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UK - John Hornby Skewes & Co Ltd recently staged its annual JHS Event, a firm and popular fixture on the MI calendar held each June at the company's four-acre head office in Leeds. The event provides an opportunity for exclusive UK and Eire HK Audio distributor, JHS Ltd, to demonstrate the full HK Audio range to the UK and Eire trade visitors attending the show, held over a four-day period this year.

Offering a selection of the latest additions to the JHS product catalogue, the event presented a number of special offers plus the chance to mix business and fun with shuttle helicopter flights around the local countryside. For those seeking more terrain-based thrills, an onsite simulator offered a variety of high-speed virtual experiences, plus the chance to unwind with some good foo

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UK - Stardraw has now announced that all of its subscription-based applications have been upgraded to support Autodesk's AutoCAD 2005. Support is bi-directional, which means that users can read and edit any DWG version and save to any DWG version. This enhancement represents a total rewrite of Stardraw's DWG engine, say the company. Indeed, improvements may be noticed in earlier versions of DWG files, and among the advances is the addition of support for TrueType fonts.

According to marketing director Rob Robinson, it was crucial that Stardraw implement support for AutoCAD's latest release as quickly as possible. "Full compatibility with AutoCAD in both directions is an important part of the value we offer systems integrators. It allows them to communicate and exchange information with architects and planners quickly and easily, because nothing is more frustrating than find

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The Netherlands - Lagotronics, the Dutch manufacturer of LED lighting effects and fixtures has announced its move to a new address, with effect from 5 July 2004. The company will have new opening hours: Monday - Friday 8:00-12:30 - 13:00-17:00. Phone, fax and e-mail, meanwhile, remain unchanged, as will the address for postal deliveries (P.O. Box 171, 5900 AD, Venlo).

The company's new home is at Noorderpoort 28, 5916 PJ Venlo, The Netherlands. Due to the move, the company will not be contactable on Friday 2 July.

(Lee Baldock)

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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USA - Following the announcement of its forthcoming initial public offering in April, Color Kinetics Inc (CKI), the US manufacturer of LED lighting systems, has confirmed the pricing of its IPO of 4,000,000 shares of its common stock at $10 per share. All of the shares are being offered by CKI. The common stock was expected to begin trading on the Nasdaq National Market from 22 June under the symbol 'CLRK'.

The managing underwriters of the offering are CIBC World Markets Corp, and Needham & Company Inc, acting as joint lead managers, Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co Inc and ThinkEquity Partners LLC. CKI has granted the underwriters a 30-day option to purchase up to an additional 600,000 shares of common stock to cover over-allotments, if any.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Amid the celebrations of the annual ABTT dinner on Wednesday 16 June, the Source Four Revolution - ETC's first moving light - won the prestigious Lighting Product of the Year award. The awards are staged to bring exceptional products to the attention of a wider audience, and the judges felt the Revolution was a worthy recipient primarily because it is the first moving light developed and designed specifically for theatrical use. They added that ETC had listened to lighting people around the world to create a luminaire that truly met the lighting designer's ideal.

For 20 years, the ABTT has provided industry-wide recognition for exceptional products that serve the entertainment industry. The committee of judges, whose identities are a closely guarded secret, consists of a mixture of end users chosen from across the industry to achieve a well-rounded and balanced decision.

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Spain - LT Light, the Spanish manufacturer of lighting consoles and dimmers, has recently appointed Tongsuh Technologies & Trading Co as its sole distributor for South Korea. The well-known Korean company will provide servicing, consulting and technical assistance for all LT Light products.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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USA - Wilmington, Delaware-based Main Light Industries Inc, inventor of the patented Lightscape fibre optic curtain, has announced the release of its new Soft-LED dynamic drapery. To create Soft-LED, the company has incorporated a full colour LED array to its Lightscape curtain. The Soft-LED dynamic drapery allows audiences to enjoy a familiar fibre optic star field background, and then be blown away by full-colour graphics and low-res video images that seem to appear from nowhere, say Main Light.

Soft-LED takes advantage of Color Kinetics' next-generation Chromasic LED control technology, which allows precise control of the individual RGB LED sources. The Soft-LED dynamic drapery is compact, lightweight and easy to pack at the end of the show - especially when compared to other LED display technologies, say the company. Soft-LED systems are available specifically packaged for t

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UK - MC2 Audio has appointed Melody Development Co Ltd as its exclusive distributor in China. Melody is based in Shanghai and operates within the digital conference system, touring and fixed installation markets in mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao.

Chen Ziqian, Melody's technical director, commented: "After more than 10 years of healthy growth, our company had established a strong sales network covering major parts of the market in China. As well as our headquarters in Shanghai, we now have branches in Beijing, Shenzhen, Changsha, Wuhan, Nanjing, Xian and Shenyang. We have a good customer bas, which includes the Beijing Show Company, CCTV touring group, Henan Sports centre (50,000 audience capacity) and Wuhan Sports centre (60,000 audience capacity).

Ziqian continued: "We didn't have a high quality power amplifier in our product range and we felt that MC2's ampli

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Belgium - Martin Professional has committed further resources to the Maxxyz lighting console by adding programmers to the Maxxyz software development team. The move is in response to the console's increased demand as a professional lighting console for stage, studio and events, as well as the further incorporation of networking and integration functions.

The new programmers, located at R&D International in Belgium, are experienced in hardware control through real-time application software. Essentially, this permits the team to produce software updates more quickly while concentrating on other key areas such as networking between consoles and other devices like the Maxxyz Tablet Remote, integration between the Maxxyz and Martin's new media server Maxedia, multi-user environments and more.

(Jane Cockburn)

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UK - A co-development between the Le Mark Group and the Technical & Production Arts Department of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (RSAMD) picked up the Widget of the Year Award at the recent ABTT Show in London.

Le Mark was presented with the award for the CAD Tag system, a simple but effective means of high level printed identification for all types of flown equipment. It utilizes a special self-adhesive tape that bonds rigid PVC laminates to form a printed 'tag' that can be secured directly to all types of lighting bars and trussing.

Commenting on the award, Le Mark's Stuart Gibbons said that the system was seen as a major breakthrough in visual awareness, both in terms of load safety and the positioning of flown equipment.

(Barry Howse)

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UK - Drapes and rigging specialist Blackout has recently worked with Endemol UK Productions, providing a variety of set design solutions for the live sets of 'Big Brother' and 'Shattered'. Blackout's managing director Steve Tuck collaborated with one of the artistic directors Paul Drake and production manager, Janine Terry, on both productions.

Drake commissioned Blackout to design and supply a host of acoustic black-serge drapes, which were deployed on the new series of Channel 4's blockbuster, 'Big Brother'. Paul Drake says: "The time-scale to supply the acoustic drapes was extremely tight. Blackout were great to work with and provided the perfect practical solution, softening the acoustics of a highly reverberant set into a functional live broadcast environment."

'Shattered' was the show investigating the effects of sleep deprivation on contestants living in a pur

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UK - The annual Clotheshow Live at Birmingham's NEC, organized by Haymarket Exhibitions, is billed as 'The Style Event of the Year'. This year's show featured an impressive fashion show, staged in a 5,500-seat theatre, and for which Pulsar's LED ChromaRange was utilized to answer many of the shows design criteria.

The initial creative idea was sparked from the production team's lighting director Ben Fox, who suggested the need for light from within the stage and catwalk runway. The Light inside the runway would follow the models as they made their way down the catwalk and the light inside the stage area would be used to fill a space imaginatively.

Freelance lighting designer Paul Devine, who has worked with the lighting and set design on the Clothes Show for the past 12 years, was called in, and his wealth of experience contributed greatly to the practical side of the design c

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UK - SEOS will be demonstrating images with the help of JVC D-ILA (Direct Drive Light Amplifier) projection technology on its booth at the International Planetarium Society (IPS) conference and exhibition in Valencia, Spain, from 4-8 July 2004.

The booth has been built specifically for IPS and features four of JVC's DLA SX21 projectors displaying images onto an 24ft (3.6m diameter) tilted dome. When used in combination with SEOS' ScorpionRT system, multiple real-time sources can be presented across the dome. In addition SEOS' Chameleon provides the distortion correction and edge blending required to achieve a 180ºH x 160ºV field of view. The booth design gives visitors the experience of feeling like they are looking up into the night sky when walking on to the booth.

The JVC DLA-SX21 incorporates three high performance SXGA+ (1400 x 1050) 0.7" D-ILA devices (1.5M pixels

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Denmark - Mach Speakers has launched a new installation series of speakers, and the first in the new range are ready to hit the market. The new series, the C-Range, embraces more than just incomparable sound quality however. Co-designed by contractors for contractors, the C-Range is a breakthrough in installation speaker design and extraordinarily easy installation.

Mach says the new range has improved sound quality, as well as other improvements such as reduced speaker size, improved functionality, ease of installation, reduced service time, increased flexibility, and improved speaker strength. Advances have also been made in range and distortion levels, say Mach, and overall speaker design has been updated, while the cabinets are available in a wide range of colours.

The CN-7 and CN-8 have been specifically developed for natural sound reproduction in near field applications

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UK - Corporate sound rental company Audio Alliance's extensive range of stock has been further expanded by recent purchases of new equipment. The company became the first UK recipient of Sennheiser's Evolution G2 radio microphone system and, following the success of these first 20 units, has confirmed an order for a further 10 systems.

Other recent acquisitions include a selection of mixing consoles from Midas, Soundcraft and Yamaha, a range of Meyer loudspeakers, XTA compressors and graphic equalizers, Telex BTR radio talkback systems and a Yamaha DME32 digital processor.

Some of this new equipment was put to good use at the recent Marketing Manchester promotion in Manchester Square, London. The aim of the three-day event was to highlight all that the rejuvenated city has to offer. Chris Wright, production manager from Constellation Worldwide, praised Audio Alliance for their

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UK - Furman Sound has moved its UK distribution arrangements to Kelsey Acoustics, having approached the Surrey-based cable and accessories company earlier this year. As a result, all the 240V models in the American company's extensive range will be stocked by Kelsey Acoustics.

Kelsey sales manager, Tony Torlini, says the company was initially attracted by the new lightweight products in the power distribution range. "Furman have vastly improved their new range of products, with LED lights and better power conditioning," said Torlini. "For example, their new power distro units come with non-sacrificable surge protection - which operates by absorbing the energy and dissipating as heat."

He also pointed to the compatibility between the Furman and Kelsey range of accessories, making the two brands an ideal fit. The new products will be on public view for the f

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UK - AuviTran - Audio Video Transcoding - the technology company formed in March 2003 by former Digigram employees, has appointed Marquee Audio as its distributor in the UK. AuviTran designs and develops innovative audio and video networking and computer-based solutions and products. As a full EtherSound licensee, AuviTran is exploiting this technology with its own EtherSound-based products, as well as offering services to other companies in the professional audio industry.

Marquee Audio will be focussing mostly on the AuviTran products that provide audio distribution and networking using the EtherSound protocol. In particular, Marquee's Andy Huffer expects success with Auvitran's AVY16-ES cards, which bring EtherSound compatibility to Yamaha digital mixers and other professional audio products featuring the 'mini-YGDAI' interface.

"The Auvitran card effectively brings Ya

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UK - Pure Distribution, a division of Stirling Audio, has recently supplied theatrical productions around Europe with the 1788 eight-channel remote-controlled microphone preamplifier, manufactured by Aphex Systems.

Chris Full, from rental company Autograph Sound Recording, chose the 1788 microphone preamp for its reliability, features and multi-channel capabilities. Several units are in use on the UK and European tour of Fosse, the Tony Award-winning musical. The Aphex 1788 are in addition to the original system design by Jonathan Deans, and have been specified to accommodate all orchestra microphones, offering extra mic inputs on the front-of-house mixing desk. Another critically-acclaimed musical, We Will Rock You, also made use of the Aphex preamp. This time the 1788 was on the Madrid production, working with four Neumann microphones in an off-stage vocal booth,

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Germany - MTV's Rock im Park, held each year in Nuremberg in conjunction with Rock am Ring, is one of the biggest open-air events in Germany, with three separate stages. At this year's event in early June (2004), German rental company Pave Veranstaltungstechnik from Nuremberg, one of the newest members of HK Audio's Cohedra User Network, provided the sound at the Suzuki Alternastage.

Among the international bands appearing on this stage were Moloko, Black Eyed Peas, Seeed, N.E.R.D., Bad Religion, Ben Harper, Turbonegro and Starsailor, together with German bands Wir sind Helden, Sportfreunde Stiller, Beatsteaks, 5 Sterne Deluxe and Max Herre. The acts played to crowds of up to 20,000 covering an area of over 100m by 75m.

Earlier in the year Pave had invested in a 'double-12' Cohedra system consisting of 12 CDR208T and 12 CDR208S mid/high units, plus 24 CDR210 subw

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UK - White Light is to host James Thomas Engineering's Pixel Roadshow, following its appointment as distributor. Celebrating the announcement at ABTT 2004 that White Light is now a distributor for its revolutionary Pixel range of solid-state LED fixtures, James Thomas Engineering's Pixel Roadshow is organizing a special event.

This takes place at White Light's Wimbledon premises on Tuesday 29 June. The James Thomas Pixel Range team is in town during June with its roadshow, highlighting the capabilities of the Pixel product range. Pixel Range's Tony Cameron heads the roadshow, alongside Andy Sugars and Emma Long from IRAD, who demonstrates the PixelDrive software control system. Cameron says: "We're all very excited to be working alongside White Light, one of the most respected entertainment lighting companies in the UK with a wide range of interesting and challenging lighti

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Germany - In May, a delegation of Canadian pro audio specialists and dealers visited the Telex Communications Academy in Straubing. Although Telex academies have been held in almost all corners of the globe, the company's European headquarters in Straubing remains one of the most popular venues for this trade seminar formats. Franck Fabry, director of export sales for America, who played host along with Gilles Elhadad, Greg Hansen, Mark Kulas (Canadian sales representatives) and Telex Communications Inc. president, Mathias von Heydekampf, drew the following conclusions from the four-day trip: "This academy was highly successful. The participants were committed and interested. We all had a great time as well."

The centrepiece of the series of seminars was the detailed presentation of new highlights of the EVI Audio range such as the EV SxA360, the EV Plasma, the new EV

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