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UK - Salt Lake City based, ClearOne Communications Inc (formerly Gentner) has recently re-structured its pan-European distributor network and awarded beyerdynamic GB as a distributor of its highly sophisticated range of telephone and video conferencing products in the UK and Eire.

With this change of distribution ClearOne, formally known as Gentner Communications signals the organisation’s determination to grow market share beyond traditional telephone conferencing into mainstream high specification integrated conferencing solutions.

Commenting on the company’s appointment, which is effective from 1 April 2003, beyerdynamic’s managing director John Midgley, explained: "We are delighted to have been appointed as one of ClearOne’s UK distributors. Thei

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UK / Russia - As members of the Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA) will be aware, PLASA has been approached by IIR Exhibitions to work on a project that will see the launch of a trade show in Moscow, Russia in April 2004. In order to assess interest in the project, PLASA and IIR Exhibitions are staging an Open Day on Wednesday 21 May at One Whitehall Place, London SW1.

The Open Day will include presentations from a number of key speakers including representatives from PLASA, the DTI and IIR Exhibitions. The presentations will focus specifically on doing business in Russia, emphasizing changes in the business culture, the types of assistance that can be accessed, the pitfalls to avoid and the opportunities available. The event will be a half-day session starting at 11.00am and concluding at 1.15pm with a buffet lunch to follow.

All interested parties are invit

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Denmark - Martin Professional’s Pio Nahum, a major player in Martin’s rise to the top of the intelligent lighting industry, who for the past seven years has held the responsibility of international marketing director for Martin Professional A/S, has decided to return permanently to Italy to be closer to his family and to concentrate on Martin’s business in the Italian market.

The opportunity to return to his home country arose from the fact that for the past two years Nahum has effectively managed the dual responsibilities of group marketing director at Martin Professional A/S with that of managing director of Martin Professional Italy SpA. Nahum’s contribution also included five years of service as Martin’s international sales director as well as a stint as acting CEO of Martin UK.

Nahum commented: "After spending so many years working abroa

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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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UK - Craig David played two nights at the Royal Albert Hall this month, performing a dynamic set through a Meyer line array system. Canegreen’s Pete Hughes designed the system installed into the RAH, working with Craig David’s front-of-house engineer ‘Snake’ Newton. Flown in two central clusters above the stage were 16 M3Ds, 12 M2Ds and 12 MSL4s, with two pairs of MSL2s with 650 subs flown wide. Pairs of MSL2s and UPAs provided front-fills with a pair of 650 subs under the stage completing the rig that filled every niche and cranny of the hall.

"The coverage in the venue was great," said Newton. "Pete came up with the plans and then once installed he covered the whole venue with his laptop, making fine tweaks to the angles of the cabs to ensure there were no deadspots. This Meyer Line Array gave us great sound throughout and thanks to Pete

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Europe / N. America - Following on from his highly successful tour of North America in 2002, Peter Gabriel has taken ‘Growing Up’ out on the road again. Featuring hits from his latest album ‘Up’ Gabriel is currently touring Europe and is due to revisit North America in early June. Having provided rental equipment for the ‘Growing Up’ tour first time round, Stage Technologies were delighted to be involved again in automating director/designer Robert Le Page’s spectacular production.

Engineering specialists Stage Technologies are no stranger to enhancing high profile music tours with automation solutions having worked with artists such as Janet Jackson on her ‘All for You’ tour in America and Westlife’s ‘World of our own’ UK tour.

The elaborate centre stage production incorporates a similar design to the 200

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Spain - General Motors Europe recently launched their new Opel/Vauxhall Mervia and Signum vehicles at the City of Art and Sciences (CAC) in Valencia. The event was designed by Martin Sutherland and produced by award-winning company Pci:Live. Stage One Creative Services was contracted to build the sets for this prestigious event.

The three-day event format ran for over three weeks, during which invited delegates were treated to a variety of experiences with the new cars being central to the presentation throughout. "Essentially," said Stage One’s Simon Wood, "the first day consisted of three distinct areas where delegates were treated to different aspects of the vehicles and entertained along the way."

The first of these was the Plenary area, where the company’s logo was displayed on the back wall behind a stage area with two lectern positions, a

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UK - Live video specialist XL Video is working closely with Production North, the Yorkshire-based production company headed by Steve Levitt and Iain Whitehead. Three of the most spectacular pop tours of the year so far benefited from this winning combination - Westlife, Ronan Keating and Fame Academy - all with one common element: high production values.

Video has been crucial to all these tours - emphasising the seminal role of the medium in the genre of live pop. With a largely young audience, moving images and camera relay are vital ingredients. Live show IMAG ensures that everyone has a good view of the artists, and on the creative front, video adds a dramatic and effective visual dimension to any show.

Westlife’s action packed, up tempo ‘Unbreakable’ tour is produced by Will Baker and Alan Macdonald, who conceived the eye-catching video visuals, based on

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Australia - LSC Lighting Systems have launched a web-based discussion forum for the range of maXim lighting consoles and a totally revamped Resource CD. The maXim Discussion Web was created and launched in response to the continuing need for open interaction between owner/operators of the maXim control desks and LSC distributors, technical support and design staff. The forum covers various topics such as software and hardware issues and feature wish lists. It provides a great on-line opportunity for direct communication with essential people within the LSC organisation and other users of the maXim. The forum is also an ideal avenue for interested purchasers to seek independent opinion on the worthwhile benefits the maXim provides.

The LSC Resource CD provides a comprehensive information source on all products currently manufactured by LSC. Operator manuals, brochures, line drawi

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UK - We've had the jungle, the house and the academy, so it was only a matter of time until a reality TV show was set in a nightclub: Carlton TV's ‘The Club’, broadcast recently on ITV, was set in one of London's funkiest watering holes - Nylon - and starred Samantha Fox, Dean Gaffney and Richard Blackwood. The retro-themed two-floored bar in the City of London proved to be a challenging seven-week lighting and rigging project for Elstree Light & Power. Crew chief Mark Gardener explains: "Basically we had to rig, cable and light a fully functioning nightclub that was open to the public. Nylon regularly packs in over 500 revellers so you can imagine the potential for chaos. Not only was health and safety a huge concern but we had to make sure that hundreds of meters of cable were hidden from camera view."

ELP fixed over 150 lights including assorted Arri fre

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Germany - Dortmund recently hosted the thirteenth edition of Mayday, one of Europe's leading indoor Techno dance events. Over 20,000 people took part in the party, which began on 30 April 2003 and ran through until 10 o’clock the next morning. Area 3, also known as the ‘VIVA Floor’ (after the famous German TV music channel), had an Outline sound system consisting of 16 Tripla II 5040 and 24 Topsub Plus subwoofers, plus four H.A.R.D. 212 ultra-low profile monitors on stage. Two Bomber enclosures were used as DJ monitors and the entire set-up was powered by Series T digital power amps and controlled by Genius 6 processors. The rig’s install was organized by Outline’s German distributor, Stramp (Audio-Vertrieb Peter Strüven GmbH).

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - d&b audiotechnik has announced the dates for its latest series of Sound System Design seminars in the Cotswolds. These seminars feature the ‘show and tell’ approach, rather than ‘chalk and talk’, and are hosted by the experienced presenter John Taylor who has his own distinctive style of communicating his message.

Most sound engineers have a good knowledge of the electronic signal path, but are less sure of the acoustic signal path between the loudspeaker and the listener's ears. It is this part of the signal chain that the d&b seminars address. The main emphasis is on intelligibility and John believes that the sound quality should be excellent for every listener in the house. The seminars exist solely for that purpose, offering comprehensive electroacoustics with all the physics you'll need thrown in! The style is friendly and the demonstrations mem

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Czech Republic - Moving light manufacturer Robe Show Lighting has launched two new products: the DMX Control 480 and the ColorMix 240 AT. The DMX Control 480 is the latest Robe controller, designed for fast and simple control in a wide range of applications and can control up to 20 fixtures with a maximum of 24 DMX channels each.

The onboard architecture features 750 Scenes, 255 Programs each with 50 Scenes and 100 Records with 50 Program combinations, offering the flexibility to create and play back shows. Each programme’s timing function enables precise control and synchronization with music and sound effects. Robe fixtures can be remotely configured via the DMX 480 as well as controlled and programmed.

A 32MB multimedia card is supplied with the console, allowing data to be safely stored and shared between controllers. The RS232 interface offers further options on cr

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UK - When a seriously professional company like Edwin Shirley Staging needs to get advice on heavy duty label and identification, they called in Le Mark. An interesting meeting between Kevin Wollage of ESS and Linda Gibbons of Le Mark earlier this year led to the request: "Not only do we need labels for road cases - we need labels for our trailers!"

As it had to be visible and remain usable in all conditions, this product needed to be something special, so Le Mark produced a re-designed and uprated version of their renowned PAL Label product - this time with a double-layed background that allowed the PAL Plate to be riveted directly to the ESS trailer units!

Linda Gibbons - Le Mark sales director said: "It was an exceptionally unusual application that showed ESS had total commitment to their clients. The new marking system allows the driver to be 100% certain of

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UK - Highfield Church in Southampton has installed Allen & Heath's recently-released iDR system to manage its live sound reinforcement. The system has enabled the church to establish automated sound settings for the many and varied events that take place in the building.

iDR is a Digital Signal Processing (DSP) audio system for fixed installation into any type of venue. It comprises a range of hardware units, wall plates and remote controllers which build into integrated systems, all set up using iDR System Manager software. Control parameters are saved to patches, which may then be recalled by the operator using front panel keys, remote wall plates or virtual wall plates using PL Designer software.

Highfield Church's original installation was constructed around a DR66, which provided the core signal routing, room EQ and delay processing. The Church tailored its new system to

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UK - The award winning TV duo Ant & Dec arrived back on our screens recently with their live fun-filled prime time show Saturday Night Takeaway. With the same set as last year, lighting designer Tom Kinane was keen to create a very different look with his chosen lighting rig, which consisted of 12 Clay Paky Stage Zoom 1200s, 12 Vari-Lite VL2416s, 32 Martin Pro MAC 500s and six MAC 600s, all supplied by Richard Martin Lighting.

Working closely with the moving light operator Svend Pedersen, Tom comments on his choice of lighting: "The Stage Zoom 1200s are always a trusty lamp to use. The gobos dressed the set, which worked out great for the music numbers. The VL2416s were positioned to wash the set from behind, with the intention of punching colour into the twin wall, which is notoriously hard to light! I chose the MAC 500s because they are good ‘workhorse’ lamps

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USA - Seventeen leading professional audio manufacturers have signed on to become Charter Members of the Professional Audio Manufacturers Alliance (PAMA), according to PAMA executive director Paul Gallo, who has called the alliance’s first membership initiative "a complete success".

"PAMA has received a very strong vote of confidence from a number of leading companies who have agreed to become Charter Members of this vitally important alliance," said Gallo. "These companies will form the nucleus that will chart the future course of the professional audio industry."

PAMA’s Charter Members include AKG Acoustics, Altec-Lansing, Audio Technica, Calpine, DigiCo, Dolby Labs, Group One, Harman Pro Group, Klotz Digital, Meyer Sound, Neutrik, Sennheiser, Shure, Sony, Tascam, Telex and Yamaha. Other companies have indicated their intent to join

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UK - In an atmosphere of razzmatazz and glitz, Ulrika Johnsson christened P&O's newest cruise liner, Ocean Village, at a high profile, show-biz event on board the ship at Southampton on 28 April. As a completely new brand, the declared mission of Ocean Village is to rip up the traditional cruising rule book, introducing a casual cruising concept and a sense of fun, which is why the naming ceremony ditched the stereotypical black tie event in favour of a dress-to-party atmosphere.

Among the celebrities on board - who included Top Gear's Louise Brady, Coronation Street's Tracie Bennett and Casualty's Sarah Manners - was Alan Thomson, managing director of Fourth Phase London. Working for Unusual Services, Fourth Phase supplied lighting design, equipment and crew for a 25-minute dance show, which took place on the covered swimming pool on board the 63,524-ton liner. Lighting designe

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UK - Drapes and rigging specialist Blackout recently worked for London-based production house Pci:Live to help realize the stage set for a national press conference announcing a one-year sponsorship deal between GlaxoSmithKline and the BMW Williams F1 team. Staged at London’s Riverside Studios, it’s the first time Formula One has turned to the nicotine patch to help motor sports kick it’s £225 million a year tobacco habit!

The pharmaceutical giant’s NiQuitin brand will be displayed on the front and sides of their cars as well as on the sleeves of their drivers, Ralf Schumacher and Juan Pablo Montoya. The new livery was on display at the recent San Marino Grand Prix in Imola - and the estimated value of the sponsorship is £9 million a year.

Blackout’s Chris Brain collaborated with PCI’s Richard Jarman to achieve a stunning effect in a tight

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UK - XTA’s latest C2 digital compressor was at the heart of front-of-house engineer Chris Pyne’s PA system for the first ever tour by 2003 BRIT Award winners Liberty X. The vocal five-piece, signed to Richard Branson’s V2 label after their appearances on ITV’s PopstarsTV series, played a six-week sold-out tour of UK theatres which finished at the end of March, with Australian engineer Chris Pyne at the controls for the band’s début concert performances. The gigs were deemed so successful that a UK arena tour has been scheduled for February 2004. In a unique twist, the tour culminated in a headline appearance at a gala dinner for the Sony group at their Brooklands, Surrey HQ, with a full-scale recreation of the tour production.

Capital Sound provided the sound production for the tour and full event production for the Sony show. For the latter, the M

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UK - Enlightenment has recently completed a further installation of ADB Eurorack 60 digital dimmers at the Coliseum Theatre in Oldham, Lancashire. The installation comprises of 192 3kW and 24 ways of 5kW all-digital dimmers, a comprehensive DMX Network and outlet facility panels. The production lighting is controlled by an ADB Phoenix 5 control desk, previously supplied by Enlightenment, with the remainder of the lighting systems (house lights, working lights and independents) being controlled by two ADB Netbuses.

In addition to providing control of the generic lighting the ADB Netbuses also provide real-time fault reporting, remote programming and system wide control of the entire dimmer installation. All dimmer functions including the recording and playback of 20 memories, patch, dimmer testing, and dimmer curve settings, etc, can all be accessed via the ADB Netbus.

The ADB

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USA - The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) has accepted a permanent seat on ESTA’s new Certification Council - the governing body which will manage the development and implementation of a new industry-wide certification program for entertainment technology technicians. The key areas of electrical skills and rigging skills have been identified for initial development in the ESTA Personnel Certification Program.

IATSE president Thomas C. Short has appointed Anthony DePaulo, eleventh vice-president of the General Executive Board and Business Agent of Local 1, and Brian Lawlor, co-director of the Stagecraft Division as their representatives to the Council. "Both Mr. DePaulo and Mr. Lawlor have first-hand experience and knowledge of those skills that will be certified in this program. Knowing that the IA will have a guiding impact on this certif

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