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MARCH - Intellectual Property Seminar: 25 March, Victoria, London.

Free to members: This DTI-supported seminar will cover all the issues surrounding intellectual property including trade marks, patents, copyright and counterfeiting, as well as giving practical advice on the most effective way to protect your products and brand.

To register email norah@plasa.org

APRIL - Design Considerations for Buildings: 28 April, Interbuild, Birmingham.

This RIBA-supported seminar has been developed to provide architects, designers and installers with essential information when designing buildings for corporate or entertainment use.

To register email nicky@plasa.org

MAY - Human Resource Workshop: 18 May, Victoria, London.

Free to members: Clive Payne of CP Associates

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PLASA - through UK Trade & Investment - has secured government funding for UK exhibitors to CALM 2004, which takes place from 30 May-2 June at the China International Exhibition Centre, Beijing.

All eligible UK companies planning to exhibit at CALM can receive a grant for 50% of costs, up to a limit of £2,500. The grant covers expenditure on such areas as exhibition space, stand construction costs, freight and display materials. For further information, contact Norah Phillips on:

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Joining as Full members are Leeds-based Fibre Optic Systems (+44 113 263 0633), a manufacturer of fibre optics for the entertainment and leisure industries; Surrey-based George P. Johnson Company (+44 20 8614 3210), one of the world's largest event delivery and marketing agencies; Pro Light Concepts of Darwen (+44 0870 7503900), a distributor of sound, lighting and effects; Special EFX, based in Stratford-upon-Avon (+44 8700 664100), a specialist in the development of LED-based products for architectural lighting solutions.

Harman Pro UK of Potters Bar (+44 1707 668041), a distributor of pro audio equipment, has signed up as a Corporate member, Macostar Hong Kong (+852 2814 1881), a supplier and specialist contractor of design, supply and installation services, has joined as an International member and Install UK of Ludlow (+44 1584 711

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

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For the past three years, PLASA has been conducting a major research exercise into the key trends within the industry. The results have not only provided robust confirmation of what's happening in the market, but have also shed some light on the performance and spending habits of companies within the industry.

The report covers four key sectors - Lighting, Pro Audio, Staging and AV - giving members a better understanding of the main market sectors, and a statistical platform from which to support their business planning and applications for funding. The research has also proved a useful benchmarking tool, allowing members to compare, for instance, their own experiences with the trends in average revenue per employee and the percentage others are spending on marketing and R&D.

The fourth phase of the research is now about to begin and PLASA members will be contacted shortly with an

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Germany / Italy - German chain hoist manufacturer Chainmaster Bühnentechnik will again this year be presenting its products at the SIB exhibition in Rimini, Italy, in conjunction with its Italian distribution partner, Risam for Show srl of Cologno Monzese, as part of its continuing aim to develop contact with customers and others interested in its products.

This year, ChainMaster will be introducing its new-look catalogue at SIB, as well as demonstrating not only the highly successful BGV C1 chain hoists, VarioLifts and VarioTrolleys but also its latest software solutions for the control of stage equipment.

Chainmaster can be found at SIB on Booth 087, Hall A5.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Color Kinetics Inc has announced a string of signage installations for which its LED systems have provided a greater impact than conventionally illuminated signs. Most recently, CKI's ColorBlast units have illuminated the high-profile Washington Mutual beanstalk sign in Times Square - an 80ft tall, three-dimensional sign with a fibreglass exterior that shimmers in varying shades of green. "The visual impact . . . is extraordinary, and Color Kinetics' LED lighting technology played a significant role in bringing our vision to life," said Mike McGraw, director of spectacular development for Clear Channel Spectacolor, who designed the sign along with Washingon Mutual's advertising agency, Sedgwick Rd.

Color Kinetics reports that its LED lighting fixtures are widely used to enhance signage, storefronts, and facades of some of the USA's most recognizable brands, with

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Gambia - The New Covenant Worship Centre, part of Abiding Word Ministries (AWM) in Serrekunda, the Gambia, has undergone an upgrade of its audio equipment to meet increasing technical demands. Headed by Pastor Francis Forbes, a well-known national figure, the church is heavily involved in TV and radio broadcast and music production, beyond the capabilities of the existing sound system.

Tim Kemp, director of Hull, UK-based installers Euronis Ltd, was responsible for the specification and installation of the system. The PA was refurbished with Crown amplifiers, Peavey loudspeakers, Alesis outboard devices, Sennheiser mics and a 32-channel Allen & Heath GL2200 mixing console.

The GL2200/32 was chosen for its suitability as a multi-role mixer. Its main function is for live sound reinforcement during services and concerts where the audio requirements include wired and wireless mi

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USA - Vari-Lite has appointed Julie Smith to oversee its customer service and technical support departments, in order to keep pace with increasing levels of business. In addition to her customer service duties, Smith will also oversee re-organization of the company's internal and external technical training program. Smith reports directly to Genlyte Controls' general manager, Steve Carson.

"My main goal is to improve customer response time," Smith said. "In the live entertainment industry, end users can't afford to sit around waiting for answers. I also believe that if we strengthen our training program, we will increase the level of support we are able to provide through certified Vari-Lite technicians in the field."

Smith spent four years as business manager of Showco, followed by three years with VLPS and Vari-Lite prior to the acquisition of Vari-Lite b

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Germany - EVI has announced that Frauke Jungbluth took over the position of export manager, Western Europe, for Dynacord. Jungbluth's previous experience includes eight years as a sales manager with another company in the pro audio sector. She gained her first experience of audio in 1986, when she worked as a marketing assistant for Electro-Voice.

EVI also announces that Christian Gress is taking over additional responsibilities. Having taken on the position of sales manager for Midas Venice at the beginning of last year, he will now take on the role of export sales manager, Western Europe, for both Electro-Voice and Midas Venice.

Gress, who acquired his knowledge of the industry and its products as a sound engineer, has been a member of the EVI Audio team since mid 2001. Of his new role, he says: "I see in our current products enormous potential for Electro-Voice in ever

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USA - The United Nations building in New York City became one of the first venues in the US to use the recently launched Midas Verona 8-bus mixing console for its sound reinforcement needs in addition to the new ElectroVoice Plasma powered speaker line for main FOH stacks and delays. New York Audio Service was asked to provide sound reinforcement services for an all-star line-up of jazz legends including Herbie Hancock, Larry Coryell, Terri Lyne Carrington, Nestor Torres and Buster Williams, who performed a special concert for the 'Culture of Peace' benefit at the UN last month.

New York Audio Service founder David Gibson remarked: "The Midas Verona is extremely user-friendly and straightforward. I spent a day with it in the shop, and had no trouble at all in familiarising myself with the board. I actually ran the entire show off the matrix busses, and only used 16-17 of th

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USA / Canada - Linkin' Park's lighting designer, AJ Pen, is using 24 Robe Spot 1200s on the band's massive Meteora 2004 world tour, which is completely sold-out and currently working its way through the US and Canadian legs. Pen has worked with the band for the last 12 months, and they have toured constantly since then in various configurations in support of the Meteora album, which is triple platinum in the US alone.

Pen was introduced to Robe Show Lighting's array of moving lights and the great potential of the Robe Spot 1200 in particular, by Robe America's Randy Wade through Linkin Park's production manager, Jim Digby. This is the first time Pen has used Robe, and the powerful 1200 Spots are proving to be a great creative asset for the show. Six Spot 1200s are deployed on the upstage truss for beam effects, four are used as followspots, 10 are rigged on custom trussing and u

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USA - American DJ has introduced four revolutionary new laser DMX effects: the Tri Image, Tri Beam, Tri Star and Tri Fecta. Each model is capable of generating three different colours, as each includes two 4.9mW laser diodes, one red and one green, which when combined create a yellow beam.

These affordable units can be operated from any universal DMX controller, and can also be plugged in and left to run on their own using their many built-in programs or via a sound-activation mode. For an amplified overall effect, DJs can link multiple units together in master-slave configurations. Each of the new lasers has its own distinct feature set.

The Tri Image produces red, green and yellow effects all at the same time. All effects are created using a 4.9mW red laser diode, a 4.9mW green laser diode and a reflector mirror that rotates 360°. The Tri Image is programmed with 50 pre-s

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UK - The growth of the international marketplace, and a significant rise in digital communications, has made the protection and management of Intellectual Property an increasingly important issue for all those investing in design and development. To help PLASA members gain a broad understanding of Intellectual Property, and the related issue of brand protection, PLASA is running a FREE seminar in Central London on 25 March.

The day will set out to define Intellectual Property and offer advice on how members can protect their products and brands, with Professor James Woudhuysen, a respected lecturer and writer, talking about future trends in product design and innovation. Areas such as copyright, patents, trade marks, trade secrets and the protection of products abroad, particularly from counterfeiting, will also be covered. Members will also get to hear from Briffa - specialists

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UK - LXCO, in conjunction with DLD, created the lighting visuals for the prestigious Olivier Awards, which took place recently at London's Park Lane Hilton Hotel. The awards ceremony brought together some of today's greatest theatrical stars for a celebration of the year's productions. Clive Anderson, aided by the cast of The Rat Pack, presented the awards for the sixth consecutive year. Awards were presented to Eileen Atkins for Best Actress in Honour, Matthew Kelly for Best Actor in Of Mice and Men and Jerry Springer-The Opera for the Best New Musical. The Best Lighting Design Award went to Hugh Vanstone for Pacific Overtures and the inaugural Best Sound Design Award went to Mike Walker for Jerry Springer-The Opera.

LXCO and DLD were asked to create a lighting system based on the design already used for The Rat Pack production at the S

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Australia / Germany - This year, Australian manufacturer ARX Systems celebrates 21 years designing and manufacturing innovative pro audio products with the release of several new additions to their product ranges, which will be on show at Frankfurt's ProLight&Sound exhibition (31 March-3 April). ARX managing director Colin Park says the company is particularly excited about the release of the new Audiobox Series of precision tools for audio professionals.

The Audiobox Series offers a complete range of precision tools designed to perform essential professional audio functions in compact, flexible packages. Initial models being released are microphone pre-amps, three types of direct box/interface unit, a headphone amplifier, transformer splitter and isolation units, and a -10 / +4dB level adapter and balancer.

Also on show for the first time is the new Afterburner II Dual mode

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UK - Edirol Europe today released a new 4-channel video mixer/live switcher - the LVS-400, offering a professional solution for corporate and worship installations with live events using up to four video sources.

The LVS-400 offers four S-Video/Composite (BNC) inputs, MIDI I/O (V-Link), S-Video output and 2 composite (BNC) outputs - switchable to NTSC or PAL. It offers a basic set of transitions, four picture-in-picture locations as well as black, white and chroma-keying functions. The LVS-400 features two separate frame synchronizers that enable stable, smooth and noiseless video cuts and transitions. The illuminated button pads make it easy to use, even in dark locations. The LVS-400 is also equipped with a preview monitoring section allowing the user to check video source content before switching to it live.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Loud Technologies has announced that its new Tapco by Mackie brand will use this year's NAB convention in Las Vegas (17-22 April) to show its new family of affordable, high-performance studio monitors, which have been conceived and engineered by the same design team behind the award-winning line of Mackie HR series studio monitors.

The 8-inch Tapco S8 and 5.25" Tapco S5 are both two-way, bi-amplified monitors with dual high-precision internal amplifiers that deliver a total of 120W RMS (60W for the woofer and 60W for the tweeter). Both models benefit from the same 1" waveguide-loaded silk-dome tweeter that provides smooth, non-fatiguing high end, say Tapco manufacturer, Loud Technologies.

Rear panel controls on the S5 and S8 allow for acoustic tailoring with low-frequency boost and high frequency cut/boost switches. Inputs include 0.25" TRS/XLR balanced an

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Israel - Kramer has introduced the VA-256 audio delay which, the company says, is designed to solve one of the biggest problems in the presentation market - matching audio to video with no delay. With today's fixed resolution monitors and projectors based on technologies such as plasma and LCD, there is a lot of scaling going on to match incoming signal resolutions to those of the displays. That processing can slow down the throughput of the video signal and lead to audio and video sync problems.

The Kramer VA-256 audio delay, from the Kramer Tools product line, complements the company's line of ProScale digital scaler/switchers. It provides a user programmable delay ranging from 10 milliseconds to 2.5 seconds in increments of 10 milliseconds. High quality anti-aliasing and output smoothing filters are employed, and the unit digitizes to 24-bit resolution at 48kHz to achieve hig

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The Netherlands - The Vakbeurs Theater Techniek show which took place in The Hague at the end of January saw the official public launch of Midas Consoles Holland, the new distribution organization for Midas and Klark Teknik products throughout the Netherlands.

Midas Consoles Holland is the brainchild of Axel Nagtegaal of Electric Audio. Electric Audio already distributed Klark Teknik in Holland, but Nagtegaal's vision was to develop a structure that would concentrate exclusively on Midas and Klark Teknik in order to maximise both brands in the Dutch market. "Midas Consoles Holland, although part of Electric Audio, operates entirely independently," explained Nagtegaal. "It has its own very distinct identity including its own dedicated logo, website and personnel, plus a fully stocked showroom and demo facility which we call the Midas Cave. MCH exists exclusively fo

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UK - San-Ei Electric Co Ltd of Osaka, Japan, in conjunction with their UK distributor Cerebrum Lighting, has announce the sale of four 2kW xenon followspots to the English National Opera at the London Coliseum. Supplied were San-Ei's new Xenonspot range, purchased by the ENO to replace their old Kupo models, which gave them many years of excellent service. As Xenonspot is a modern version of the Kupo units, they were chosen because of their heritage of reliability and superior performance. After the first weeks in the refurbished London Coliseum, the followspot operators say they are very pleased with Xenonspot, commenting: "They are a new version of the Kupos and so perform to the same high standard that we require."

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - At its recent meeting, the General Executive Board of International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE) voted to contribute $75,000 to the development of the new Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP). IATSE president Thomas C. Short commented: "Assuring safety on the job is of paramount importance to our members. The new certification program is a step toward achieving a more secure working environment for our members."

IATSE's generous donation further demonstrates their significant commitment to safety in the entertainment industry. The organization was formed more than a century ago and is the largest labour union in the entertainment and related industries. Underlining their commitment to , IATSE has appointed Anthony DePaulo (international vice-president), Brian Lawlor (international vice-president and division director of Stagecra

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