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Germany - Millions of viewers witnessed comedy talent Ingo Oschmann say, during Pro 7's talent show 'Star Search': "If I win, I'm inviting all Bielefeld to a party." He won and he kept his word. On 19 October, in front of the Bielefeld's fashionable Movie discotheque, a huge party got underway beneath a banner that read 'Ingo says thanks!' Despite the popularity of the show, the organizers were still surprised when more than 10,000 fans streamed to the city centre and turned the forecourt of the railway station into a huge open-air arena.

Local sound company, Showtime Präsentations GmbH, were prepared, fortunately, with two Dynacord Cobra-4 systems, although the stage design meant they could only use one-and-a-half. But as Showtime's managing director, Volker Skopp, exp

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Barbados - Crop Over, a five-week summer festival, is Barbados' most popular and colorful festival. It's origins can be traced back to the 1780's, a time when Barbados was the world's largest producer of sugar. At the end of the sugar season, there was always a huge celebration to mark the culmination of another successful sugar cane harvest - the Crop Over celebration.

As the sugar industry in Barbados declined, so too did the Crop Over festival and in the 1940's the festival was terminated completely. However, the festival was revived in 1974 and other elements of Barbadian culture were infused to make the extravaganza that exists today - an event that attracts thousands of people from across the globe.

Quality Sound was on hand to provide sound reinforcement for the numerous events held at the National Stadium including the Pic-O-De-Crop Calypso Finals and the Cohobblopot

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UK - Facing a 12-minute ballet performance on the cold marble floor in front of the altar of St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden, André de Villiers, Choreographer at Elmhurst School for Dance called on British Harlequin for help. Elmhurst's Christian connections with the 'Actors' Church' in Covent Garden resulted in an invitation to perform during the Patronal Festival Eucharist in November. Because of the space afforded by the high vaulted ceiling, André's choreography included elevation, so the need to provide a suitable dance floor was crucial.

The answer was in the form of Harlequin Allegro, a loose lay dance floor designed specifically to protect against hard sub floors. The thickest roll out dance floor currently available anywhere, Allegro comprises a vinyl surface reinforced with a tough fibre interply and backed with firm foam cushioning for resilience, providing a nine

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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 - The newly re-launched Carling Apollo Hammersmith celebrated its re-opening at the end of October with a one-off special concert by veteran rockers AC/DC - powered by Concert Sound, an EAW PA system and XTA loudspeaker control.

For one night only, on Tuesday 21 October, Carling brought Angus Young, Malcolm Young, Brian Johnson, Phil Rudd and Cliff Williams to London's landmark live venue to thrill a gathering of their most dedicated fans with a live show. The seats were also removed from the venue for the first time in its history, making it the biggest dedicated live music venue in London.

Front-of-house engineer Paul 'Pab' Boothroyd was at the controls of a Midas XL4, while long-time mix partner John Roden mixed monitors. Boothroyd opted for Concert Sound's new EAW KF760 line array system, flown as an impressive 14-a-side rig, "so I could maximize the power and cove

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UK - i-Vision has designed, manufactured, supplied and installed a major LED lighting installation for the £1.2m revamped Kings Walk Shopping Centre in Gloucester. The LED fixtures illuminate a series of fabric 'sculptures' - manufactured by tensile structure specialists Architen Landrell.

i-Vision's Geoff Jones worked closely with account and project managers Christopher Rowell and Ceri Brown from Architen Landrell. No off-the-shelf product existed that exactly met the brief; LED lighting was the obvious route because of the size, energy efficiency and low maintenance benefits. Rowell commented: "I've worked with I-Vision before, so I knew they were the ideal creative and technical partners for us, we needed a company that could think laterally and imaginatively deal with the entire lighting project, from start to finish".

The entrance features a 5m by 6m barrelled

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UK - Oxford-based Beat Audio has re-equipped with a brand new Funktion One Resolution Series PA system. The first outing for the new kit was at the fast car magazine Max Power's 'Max Live' performance car and lifestyle event staged at the ExCel Centre in London's Docklands. Beat Audio was contracted by event producers the PMI partnership to supply a sound system for the show's 200,000sq.ft stunt arena, the Cruise Strip.

The 35 minute show was hosted by Jo Guest, Mark Parmeter and Olivia Springer, featured live sounds from up-and-coming Fuel Records DJs The Law Givers and the best of UK stunt driving from the likes of Terry Grant, Russ and Paul Swift and Jason Finn. The show was attended by 17,500 people a day, and directed and produced by Simon Aldridge for PMI Partnership.

It's the fifth year Beat Audio has supplied sound for the event. The intense Cruise Strip live show ran

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UK - Out Board's CM-Series motor controllers for CM chain hoists have been purchased for a couple of high profile video and PA rigging jobs in late 2003. ML Executives has purchased a pair of CM6 six-channel controllers and HC6 remotes to manage two hangs per side of EAW KF760 line array systems for the current Iron Maiden Dance of Death world tour, whose itinerary ranges from theatres to arena-size venues. ML's Gary Marks needed to handle two points per hang plus a common pull-back point on each side of stage, and found the CM6 offered the best flexibility and control for the diversity of venues the tour is scheduled to visit.

Star Rigging has also acquired two more of the compact CM12 12-channel controllers for rigging duties on a recent video shoot for Christina Aguilera. Star's Phil Broad once again chose the CM12 for the convenience of its compact size, adding to pre

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UK - Shure Distribution UK has announced that Ken Morrison has joined the company as a regional sales manager. Ken will be responsible for Scotland, Northern Ireland plus the far North of England and will represent each of the brands distributed by Shure Distribution UK. Having worked within the music industry since 1985, Morrison brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the company and was most recently employed for three and a half years by Arbiter Pro Audio as the company's AKG installed sound manager. Prior to that, Beyerdynamic employed Morrison for seven years as their northern area sales manager.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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UK - Eat to the Beat catered for the crew and artists at the Capital Christmas Live event at Earls Court this month. Amidst one of Eat to the Beat's busiest months this year, catering for over 150 shows through December, from tours to one-off events, the prestigious Capital Christmas Live was the largest single music event. On the day of the event, Eat to the Beat catered for 250 people and served the artist's dressing rooms, catering to specific requests for the likes of Sugababes, Busted, Texas, Sting and Enrique Iglesias.

The Eat to the Beat team arrived on site on 2 December, two days prior to the show, led by crew leader Rachael Collins and head chef Suzie Collins. The team provided three meals on each of the three days, with constant refreshments available all day for the crew on site. The artists were provided with a rolling buffet of hot and cold options when arriving at

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UK - Martin Professional's Mania DC1 is the first effect in the company's series of Mania DJ lights. Ideal for shows, clubs or simply your own personal party, it projects decorative fluid lighting effects. The unit has three selectable colours plus white, as well as split colour options; a variable focus also allows you to frost and blur the projected image while a variable speed of effect gives the option of ranging moods - from a silent trickle to a surging waterfall. Unlike most lighting fixtures on the market the DC1 has no duty cycle, which means there are no cool-down periods.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Natasha Smith has recently been appointed as manager of Steljes Hire's Loan Pool. The 'Loan Pool', a recent addition to the Steljes Hire Channel Support Services, was launched in September to provide resellers with a direct source of demonstration products. Smith has worked for Steljes Trade for over seven years and has been working in the hire division since 1997. Eddie Bance, director of Steljes Hire commented: "With over seven years of experience at Steljes, Natasha has extensive industry knowledge and will ensure reseller's loan requirements are efficiently and perfectly matched."

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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UK/Europe - Lighting designer Steve Finch is the first person to tour a PixelDrive control system, which is controlling 14 James Thomas Pixelline 1044 battens on Level 42's current UK and European tour. Finch is using two pods of Pixellines with seven units per pod - dubbed the 'PixelPods' - as the main effects light features of his design. These are hung prominently on the back truss and angled backwards.

All lighting equipment is being supplied by High Wycombe based Siyan, who bought a large quantity of Pixelline this autumn from Lightfactor Sales, and already own eight RADlite digital media servers. PixelDrive is collaboration between James Thomas Engineering's Pixel department and RADlIte developers IRAD. Finch immediately liked the Pixellines after his first demo in the late summer, which happened simultaneous to PixelDrive coming on-stream. As soon as he had the chance to

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UK - Trantec has supplied its innovative PT1 UHF stereo wireless Personal Trainer system to Sony UK's new Basingstoke HQ. Installed by Manchester-based Unique Systems, Trantec's Active Audio PT1 system has provided a "complete" fitness entertainment solution for the company's in-house gym facility, now a versatile, multi-functional space.

Unique Systems' project manager, Alan Vickery, collaborated with Sony to design a sophisticated system enabling the confined space to be utilized as two distinct areas - one for fitness machines and the second for aerobic workout classes. Whilst the Trantec PT1 system offers cable-free personalized entertainment, it also allows the in-house gym to remain a discrete facility - where both fitness areas operate independently without any audible background music or visible loudspeakers.

In the fitness zone, the PT1 offers full entertain

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California-based distributor ACT Lighting hosted MA Lighting, Zero 88 and Artistic Licence: first up, MA showed the latest addition to the grandMA family - the entry-level grandMA micro. This tiny version carries nearly all the power of the regular grandMA, with 1,024 DMX channels, 10 fader playbacks, 20 button playbacks and support for the Pocket PC remote; it's also compatible with DMX over Ethernet and the grandMA 3D visualization software. Other products included the Network Signal Processor (NSP) which allows you to up your DMX channels to 64 universes, should you so require.

Zero 88 showed its Illusion 500 console, which combines the functionality of the successful Frog range with the power of a theatrical tracking console. The 512-channel desk can control up to 24 moving lights and offers 108 sub-masters, allowing freedom for 'on the fly' changes. Zero also showed the Frog Scre

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Lycian showed its new Midget II followspots, available in two versions - a 350W arc and a 575W halogen. These, as the name indicates, are compact, lightweight followspots aimed particularly at clubs, schools, small theatres and places of worship, as well as for TV and film use. The Midget II models include a new dichroic glass reflector, a six-colour boomerang, a new cam-operated brake, fader, Nichrome iris, gobo slot and, importantly, a fast, tool-free lamp change.

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Avo' showed the new D4 Desktop system, providing all the functionality of the D4 consoles by connecting a DMX output from to the PC Simulator and Off Line Editor program, together with the optional Pilot, a plug-in hardware surface. The system is designed for use on applications where physical space is at a premium, where the show is mostly automated or as a backup to a console.

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ShowCAD's Rowland Hughes was ensconced on the stand of Techni-Lux, the Florida-based lighting supplier, where ShowCAD Artist controlled all the stand's lighting, which included SGM's Giotto fixtures.

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Obviously doing something right, Apollo Design collected yet another ESTA Dealer Award at LDI this year - for the fifth consecutive time. On show was their SmartMove DMX gobo rotator: this can hold one or two B-size glass or metal gobos thanks to a reversible retaining ring, and is compatible with all the leading profile fixtures - Altman Shakespeare, ETC Source Four, Selecon Pacific and Strand SL. It's a quiet unit, with belt-driven operation, and offers an infinitely variable speed range from 0-21 RPM in either direction. The usefulness of the SmartMove has also increased significantly as Apollo has introduced 150 new standard gobo designs to its catalogue, which now offers in excess of 1,000.

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1) The way they begin every conversation with "Of course, you can do it for 5.00?"

2) Counting is not their strong point: a production manager's week bears absolutely no correlation whatever with a real week.

3) They are in your face on the fit-up, in the bar during the show and unavailable when you need to get paid.

4) They never look out of the window in the morning because then there would be nothing left for them to do in the afternoon.

5) On a fit-up, they believe that the centre of the universe shifts slightly with every important step they take.

6) They believe actors are props with dialogue, producers are props with clipboards and if we could all read minds, we wouldn't need headsets.

7) They have no comprehension of national holidays that fall on a Monday.

8) At home, their door mat is gaffered down so no one will trip over it; their furniture has wheels

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We've mentioned some of this year's award winners already: other winners included Hoffend, who picked up the Rigging award for the Vortek rigging system; Barco, who won the Projection award for the MiPix Modular Intelligent Pixelblock; Yamaha, who won the Sound award for the DM1000 digital production console; TentTec, who won the Lighting Accessory Award for the ML Bracket; and finally, Lex Products, who collected the Widget award for the E-String.

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USA - Chauvet's Orbiter RG is a three-channel, DMX-512 barrel laser with red and green 4.9mW laser diodes and laser sky effects. The barrel swivels 180° and rotates continuously clockwise and counterclockwise. The unit is capable of projecting a choice of four green effects, four red effects or six red and green effects. It features a surface-coated mirror to enhance luminosity and has sound-activated programs built-in, which are accessed automatically when the DMX signal is lost. The unit is linkable via Master/Slave, is programmable via any universal DMX-512 controller and cooled by an internal fan. It features a micro-step motor for smoother operation and a digital LCD display. Orbiter RG is an FDA-registered Class 3R laser.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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