all flying hardware in a ready-to-fly configuration. Also included were SSE GEO distribution boxes providing AC, signal and speaker distribution for the shock-mounted SSE Cube racks housing the Camco a

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CMT - laser, projection and live event technology specialists - brought together a unique team to create a son et lumière spectacular at Millennium Mills, the derelict hulk of the former Spillers flour mill at Royal Victoria Docks, East London. The event may have been a world first, as a result of its use of a wireless LAN link to control all the various technologies involved.

CMT was approached by event organizers Mask Event Design & Productions to supply the design and technical infrastructure for an impressive opening show to kick-start the four-day World Travel Market exhibition running at ExCel - sited across the River Thames from the Mills. CMT’s Gino and Ram Malocca and Tim Fothergill jumped at the opportunity to stage the event, which had many technical and logistical challenges, and also included unorthodox live elements such as speedboats and helicopters.

For lightin

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PLASA has now launched its online training database. The searchable facility has been six months in development and offers visitors to the site information and course details covering training options specific to the production industry.

To simplify the search options, the database has been divided into two key sections - short training programmes and educational courses. The first section guides users through a range of short courses which are either industry-specific (often delivered by manufacturers, suppliers, hire and installation companies, some of whom are PLASA members) and business-related courses. Between them they cover such areas as Management Development, Business Development, Information Technology, Health and Safety and Technical Courses.

The Education section is dedicated to full-time academic courses and covers Theatre, Audio, TV/Radio, Lighting, Lasers and EMC Testi

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You have until 12 January to visit the most exciting event in theatre design for years, the 2D>3D show at Sheffield’s Millennium Galleries. If you can, you should allow a whole day for your visit - I could have used a week to roam the tightly packed exhibition space, reading every label, browsing every sketchbook and scanning every storyboard in this fascinating display.

More than 150 set, costume and lighting designers, plus a distinguished band of theatre architects, are showing some of their best work produced over the last three years. Organizers Peter Ruthven Hall and Kate Burnett have prepared an excellent catalogue of the show (available from SBTD at £18), replete with sumptuous colour illustrations, but the very 2D nature of the book explains why you should, if at all possible, see the real 3D thing: the catalogue has a careful sketch from Nancy Surman of her costumes fo

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Australia’s Gold Coast is home to the Movie World theme park - the brainchild of Warner Bros, and the only theme park in the southern hemisphere dedicated to the film industry.

Given the renewed interest in all things Scooby Doo, the park has launched a new dark ride - the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster - a $13 million indoor rollercoaster inspired by the feature film which was shot at Warner’s Movie World Studios.

Coaster cars carefully replicated from the film launch visitors on a hair-raising journey, complete with laser, lighting and sound effects, animatronics and a kaleidoscope of colour, depth, height and trickery of dimension.

One of the central players in the ride’s design was Australian laser specialist Laservision Macro-Media. The installation required a complete reversal of laser display rules: whilst discreet laser effects have previously been employed

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A special event at BBC TV Centre in Wood Lane, West London, on December 6 saw a unique demonstration of LED screen technology to an invited audience of television lighting directors.

The Society of Television Lighting Directors (STLD), Blitz Television Services of Elstree, UK, and LED screen manufacturer Lighthouse joined forces to demonstrate the newly installed Lighthouse LVP0630 screen on the BBC children’s television show The Saturday Show, which includes a special Saturday edition of Top of the Pops.

Presented by Lighthouse International sales and marketing director Graham Burgess and Saturday Show LD Rod Litherland, with Guy Horrigan, Dave Gunn and Blitz’s Scott Burges also on hand, the presentation aimed to explain the characteristics of LED technology and explore its creative possibilities. Topics covered included colour balance, contrast, camera angles, viewing d

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Known as much for his elaborate outdoor shows as his music, Jean Michel Jarre recently added to his reputation for groundbreaking outdoor performances with an extraordinary show in northern Denmark.

On 7 September, he held an out-of-the-ordinary event at Gammel Vrå Enge windmill park near the Aalborg in Denmark. Titled ‘Aero’, the show’s central theme was ‘energy and environment’ and bizarrely, the wind played the lead part, not only as energy, but also as a carrier of sounds, images and messages.

The concert consisted of 16 Jean Michel Jarre numbers, both classics and new material, with a scenography that was radically different from his previous concerts. The show featured a number of visual treats such as the windmills ablaze in light, and pyro exploding in sync with the music. Lighting designer Lars Nissen (Eurovision 2001), of lighting rental compa

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Swedish Radio (SR) has announced that it will begin 'extensive bench testing', utilizing DTS’ Coherent Acoustics compression/decompression algorithm, aimed at providing live surround sound radio broadcasting.

While SR is examining all potential surround sound platforms, research has established a popular demand for the higher quality signal of DTS Digital Surround. A download on the company’s website (see link below) offering material in the alternative formats has been on-line since June and of the 300,000 downloads of this material, approximately 70% have been of the DTS encoded version.

SR has formed a 5.1 working group which has been allocated funds for the production of more 5.1 programming and has established contacts with potential distributors among satellite, terrestrial, cable and broadband-based transmission companies. DTS’ Coherent Acoustics compression/

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Our photo shows industry consultant Peter Ed, part-way through his three-day journey to scale Mount Toubkal, the highest peak in North Africa, located in the Atlas Mountain Range. Peter and his wife Lynne undertook the trek (which involved mules, freezing temperatures, cascading boulders, 6am starts and vertigo) to raise 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.

Anyone who’d like to add to the money that’s already been raised, can contact Peter on p.ed@btclick.com or 07887 713 215.

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Marquee Audio has supplied a Soundcraft MH4 audio mixing console to Tour Tech, which immediately went out with Idlewild, initially to support Coldplay on their European tour. "Idlewild was the perfect opportunity for Tour Tech to confirm the purchase of the MH4, which Dick Rabell had been considering for some time," said Glen Smith of Marquee.

In a separate sale, ML Executives have purchased two Yamaha DM2000 digital mixing desks from Marquee Audio, which are currently in China with The Planets. The DM2000s were first specified for front-of-house and monitor mixing of The Planets' European shows supporting Deep Purple. "As the opening act, we needed consoles that were compact," explained Gary Marks of ML Executives. "The whole band uses in-ear monitoring and all their instruments are on radio systems so the mix is quite intricate. We were looking for a digital

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Imagination has created a new space for young people to learn about technology at the science centre, @Bristol. The Orange Imaginarium is aimed at 4-16 year olds and seeks to explain wirefree technology (developed by @Bristol sponsor Orange) from a child’s point of view.

The Imagination team, led by designer Caroline Wilson and lighting consultant Tony Rimmer, worked in collaboration with researchers and futurologists from Orange to create the interactive learning environment. The experience begins with a series of animated stories, linking everyday needs to technology. Three more zones follow a pattern of ‘Search and Find’, letting visitors experience and be creative with technology. The space is built around three key technologies - voice activation/recognition, personalized information and Orange Home services. In ‘Tell Me A Joke’, voice recognition sof

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