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UK - Anthony Newton has succeeded Katharine Williams as technical director of NSDF; The National Student Drama Festival. The Festival, held over the Easter period each year, will be celebrating its fiftieth birthday this March and Anthony welcomes the challenge this unique event will bring.

Anthony, now an Edinburgh based lighting designer, has attended the festival as a member of the technical crew since 1999. He was then at school in Scarborough; his home town and home of the Festival for 16 years now. Aged 21 Anthony is one of the youngest technical directors to date and comes to the position fresh from graduating from Queen Margaret's University College, Edinburgh.

Katharine has stepped down from the role she has held for over three years in order to further develop her care

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Wordwide - Affirming its commitment to the ongoing development of the EAW Commercial brand throughout the world, Loud Technologies has announced the appointment of two professional audio veterans to the EAW Commercial team. Bob Harrison assumes the position of EAW Commercial sales manager for the EMEA region, and John Bosaw has been appointed to the position of market liaison, EAW Commercial.

As LOUD Technologies' EAW Commercial sales manager for the EMEA region, Bob Harrison will act as the primary contact for all EAW Commercial distributors throughout Europe and will therefore be responsible for spearheading EAW Commercial sales throughout the EMEA region.

Bob Harrison has more than 20 years of experience in the professional audio industry including a total of 17 years with Beyerdynamic UK, the distribution company of the German microphone and headphone manufacturer. The fir

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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 popularity and reputation of The Wells Summer School, where dancers from The Royal Ballet instruct children from 8 to 17 years, has expanded and this year embraced three major dance areas - all converted to professional dance floor standards courtesy of British Harlequin plc.

Francesca Filpi has been organizing The Wells Summer School for three years now, based at the Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells, Kent and held this year over a period of ten days in August. Here a relationship has been forged between The Wells teaching faculty from The Royal Ballet and Harlequin providing roll out dance floor solutions. In the main hall of the school, Harlequin covered the hard parquet wood floor with Harlequin Studio flooring, which was also the choice to cover the wooden flooring in a large marquee erected in the school grounds. The solution for the Auditorium wood

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UK - Scotland's Lighting Show 2004 has been hailed a major success by organizers, exhibitors and visitors alike. Taking place from 24-25 September, the event was held at black light's Edinburgh headquarters. Although only in its second year, the show had grown considerably from the 2003 event. A clear demonstration of how seriously the show is already being taken by the industry was the fact that, although just eight days after the end of London's PLASA trade show, a range of heavyweight industry suppliers had made the journey north to exhibit their products and services.

"Even we were surprised at how the show has taken off in just its second year," said black light managing director and show organizer Gavin Stewart. "It was a fantastically successful event and the feedback from all round has been extremely positive. Scotland and the north of England are hotbeds

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Germany - B & K Braun of Karlsbad has strengthened its export department with the appointment of new recruit Mirjam Sojka, reporting to export manager Ralph Zoller. Sojka's responsibilities include the export activities of German Light Products (GLP). For 10 years, GLP has been developing and producing lighting equipment including moving lights, dimmers and lighting controllers. Already around 40% of its production is exported and this share is rising, say the company. Important markets for GLP products include not only Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Korea but also continental and eastern Europe.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA / Latin America - Production Resource Group (PRG) provided a complete lighting package for the live broadcast of Univision's Premios Juventud, the first annual award show on Spanish-language television honouring popular Latin stars. Broadcast throughout Latin America, the show was seen by over 23 million viewers in the US alone. It was the second highest-rated awards show in history on Hispanic television.

Entertainers featured in the show included Mexican superstar Thalía, Colombian heartthrob Juanes, and pop music sensation Paulina Rubio. The stars gave performances and received awards on an expansive stage that was decorated as a dance club, complete with a DJ booth and V.I.P. lounge area. The show's production crew included lighting director/programmer Felix Peralta, lighting director John Daniels, Catalyst programmer Jason Rudolph, head electrician Angus Sinex, and mov

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USA - Technical specs may change from tour to tour but the one constant for any itinerant sound engineer is their laptop computer. Freelance engineer Sean Sullivan's laptop, combined with Metric Halo's Mobile I/O 2882, has become an essential piece of gear on the road. It provides critical signal analysis and metering tools via Metric Halo's SpectraFoo software, while the MIO gives him signal routing that is frequently unavailable in touring sound systems. As Sullivan observes: "Here I am with my laptop and my Mobile I/O and I'm pretty much carrying all the tools that you could ever ask for. Whether it be analyzing a PA or mixing an album, it's got everything built into it."

SpectraFoo incorporates standards-based level metering, high-speed, high-resolution spectral analysis, the unique Phase Torch, correlation metering, triggerable waveform display, power balancing, a

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UK - Drapes and rigging specialist Blackout was recently appointed by MTV Networks Europe to realize an elaborate Gothic set at the recent MTV Icon event. This was an exclusive live tribute to rock legends The Cure, staged at Old Billingsgate in London.

Featuring performances and testimonials from artists and celebrities influenced by the band - including Marilyn Manson, Razorlight Blink 182, AFI and the Deftones the event will be beamed across MTV Europe's Networks of 120 million homes from October 2004.

Blackout's project manager, Kevin Monks, headed the team and collaborated closely with the MTV Networks Europe production management team. Blackout rose to the challenge of designing and supplying a trussing structure in line with the building restrictions imposed by Old Billingsgate's Grade II listed status.

The atmospheric Gothic set designed by Simon Beresford required o

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Sweden / Norway - Visual act, the Swedish stage automation specialist, has recently completed the installation of a new control system for the Norwegian Theatre in Oslo, involving the replacement of drive electronics for 119 fly bars and point hoists. The system installed is capable of operating all the drives simultaneously, as was ably demonstrated during the testing period, when the company's technicians made the most of the empty stage by programming continuous movements and effects involving all 119 drives.

The latest version of Visual act's operator desk was selected as it is especially designed for permanent installations, providing an ergonomic work area suitable for many hours of use on an everyday basis. Three operator desks were installed - one of which is wireless and can be moved to the house for rehearsals.

The control system has fully redundant servers and po

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UK - Following the success French company Ayrton has enjoyed with EasyColor 1 via UK distributors, Lighting Effects Distribution, Ian Kirby has announced that the twice-as-powerful EasyColor 2 is now in stock in the company's Kent warehouse.

In addition to greater power, the new LED moving head luminaire offers more LEDs and more features than its precursor, enabling designers to be more creative. EasyColor 2 is equipped with 36 high-power Luxeon LEDs, with lamp-life duration exceeding 100,000 hours.

The product's new features include a totally new software programme, which allows variation of the colour balance. And in order to fulfil the increasing demand for installation in new vertical markets, EasyColor 2 is now available in a variety of finishes - Carbon (black), Snow (white) and Platinum (grey). An entirely new construction and higher-grade motors widen its application

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UK - ESL Ltd of Southend supplied the sound and lighting at this year's Daily Mirror Labour Party Conference Party, held on the Wednesday night of the convention at the Grand Hotel, Brighton. Their brief was to supply a state-of-the-art sound and lighting system for a live band and disco for the 1000 delegates who attended.

ESL's Mike Glover took the company's brand new KV2 Audio sound system to the event, which had been purchased just a week before following a demonstration at this year's PLASA show. The System was made up of ES1.8 subs, ES2.5 bass and the ES1.0 mid/high cabinets - all driven by KV2's EPAK amplifier/processing package. Glover says: "Even though we had not used the system in a large venue or in a live situation I had complete faith in what the equipment was capable of producing. We have had long discussions with Andy Austin-Brown from KV2 and this gave me

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Denmark - The new plug and play MC Switch from Martin lets you power up and down six fixtures such as lights, fog machines or mirror balls, with the option of daisy-chaining up to 24 units through four power boxes. The MC Switch controls lights such as the Martin Manias, Egos, T-Rex and Raptor, as well as other equipment including mirror balls and fog machines. Sturdy and robust, MC Switch may be placed on a table, rack-mounted or truss-mounted, say Martin.

Designed for easy use, installation and set-up, the MC Switch control box connects to a power box with six IEC channels out via RJ 45 cable - allowing a maximum of 300W output for each (US version maximum output 250W per output/fixture). Control is a mains power on/off digital switch, which is controlled via a remote control with on/off buttons.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Super Vision International Inc has announced the appointment by its board of directors of Anthony T. Castor III as a director of the company, with effect from 4 October. Castor currently serves as president, CEO and a director of Chromalox Inc - a Pittsburgh-based manufacturer of precision heating and control devices, currently a key portfolio company for JP Morgan Partners. Prior to his position at Chromalox, Castor served as President and CEO at the Morgan Group, Inc of Baltimore, Maryland, a company engaged in transportation and specialty outsourcing services.

From 1997 to 1999 Castor served as president and CEO of Precision Industrial Corporation of Montvale, New Jersey - a $200 million manufacturer of capital equipment for the metal processing industry, prior to which he was president and CEO of Hayward Industries of Elizabeth, New Jersey - one of the world's largest

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UK - As the exclusive UK dealer for Telex Radiocom's BTR 700 and BTR 800 intercom systems, Orbital Sound has announced eight new sales of both systems, which have been used on a variety of applications across the live broadcast and production industries. Deployed on projects as diverse as Edinburgh's International Festival, Glastonbury Festival, a host of West End Musicals including Andrew Lloyd Webber's latest production The Woman in White and, most recently, on location filming the new Sahara Productions' blockbuster movie - Sahara - starring Penelope Cruz and Matthew McConaughey.

The systems have proved their versatility and simple operation straight out of the box, providing the perfect solution in any environment where real time 2-way communications are required. Orbital's sales and installation manager Tom Byrne collaborated with Joe Buxton of MR Technical S

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USA - Ani Difranco is currently singing her new works on her 'Vote Dammit!' tour, designed to encourage individuals to make their voices known via voting. Political songwriters, activists, comedians and other guests add individual touches to each show along the way. Helping enhance her songs and message every night is a High End Systems Catalyst Pro v3.2 Media Server, along with a rig full of Studio Beam automated luminaires, all supplied by lighting contractor See Factor.

Long-time LD Phil Karatz has used Studio Beams before, but this is his first time to take out Catalyst. He says: "The Catalyst system has worked out great. I used mostly custom content but I also used a bit of the stock content - I like a lot of the art that shipped with version 3.2. I got a lot of content from Ani's office - she has cool art on her records. I also used digital pictures I have taken from

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UK - Marquee Audio has returned to the Derby Assembly Rooms,15 years after originally fitting a Court Black Box PA, replacing it with a Meyer M1D line array system. The Assembly Rooms was opened in 1977 as a rock and roll venue and is an integral part of the band touring circuit. "But then the big venues came along and the theatre circuit changed from 1,000-seat theatre venues to 21,000-seat arenas like the NEC, NIA, Sheffield Arena and of course Wembley," said the venue's technical manager, Nigel Palmer.

When a new general manager started a few years ago, the venue's 1000-seat Great Hall started to receive touring shows such as Boogie Nights with Shane Ritchie, which was a huge success. And when last year the venue put on its first ever pantomime - hosting 27,000 people to see Aladdin in just four weeks - the Assembly Rooms had firmly cemented its new revenue streams

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UK - Bandit Lites UK is supplying lighting production for the current McFly tour, working with lighting designer Graham Feast and production manager Iain Whitehead of Productions North, who also designed the set. McFly, currently at the forefront of the UK's high-energy, teenage neo pop-rock movement, are on their first major production tour, following a string of chart singles successes and an excellent debut album.

When it came to lighting, Prestige Management sought something like the 1980s mega rock look, made legendary by the likes of AC/DC, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, who vied to have the biggest and best lighting show on the road. Whitehead also took the stage styles and trends of this epoch onboard with the set design, adding a twist of modernity, capitalizing on the current design penchant for silver and metallic tones. He chose silver trussing and Par cans, metal stairc

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UK - Dubbed as 'the topical quiz with the tropical prize', Bognor or Bust is a new game show that sees two members of the public teaming up with four celebrities to compete for the holiday of a lifetime and avoiding the consolation prize of a weekend in Bognor.

Lighting for the show is provided by lighting designer Chris Kempton, with equipment supplied by Richard Martin Lighting. The most striking feature of the set is the back wall: made up of 24 screen-printed gauze panels, each panel is individually backlit by a floor-mounted VL 1000 TS. Kempton's decision to use VL1000s came from his need to use a framing unit that would be as silent as possible. "You never know who is going to answer a question, so all seven mics need to be left open - we needed a unit that wouldn't be picked up by them."

The predominantly white background also played a role in Kempton's deci

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Denmark - Danish Interpretation Systems (DIS) has introduced the latest incarnation of its Digital Conference System, the DCS 6000, which handles up to eight active microphones plus 32 different language channels simultaneously - all tied together with standard Cat 5 cable in a fully digital high-speed communication bus - the proprietary DCS-LAN developed for digital audio and data distribution. The total capacity of the system can be enhanced for up to 4,000 microphones and interpreter units and an unlimited number of channel selectors, say the company.

The CM/DM 6560F are fully digital microcomputer controlled conference units with loudspeaker and illuminated microphone mounted on a semi goose-neck arm. The units support a three-button voting facility and a chip card reader for identifying the user of the system, and come in either chairman or delegate versions. The high-qual

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UK - DMC has announced that the Lambourne Club in Burnham, Buckinghamshire, will be the setting for the DMC World DJ Golf Open competition, in aid of the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy charity. This, the second DJ/music industry golf tournament, takes place on Thursday November 11th, 2004, and forms part of the World DJ Day fund-raising activity. The reigning singles champion Tall Paul will be defending his title, as will doubles champions John Craig and Graham Smith.

The fee per player is £150, with breakfast and lunch available to non-golfers for £75. Further information and application forms are available from DMC, telephone 020 7262 6777, or via e-mail at the e-mail address below.

(Lee Baldock)

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