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UK - Rosco has scheduled two free Professional Development Workshops at venues in Bristol & Birmingham. The workshops, designed for lighting and scenic professionals, teachers and technicians, regularly attract large audiences throughout Europe. The workshop leaders, all Rosco Staff, show participants how to create stage pictures and effects with lighting or scenery, generally using equipment and products likely to be in their theatres or paint shops.

For example, the morning session, devoted to lighting, explains how you can simulate raging or smoldering fire, still or rushing water, rain, snow, etc., simply using gobos and modern spotlights. Some advanced techniques for simulating stained glass effects, reflected lightning bolts and other frequently requested effects are also de

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UK - Universal Events recently designed, produced and supplied all necessary technical infrastructure for the high profile Association of Event Organisers Awards at ExCeL, London's Exhibition and Convention Centre. The technical elements included sound, lighting, lasers, video, stage sets and hydraulics, room dressing and rigging. The client was ExCeL itself, and the show was one of the most challenging of this year for Hertforshire-based Universal Events, as event producer Steve Butcher says: "The eyes of the whole events industry were on us to produce spectacular results."

Universal did not disappoint. They prepared two areas - a reception and main dining room - for 1200 guests and VIPs to enjoy themselves for an afternoon of fun and enjoyment that also honoured the very best talent in the UK Exhibition industry. The main room consisted of a traditional dinner table

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UK - Performances at The Congress Theatre in Cwmbran, Gwent are now in the spotlight after the recent completion of a £30,000 lighting refurbishment project managed by Stagecraft. Equipment installed by Stagecraft included two of Selecon's new Pacific followspots - some of the first to be installed in the UK.

Martin Palmer from Stagecraft commented: "When working on all new projects it's important to assess the individual needs of a venue. The new lighting system at The Congress Theatre has been created to make maximum use of the performance space, whilst also being extremely versatile to fit with the many different productions at the theatre."

The new followspot has been designed to incorporate the unique cooling system created by Selecon. This produces a cool beam of light and also directs the heat away from operational controls and lighting components. Palmer con

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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 - PA Installations has been nominated as 'Installer of the Year' for the Scottish Regional BEDA Awards, for its technically daring lighting, sound and AV project at City nightclub in Edinburgh.The 1,800-capacity sports bar/club/restaurant for Paul and Stephen Smith's Castle Leisure Group is located in the former Scotsman newspaper printworks behind Edinburgh's Waverley Station. Set within a 30,000sq.ft space, the £4.2 million refurbishment features innovative applications of technology including a digital 'backbone' for lighting sound, video and CCTV, which also integrates the cash tills under Crestron touch-screen control, and enables Wales-based PA Installations to remotely access, interrogate and troubleshoot the system online.

Other technicals include a 16-zone, 7.1 sound environment in the Sportsters Bar, also linked to the digital network, which handles routing from e

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Germany - One of Europe¹s most popular Jazz festivals, 'Jazz on the Danube', now established as one of the ten largest jazz festivals in the world, took place in Straubing, the home of EVI Audio in Germany, in mid-July. Some 8,000 music lovers came to Straubing to hear performances from jazz legends such as BB King, Till Brönner and Die Söhne Mannheims. Based on the success of last year's festival, organizers Heinz and Ralph Huber turned once again to Telex EVI for their sound reinforcement needs.

The equipment list was comprehensive, with an ElectroVoice Xlc system as the main PA run from a Midas Heritage 3000 mixing console at FoH. An impressive 20 channels of Klark Teknik Helix handled system EQ, while no less than 48 channels of KT DN1248 were available for the microphone splits, as jazz bands often place heavier demands on the splitter system than traditional rock bands

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USA - An InnovaSON Sy40 digital console was the recent choice of Ryan Cecil, monitor engineer for singer, songwriter and musician Aimee Mann, for a string of US dates. Playing at 1,000-2000-capacity theatres and clubs across the USA meant that the mini-tour could only carry the essentials, with sonic clarity, flexibility and consistency being of top priority. With racks, stacks and wedges supplied at the venues, only backline for a five-piece band plus microphones and personal monitor systems feeding the compact InnovaSON Sy40 needed to be transported.

Mann's Neumann KMS 105 mic goes directly into the InnovaSON Sy40 digital console without any outboard processing. "Aimee sings centre stage for the whole show and at one point she sings a new song called King of the Jailhouse, where she moves over to the piano player's position and plays and sings using her Sennheiser

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Germany - The next Cohedra Operator Training Courses at HK Audio in St. Wendel, Germany, are scheduled for late summer. Over the course of the three-day training session, participants are introduced to the theoretical basis of the Coherent Dynamic Response Array and are given hands-on operational experience with the system. System owners and their staff, prospective system owners, and freelance technicians are invited to attend.

The training will include the fundamental physics of line arrays; the developmental background behind Cohedra; using the Cohedra manual; CAPS - Cohedra Acoustic Prediction Software; the Digital Field Controller and the DFC software for the PC; Cohedra rigging and ground-stacking; listening tests, with multiple configurations; live troubleshooting and servicing. The course concludes with a 60-minute proficiency test, enabling participants to earn the Cohe

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USA - High End Systems has released its newest version of software for the Catalyst Media Server - the product which fuses lighting with digital media. Catalyst Pro v3.2 now offers more features and functions, including six layers of digital media for real-time rendering, with full effects capabilities on each layer. (The previous v3.0 offered four layers.)

New digital media libraries have also been added, with graphics specially enhanced for optimum projection performance. For the first time, Catalyst now features SDI video input for real-time video capturing and is shipping with SCSI drives.

High End Systems chief technology officer Richard Belliveau says: "The addition of SDI input makes the Catalyst more valuable in the audio-visual industry." Catalyst has won numerous industry awards, and is being specified on concert tours, in corporate presentations, on televi

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UK - Hertfordshire-based RK Sound Engineering, recently installed Allen & Heath's programmable DSP system as part of a new audio system for Tottenham Hotspur Football Club's main ticket office. The company was asked to install an improved 'talk through' system covering eight ticket booths, replacing the existing system, which needed regular maintenance, and provided poor 'gain-before-feedback'.

RK Sound selected Allen & Heath's iDR fixed installation/live sound system, specifying an iDR-8 digital processing unit and the expansion units iDR-In and iDR-Out, providing a 16x16 matrix. The system can be set up, managed and controlled by PC and includes sophisticated digital processing features such as paging, delays, EQ, gates, compressors, limiters and remote pre-amp control.

Eight Shure MX412D/N microphones feed the iDR on the cashiers' side, which drives eight Work Studio 3 loud

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New Zealand - Selecon has reached an agreement with High End Systems (HES) of Austin, Texas to acquire a patent relating to optical dimming technology. Under the agreement, Selecon has purchased U.S. Patent 6,241,366 titled 'Lighting System with Diffusing Dimmer' for an undisclosed amount. The acquired technology is likely to be employed in Selecon's advanced technology Pacific profile spotlights.

HES chief technology officer Richard Belliveau said: "We are very pleased to form this agreement with Selecon Lighting. Selecon is an innovator in the field of theatrical instruments and we believe that the acquired technology is a perfect match for their new products."

Jeremy Collins, managing director for Selecon Lighting, adds: "High End's IP will allow us to deliver an improved dimming solution for our Pacific MSR line at an affordable cost. Combining the highly

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UK - Contrary to popular belief, smaller companies are not being forced out of the market by their larger counterparts. In fact the larger companies are fighting each other, leaving the smaller companies to prosper. So say the results of a new analysis by Plimsoll Publishing, which focuses precisely on the top 39 companies in the UK sound equipment industry. These companies should be the pinnacles of financial performance. With the overall market showing a healthy turnaround, why have so many of these major players failed to exploit such favourable conditions?

David Pattison, senior analyst at Plimsoll Publishing Ltd, commented: "There is clear evidence of stagnation at the top of the market: 12 of these Top 39 companies failed to increase sales above inflation compared to 17 last year. With many also experiencing rising costs, their future direction now looks uncertain.&qu

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Italy - During the summer, Rome gives free rein to its calling as a city of art and culture. Last year, ten million people attended over 4,000 events, exhibitions and performances that took place across Rome as part of the Roman Summer billboard. Naturally, an important part of this program is the opera, which takes place in the Baths of Caracalla. Built in about 217 AD, the Baths of Caracalla were a later and grander example of a culture already well established in Rome by the middle of the 4th century BC. The huge, vaulted interior, which contained space for 1600 bathers, offered baths, swimming pools, lecture halls, lounges, and exercise facilities. Once lined in marble, the ruins of the Baths of Caracalla now provide a majestic open-air setting for opera performances.

Madema SpA, one of Italy's premier rental companies, was contracted to provide a sophisticated EAW sound rei

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UK - PLASA (the Professional Lighting and Sound Association) will host a session titled Managing the installation - Device Interoperability and Control Protocols - A current perspective at this year's PLASA Show (12-15 September 2004, Earls Court, London).

The session will include input from leading players in the development of entertainment industry control protocols - Peter Willis (Howard Eaton Lighting), Wayne Howell (Artistic Licence), Philip Nye (Engineering Arts) and Richard Lawrence (Strand Lighting) - who will present an update on their involvement in the ESTA Control Protocols Working Group and associated task groups, and chair a discussion forum on whether we are all heading in the same direction!

This session is targeted at manufacturers and engineering managers who have the responsibility of making things work together. Participation is by invitation, and l

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Germany - HK Audio will be launching three brand new products at PLASA 2004 (12-15 September). An eagerly-anticipated addition to the German manufacturer's Cohedra (Coherent Dynamic Response Array) system is the CDR 210 F direct-radiating 2 x 10" flyable subwoofer. Based on the acoustic characteristics of the Cohedra CDR 210 Sub subwoofer, the CDR 210 F has the same basic shape as the CDR 208 S/T mid/high units and can be flown with the same rigging hardware. The enclosure, sloped by 2.25° on top and bottom, allows for the curving of flying bass arrays, enabling up to 20 CDR 210 F units to be mounted directly on the flying frame above the mid/high units. Alternatively they can be flown as a separate bass array or to serve as the basis for ground-stacked Cohedra mid/high units using the Cohedra stacking frame (see below). For transportation, two CDR 210 F units fit into one m

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UK - Marquee Audio has been appointed as a main dealer by Garwood, for the new APM 12 dual stereo headphone amplifier. The APM 12 provides two musicians with high-quality audio feeds for any type of headphone - from the classic DT100 type to miniature Walkman-style headphones. Ideally suited to orchestras and choirs, it also provides simple and convenient distributed audio feeds for applications such as news conferences. It is designed to partner an APM 200 or APM 400 main station to form a complete APM Series distributed personal monitoring system, with power and audio signals for up to 15 APM 12 amplifiers provided by the main station through a single XLR cable. More APM 12s can be added to the system by adding further APM 400 main station extender units. Like the main stations, the compact and highly durable APM 12 provides superb audio quality with ultra low distortion and ext

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UK - Four divisions of the Star Events Group delivered a range of staging and rigging solutions across five venues for ClearChannel Entertainments series of Summer Nights concerts. The 2004 series of Summer Nights concerts attracted 187,500 fans to venues including Cardiff Castle, Warwick Castle, Edinburgh Castle, Leeds Castle and Chatsworth House. Cliff Richards, Tom Jones and Donnie Osmond played all of the venues, with Pavarotti playing his farewell UK concert as Leeds Castle as part of the series.

Star Events Group director Pete Holdich liaised with ClearChannel's Emma Hodgetts and production manager Neil McDonald to develop a tailored staging solution for each venue and had to manage the complex logistics as the shows took place simultaneously. Jake Piper was brought in by the group to manage the project on the ground, overseeing the impressive logistics operation including

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UK - AV design and installation specialists PA Installations assembled a team of top technicians to help re-brand and refresh the AV systems they'd installed at 36 former Warner Village Cinema Foyers throughout the UK. The venues have all now been re-branded as 'Vue' Cinemas.

This was the first major project undertaken by multi-national cinema operators SBC International Cinemas upon completion of their acquisition deal with former owners Warner. The new Vue cinema circuit is the second largest in terms of box office, and the largest UK multiplex operator.

PAI was originally involved in branding all the same venues for Warner Village, which is when they specified and installed the highly flexible AV systems. Glasgow-based Unick Architects were responsible for creating a complete new look and design scheme for the Vue foyers, and PAI was asked to take care of the AV and effect

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UK - Steljes Hire has supported ITV1's new prime time Saturday night dating show, Love on a Saturday Night, with the supply and management of the audio-visual products. The show, in which Davina McCall helping people find their perfect date switches between the studio set and outside broadcasts. To display the outside broadcast in the studio, the production company and set designers needed a large, clear display monitor integrated into the set behind Davina McCall, although the depth of the set was limited. Having worked successfully with AV hire company Steljes Hire before, James Zafar of Granada Media approached Steljes' operations manager Lloyd Hanlon for his audio-visual experience.

Zafar explains: "I was very aware that in today's competitive market I could get a plasma screen from anywhere at a very competitive price; however, it was the high level of technica

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UK - Audio specialists, RG Jones, recently completed a season working in the picturesque setting of Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, for Relevant Productions. The flown Synco Martin W8LC Line array (configured 16 enclosures a side) was put through its paces during a variety of performances spanning a ten day period - including a classic event, children's concert and a Glen Miller tribute orchestra. The ten day stint concluded with a repeat of the opening classical show, in which the sound reinforcement was required to provide first class coverage for a crowd of 13,000 people. All shows were mixed digitally on a Yamaha PM1D console.

"We had taken stock of the new Martin system only a couple of weeks earlier, and we had the entire 32-box system straight out on duty," reports RG Jones project manager, Simon Hodge. Measuring 11m from the ground to the top of the hang, and com

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USA - Color Kinetics Inc (CKI) has announced record revenues of $10.2 million for the second quarter of 2004. Revenues increased 39% from the $7.3 million reported in the second quarter of 2003 and increased 24% from the $8.2 million reported in the first quarter of 2004, say the company. Net income for the second quarter increased to a record $575,000, compared to $84,000 for the second quarter of 2003.

During the first half of 2004, the company generated approximately $1.2 million in cash from operating activities and, as of 30 June 2004, had cash and equivalents of $54.7 million. The Company's cash balance as of 30 June 2004 included approximately $35.2 million in net proceeds from its recently completed initial public offering in which the Company issued 4,000,000 shares of common stock at a price of $10 per share.

"We are very pleased to announce record results, pos

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UK - The Philips big screen on the 'Hill' adjacent to the new No 1 Court at Wimbledon, which keeps the crowds entertained during the fortnight of the tournament, was installed and managed by CT Screenco this year. Philips selected CT Screenco due to its previous experience in handling this project on their behalf. In addition to installing and managing the screen the service company supplied all the studio custom built PPU system involved. "The system gives Wimbledon the ability to select feeds from the seven televised courts, which are delivered by the BBC as host broadcasters, and also to access the closed circuit graphics and results system, including live ticker-tape results across the bottom of the picture," explained Dave Crump, business development director of CT's parent company, Avesco plc.

The resulting show provided to the people on the Hill grows in popular

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