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UK - UK manufacturer of advanced radio frequency products, Trantec Systems has recently supplied its innovative PT1 UHF stereo wireless Personal Trainer system to the brand new Rugeley Leisure Centre in Staffordshire - owned by Cannock Chase Council and built in partnership with Sport England. Trantec collaborated with MLEC's Mike Lowe who sourced the advanced system, which was installed by Stagecraft Systems, headed by Neil Craddock.

Trantec's Active Audio PT1 system has provided a "complete" fitness entertainment environment. The installation involved the supply of the Trantec PT-1 in ear training units and included five PT-1 transmitters, 30 PT-1 receivers and three 10-way chargers. The transmitter units were installed in a wall-mounted rack along with two Sky satelli

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USA - Sound On Stage (SOS) of Hayward, California, has been following Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger around the state for almost a year now, providing the PA system for his various speaking engagements. The company's rig of choice throughout that ongoing trek has been a dozen L-Acoustics dV-Dosc loudspeakers and two SB218 subs.

"We've had two audio engineers and a truck following the governor around the state since about six weeks before his election," says George Edwards, Sound On Stage general manager. "They've provided sound reinforcement for everything from his inauguration party to countless public appearances, including a recent stop at Boeing in Long Beach."

It was this visit to Boeing's Hangar 3 that presented several interesting challenges. Edwards explains: "The governor chose Boeing's factory as the site for signing a landmark workers comp

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USA - Further to the news from Color Kinetics, two key PRG executives, Joe Schenk and Anne Johnston, will take over the management of PRG's Integrated Solutions Group to take over from Bill Groener, the group's former manager.

Schenk will lead the group's West Coast operations while Johnston leads the East. "Assumption of Bill's responsibilities by Joe and Anne will be a natural transition for us," says Michael Tomkin, president of PRG. "Each is intimately familiar with the operations of the group. Each also has unique expertise that will help the group's clients capitalize on important new trends in the evolution of entertainment technology."

As President of PRG's Nevada operations, Schenk has overseen some of the Integrated Solutions Group's most important projects in Las Vegas, including the Masquerade in the Sky at the Rio, Star Trek at th

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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UK - Lighting director Tom Kinnane used 55 James Thomas PixelPAR 90(A) LED fixtures to light the set of ITV's dating show, Love on A Saturday Night, presented by Davina McCall. Kinnane chose the fixtures to front-light the set designed by Marcus Blee. Lighting became the show's key effect on the multilayered set, shifting the colour, mood and feel of the space.

Kinnane started using Pixelline 1044 battens - of which there are also 10 on this show - at Christmas after seeing them in action on Granada's Stars In Their Eyes in Manchester. He was impressed with the power and punch, and then tested some of the new PixelPAR 90 convection cooled fittings at the first opportunity. They were run in 10-channel mode for Love, ensuring full dimmer intensity control.

"They look fantastic on camera" he declares, and likes them so much that he'll now use them w

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Greece - From the 13-16 May, planners and sound specialists from all over the world converged on Athens, the city hosting the 2004 Olympics, to inspect the sound systems in place for the games. What was most striking is that everywhere you look in Athens, there is equipment from EVI Audio.

The EVI Audio team had put together a package for a group of 100 pro audio specialists, which included planners and journalists from North America, China, Japan and all over Europe. Participants were given a questionnaire inviting them to choose from a variety of different events that most interested them. The choice included a Netmax workshop, a tour of the airport where a Dynacord paging system is installed, a tour of the clubs (stocked for the most part with EV XLCs) or the city, whilst the centrepiece of the visit to the Greek capital was a detailed inspection of a number of the stadia upo

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Spain - HK Audio's Spanish distributor, Adagio, recently staged two separate demonstrations of the Cohedra 'Coherent Dynamic Response Array' system. The May presentations were held in two separate venues, one outdoors and one indoors, to demonstrate the flexibility of the system to local PA rental companies, sound technicians, events promoters and even a politician.

The outdoor demonstration was at the Plaza de Toros de Algeciras - a circular, 50m diameter bullfighting ring with a capacity of 12,500. Here, a customer of Adagio, Sonilprof PA rental company, helped provide a system of 12 Cohedra mid/high cabinets per side - six CDR 208 Ts and CDR 208 Ss - were flown on aluminium trusses. These were supplemented with a stack of 12 Cohedra CDR 210 Sub subwoofers per side. The system was powered with two PR 16 and two PR 8 amp racks.

After putting this system through its paces, th

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UK - Zest Audio Ltd has announced that it has won the Innovation Award at the recent Shell Livewire Business Awards 2004, for the development and successful export of the company's new business music control system, Atmosphere. The awards ceremony was held in Belfast's Waterfront Hall recently.

Atmosphere automatically plays from a selection of pre-programmed music channels: 12 of these channels have been specifically programmed by Zest audio for the hospitality industry. Additional channels may be created by the customer to meet the requirements of its particular venue. Additional facilities include multi-zoning and the inclusion of advertising features.

Zest Audio is a young and quickly expanding export company, with a growing distribution network throughout Europe, and is currently expanding into the new EU countries.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK/Ireland - Duran Duran's recent UK tour this spring sold out in a matter of minutes, drawing in old fans as well as new ones. Though the band performed favourite hits from the past, they didn't stick with old technology for their stage show. The main workhorse of the rig featured some of the latest technology from High End Systems - specifically, 50 x.Spot Xtreme and 46 Studio Beam automated luminaires, with control from a Flying Pig Systems Wholehog III lighting console. All lighting equipment was supplied by Neg Earth.

Reardon was not only the lighting designer, but also the programmer and board operator. Plus, he co-designed the set with production manager Tony Gittins. Reardon explained: "I chose the Wholehog III because the show was extremely cue-intensive and I couldn't use a console that might slow down while running eight universes at full tilt. The Hog III's remo

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UK - Bandit Lites UK and US are supplying the current Incubus tour in the US and Europe. Lighting designer is Joe Paradise, who has worked with Incubus since 2001. For the tour's lengthy European leg, Paradise and his Bandit Inc crew of Geddy Kordyjaka and Jeff Archibeque took a rig out of Bedford-based Bandit UK.

The rig is all Martin Professional luminaires - a mixture of 2K Profiles, MAC 600s, 500s and 300s, plus Atomic strobes, all split between the trusses and the floor. The downstage and mid-stage trusses are straight and there's two cross-trusses running upstage/downstage which are gently angled onstage, plus a straight drapes truss upstage. This holds a fibre optic starcloth, fed with mega-bright QFX 150 colour changing fibre optic light sources. Paradise is using one of the new Martin Maxxyz consoles for control.

There's no video, so he uses the stage as a large canva

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Finland / France - FogScreen Inc, the Finnish company whose walk-through projection screen we've reported on recently, has been awarded the Laval Virtual Award in Interfaces category at the sixth International Conference on Virtual Reality in Laval, France. An international jury made up of virtual reality specialists presented awards for the year's best virtual reality creations worldwide.

FogScreen Inc, which was founded less than a year ago, has received a remarkable variety of prizes and honours, including the InnoSuomi 2003 prize from the President of Finland for the best innovation of the year. During the International Conference in Laval, FogScreen presented its new interactive fog display, which makes writing and drawing in the air possible. The innovation had its debut in San Francisco at Wired Magazine's NextFest.

FogScreen's recent demonstration at the Washington Des

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UK - Rosco will show two new products at the ABTT Theatre Show at London's Horticultural Halls (16-17 June). The X-Effects Projector, say Rosco, provides large-scale 3D effects previously unavailable to lighting designers: it utilizes a 200W Enhanced Metal Arc source, whose short arc allows for an output of 5,000 lumens, and a 2,000-hour lamp life. The colour temperature is comparable to a Xenon source at 6000°K but with nearly two times the luminous efficacy of a halogen source.

The effect itself is created by rotating two B-size glass gobos off centre of the optical path. This results in a projection that does not appear to have a visible direction or pattern. Onboard potentiometers control the speed and direction of both gobos, and the colour slot will accept dichroic colour filters. Lens trains are available in 30, 50 and 70° configurations. Due to the efficiency of the la

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USA - VLPS Lighting Services is debuting the new video demo of the Virtuoso EX1 Media Server on its website (address below). Officially launched on 1 April, the EX1 media server employs a moving perspective camera and five-point lighting in a virtual 3D environment.

"The EX1 3D virtual environment contains two separate backgrounds, up to three interactive geometric objects, a positional camera and five light sources - which can be difficult to explain in words," comments Mike Snyder, EX1 product manager. "Plus, writing or talking about it just doesn't do enough justice to the EX1's capabilities. You really have to see it at work to appreciate its unique differences from the other media servers in the market."

Bryan Faris, senior programmer and developer of the EX1 video, says: "We've been holding ongoing demonstrations for clients at our studios but we

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Australia - Coemar DeSisti Australia (CDA) has announced the addition of new products to its portfolio. Imagine 300 is an elegant new display projector, say the company, which allows the projection of a range of gobos for striking visual effects. Utilizing a high-output HTI arc lamp, the fixture is suited to a range of applications, including point of sale promotions and marketing events. Features include high-output, long-life arc lamp, twin condenser lenses, thermal protection, die-cast aluminium construction and a range of optional attachments including rotating gobo and adjustable pivoting mirror.

CDA has also announced the addition of the Europoint range of powerful motorized hoists and droppers, ruggedly constructed and suitable for lifting extremely heavy luminaires and other equipment. Features include SWL capacities ranging from 100kg to 200kg, maximum heights up to 5m,

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UK - Following the announcement that it is to distribute the Rolls product line in the UK, the US company has now awarded distribution of the renowned Bellari processor range to Smart Sound Direct. Specializing in analogue valve technology, the Bellari line comprises the MP105 valve microphone, the VP129 valve phono preamp and RP220 dual valve mic preamp, the RP503 valve mic processor and RP533 studio valve multi-processor, and the RP583 studio comp/limiter.

The MP105 is ideal for anyone requiring a warm, smooth analogue sound, say Smart Sound, and the VP129 is claimed to possess a more warm and musical tone than solid state preamps. The RP220 boasts smooth yet punchy characteristics that drive vocal tracks to the front and warm up any digital mix, while the RP503 is said to be ideal for any recording situation and the RP533 should prove an ideal addition to any established rig,

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UK - Strand Lighting has announced two staff changes at its London office. Strand Europe strengthens its marketing with the return of Bethan Dickson as marketing assistant. Formerly with Strand, Bethan returns to the company having gained extensive marketing experience within various facets of the industry. Her role will be to improve press, trade show and dealer communications and co-ordinate production of documentation in multiple languages. Bethan will work closely with all of European sales offices and will be based in the London office.

In sales, Ken Berreen has been appointed area sales manager London and South UK. Berreen has a wide experience and technical knowledge having worked in the industry for many years. He joined Strand Lighting in 2002 as a project manager.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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UK / Italy - Following a meeting at SIB Rimini in March, Hall Stage has secured a UK distribution deal with JAB Italy for their superb ranges of riggers' tools, bags, torches and accessories, all of which will be available from Halls direct, or from their many distributors around the Country.

"We've been looking for a good manufacturer of this type of kit for a while and came across JAB in Rimini this year," said Charles Haines, Hall Stage commercial director. "They have a fantastic sense of design, quality and detail and fit very well into our catalogue."

Featured here is the WingNut spanner set, for use on 13mm, 17mm and 19mm wings as well as the standard bolt hex heads. The second spanner in the set is specially designed for mini Omega bracket hooks and wing nuts found on moving heads. The set is laser cut from aero-grade aluminium and comes in a neat b

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UK - A new technical college has been built from the ground up in the Digbeth area of Birmingham. Described as the biggest thing to happen to education in the City for over 30 years, it forms a £17m, state-of-the-art training facility for Art, Design & Digital Media, Music & Performance, Information Technology and Trade Union Studies.

Since part of the curriculum will be teaching audio and media students, a high-grade playback and recording suite infrastructure was required. While the South Birmingham College was installing Digidesign ProTools suites on the one-hand, locally-based SSE Hire were successfully tendering for the auditorium fit-out.

"We were fortunate to get involved in the project when it was still at the pre-cast concrete stage. Therefore we were able to be involved in the specification and supply a complete turnkey package," says SSE's sales manager,

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UK / Japan - This summer, leading lighting rental company White Light and its specialist automated lighting division The Moving Light Company will be continuing their long association with the hit musical Miss Saigon by supplying lighting rigs to not one but two new productions of the show - one in Plymouth, the other in Tokyo.

White Light supplied the lighting rig to the very first production of the show, which ran at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London from 1989 until 1999. In 2001, David Hersey's design was re-conceived for a British tour which ran until late-2003; White Light and The Moving Light Company supplied the entire rig for that production, which included some of the first Vari-Lite VL2000 Spot and VL2000 Wash units used in Britain.

The entire lighting rig for that tour, including the Vari-Lites, DHA Digital Light Curtains, ETC Source Fours, VSFX cloud ef

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Germany - Since the beginning of May 2004, the US-based Blue Man Group has been in performance at Berlin's Theater am Potsdamer Platz. The cult performers' production employs MA Lighting's network signal processors (NSP) - part of a lighting equipment package that also includes MA Lighting's grandMA lighting consoles.

Originally only 4,000 DMX lines were planned for the lighting design of the Berlin show, which could have been controlled by a single lighting desk. However, during the preparations for the production, the demands on the control desk gradually increased to include 130 moving lights, integrated video control via four High End Catalyst Media Servers and eight High End Catalyst DL-1 projectors and 50 Atomic Strobes from Martin Professional with 36 Atomic Color colour changers.

Thus the maximum capacity of 4098 channels was quickly reached. The use of a second consol

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UK / Germany - Liverpool-based audio and lighting services company Adlib Audio has made a major commitment to Camco, the German amplifier manufacturer, taking delivery of more than sixty new Vortex 6 digital amplifiers for use with its JBL VerTec system. The equipment is being supplied by Camco's UK distributor Fuzion plc, and is being seen by Adlib Audio as "an initial purchase, and part of a major long-term investment."

"We really feel that the Vortex 6 is the best amplifier on the market for the VerTec," says Adlib's Dave Kay, who has spent a considerable amount of time evaluating leading brands. "The Camco shone above every other model that we tested."

Adlib Audio is sidelining its existing stock of Crown VZ-5002s, principally because of size considerations. "We needed to save weight, and to free up more space in the trucks," expla

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Finland - The Crazy Reindeer complex in Lapland is now one of the Artic Circle's most popular tourist destinations. The centre offers full hotel and conference facilities, gourmet dining, saunas, a jacuzzi as well as a 1,500-capacity club/live venue. Midas and Klark Teknik distributors Oy Hedcom have so far supplied all of the venue's audio and AV equipment, which included a 52-input Midas Legend console in 2002, along with a Nexo sound system. This year, the Crazy Reindeer has opted to install a full monitor system comprising a 48-channel Midas XL250, six Klark Teknik DN360 graphic EQs and Camco-driven Nexo PS15 wedges and side-fills.

According to Hedcom's Ari Manninen, the choice was a straightforward one. "The client had already made the decision to invest in Midas with the Legend 3000, and it's proved to be an excellent choice. However, the place is packed to the rafter

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