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UK - Now available from Shure Distribution is the XP5000 stereo power amplifier, the latest addition to the series offering 5000W of power in a rack space of 3'U'. Eight models cover a range of power points with three versions offering separate sub woofer outputs selectable for 60, 90 or 120 Hz. Variable speed fans with rear to front air flow ensures cool running at all times and rigorous usage night after night without breaking down.

In addition Phonic's new Powerpod 885 Plus is now shipping in the UK and is also available from, Shure Distribution UK. The new Powerpod 885 Plus plastic moulded, powered mixer incorporates eight mic and 10 line inputs, with each channel featuring three-band EQ (two-channels with sweepable mids), as well as monitor and effect sends. This ergonomicall

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Romania - For years, the Club Kristal in Bucharest, which can accommodate up to 1,500 guests, has been rated the best disco in Romania. Indeed many say that the 1,000sqm entertainment centre, with its seventeen giant video screens, laser system and multifarious mist machines, is quite simply the best club in Eastern Europe. There's no doubt it attracts top talent. The cream of the world's DJs, including Sasha, Deep Dish and Paul Van Dyk, are regularly to be seen behind the club's turntables.

To ensure that the Club Kristal retains its place at the top table amongst the world's finest discotheques, at the beginning of December 2004, the owners invested in a Dynacord Alpha Concept system capable of pumping out a shuddering 10,000W comprising: six Alpha xi-90 tops, eight B3 bass enclosures, 16 Dynacord amps (L2400, L1600 and L1000).

One of the reasons why the Alpha Concept is one

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UK - Toby Alington's Richmond Studios team took on one of the biggest challenges in its history last night when it recorded the BRIT Awards' largest-ever lineup of live bands - 12 bands in a two-hour, non-stop live show at Earl's Court. Alington and an audio team of 10 recorded the complete 25th anniversary live show in an array of recording mobiles parked in a secure area next to Earl's Court 2, which was transformed into a spectacular 5,500-seat arena for the BRITs by event producers MJK Productions.

The bands' performances, awards presentations and speeches were recorded onto digital multitracks. An overnight post-production at London Studios will see the show trimmed to its broadcast length, ready for broadcast on ITV this evening. Finally, Alington will create an 'international' version of the edited show, with the English commentary and voiceovers removed.He comments: &qu

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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 - Since previewing the Frog 2 console at PLASA and LDI last year, Zero 88 has been busy gaining user feedback, and is in the final stages of software development before production ready release in a couple of weeks. The response to the desk has been phenomenal, say Zero 88, with advanced orders from the UK, across Europe and the US, with existing Beta consoles in high demand. Stage Electrics has ordered six - three for the rental stock another two for sales demos, whilst the first end-user sale was made to Derby Assembly Rooms.

Zero 88 says that the Frog 2 is designed to be used in the most demanding lighting control environments and will appeal to users looking for ease of programming, comprehensive playback choices, live busking, theatrical or stand-alone control of architectural type events. In terms of out put the Frog 2 will run up to eight universes, four via DMX or up

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France - Following previews at major trade shows in the UK, America and in Australia, ETC made SIEL 2005 the official launch platform for its latest console, the fruit of its relationship with the Avab brand and called Congo.

The development team spent time talking to board operators, rental companies, theatre lighting technicians and lighting designers to ensure they got exactly what they wanted. Feedback from the previews is now being implemented into the software, to hone the development of Congo further. The console has been designed "to be the most complete theatre and moving light hybrid - without losing the feel of a classic lighting control system," according to Avab software developer Anders Ekvall. Other team members included Jean-Louis Pernette and Christian Rezgui of Avab France, who were instrumental in directing product development.

Congo offers unclutt

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China - HK Audio's Chinese distributor, Melody Development Company, has supplied a speaker system to the Born In 70s bar in Nanjing. Located in the city's 1912 Leisure Street, the exterior of the bar, with its red brick, white walls and black-tiled roof, is just like the other 40-odd bars and night clubs along the street, and competition is fierce as each one strives to establish its own style. Born In 70s has chosen a gentle, mellow atmosphere in which to present live performances of classic songs. Melody Development's Nanjing office was happy to supply an HK Audio system and help to establish the unique musical experience the bar was looking for.

"We are not a noisy disco pub which just needs high volume and lots of booming sound," says bar owner Lu Dong. " HK Audio loudspeakers, with its clean and dynamic response, truly fulfill our requirements. We made the de

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USA - OptiLED's Linear Optical Array LED lamps were chosen by the Jacksonville Transportation Authority's (JTA) Board to illuminate the Main Street Bridge as part of a city-wide beautification effort in anticipation of this year's Super Bowl championship played at the Alltell Stadium in Jacksonville. Based on its successful track record working with linear LED product, award-winning lighting design firm Stone Mountain Lighting Group was subcontracted by Miller Electric to integrate, install and program the lights on the bridge with almost 1,200ft of OptiLED's Linear Optical Array LED lights, which have been assembled together to form an impressive LED matrix to create various graphics and designs.

The project is a joint effort between the JTA, the City of Jacksonville, the Florida Department of Transportation and the First Coast Metropolitan Planning Organization. Spanning 1,680

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UK - Kramer Electronics recently announced the availability of the newest addition to its product line - the 840 DVI pattern generator. The 840 is a DVI display evaluation tool and an ideal product for engineering and sales personnel in the business of selling and calibrating DVI capable displays and accessories.

The 840 comes with 32 built-in patterns including some unique patterns containing movement, say the company. All 32 patterns in the 840 have been carefully chosen to ensure that the 840 can effectively evaluate every important aspect of a DVI display or accessory. These include, but are not limited to, the refresh rate performance, testing of overall linearity, the linearity of each pixel component and identifying missing pixel components of fixed resolution display devices such as LCD and plasma monitors and LCD and DLP projectors. The 840 also has patterns that are de

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USA - ESTA has announced that five draft standards are now in public review until 26 April. The standards deal with wire rope ladders, theatrical boom and base assemblies (lighting trees), the ACN protocol, pin connectors, and flat-wall photometry. The documents are accessible on the ESTA website.

BSR E1.1, Entertainment Technology - Construction and Use of Wire Rope Ladders, is a revised version of ANSI E1.1-1999, Entertainment Technology - Construction and Use of Wire Rope Ladders. E1.1-1999 was offered for public review to reaffirm it last year, since it was at the five-year anniversary at which an American National Standard must be reaffirmed, revised, or withdrawn. No one offered any public review comments, but close examination of the document by Rigging Working Group members s

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UK - Autograph Sales, has continued to introduce new customers to Meyer Sound, specifically to its celebrated Ultra Series range. Among the new customers is Stage Sound Services, based in Cardiff, which has become the first rental company in Wales to invest in Meyer Sound. The four UPJ-1Ps and two UMS-1P subs will immediately be put to work on the UK theatre tour of Dracula. The production will run for twenty weeks with Christopher Cazenove staring as Van Helsing. Dracula's sound designer Fergus O'Hare specified the Meyer Sound cabinets.

Phil Hurley, Stage Sound Services' MD, is an existing Autograph Sales customer and is thrilled to join the Meyer Sound fold; "I feel this is just the beginning of our commitment to the product range," he says, "enhancing the choice of products available to our growing client base."

Westminster Sonus, a leading conferencin

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USA - Manhattan-based television and film composer Daniel Antonio Srebnick adopted Metric Halo's mobile I/O 2882+DSP production interface 18 months ago. Now no longer tethered to the recording studio, Srebnick is enjoying a newfound creative freedom resulting from his transition from a full-blown DAW system.

His contributions to the soundtrack of The Squid and the Whale, a new independent film by writer-director Noah Baumbach, which stars Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, and was co-produced by Wes Anderson and Peter Newman, will debut at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. "I used all Metric Halo's products for that project," notes Srebnick.

Although having invested very heavily in an industry standard DAW, Srebnick, an avid Mac user, realized that the power of the new G5 would allow him to run Logic - which he uses for scoring, audio a

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China - China's largest on-site museum, the Emperor Qin's Terracotta Warriors and Horses Museum, marked its 25th anniversary with the opening of a new 530-seat auditorium. The museum is located in the Shaanxi provincial city of Xi'an, one of the six ancient capitals of China, and is home to one of the most significant archeological excavations of the 20th century.

It is also home to one of the country's most modern audio installations, featuring a fully digital networked system based around QSC's Rave/CM16a audio transport and monitoring components. The Rave system and QSControl.net system were chosen for their simple setup and expandability.

Comprising of a RAVE 188s-24 unit in the auditorium's control room routed to a second 188s-24 unit in the equipment room via a single Ethernet CAT-5 cable, two of QSC's CM16a Amplifier Network Monitors control 15 two-channel QSC CX-series

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UK - A customized Martin Audio stadium system has been installed at Blackburn Rovers' Ewood Park facility by locally-based contractors, Romers. Six enclosures - based on the Blackline H3 system - have been fitted under the roof of the 8,158-capacity Blackburn End stand, which is populated by the home supporters.

Specialists in stadia fit-outs, Romers wanted to create maximum vertical coverage - via a 40° x 70° horn pattern (rather than the customary 70° x 40°); thus a bespoke solution was favoured, with the loudspeakers mounted on their sides.

Martin Audio's Peter Child said: "We based the customization of the H3's on our AM3 Stadium enclosure and were able to offer the solution they required. The enclosures were sprayed with a high density polyurethane plastic coating both internally and externally, while the drivers were weather-proofed behind a heavy galvanized and

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Ireland - Healey Music Warehousing, who manage Outline Ireland (sales and rental), supplied all the live stages at this year's opening celebrations for Cork City of Culture 2005, when over 80,000 people visited Ireland's second city to be entertained by a wide variety of performances. Tony Healy of Healey Music said: "We have had Outline for the last couple of years and in fact have just significantly increased our inventory, which enabled us to supply all the main performance areas around Patrick St."

The Doppia from Outline is an ultra compact high/mid loudspeaker which stands only 19" high and 14" wide, yet boasts 2 x 12", 1 x10" and a compression driver with 3" diaphragm. Doppia's were utilized with Outlin's Victor Live sub basses which astonishingly perform down to 28Hz. All systems were powered by Outline's TP range of digital amplifiers

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USA - Show Distribution Group Inc of Canada, ChainMaster's exclusive distributors in the USA, Mexico and Canada, has moved to larger premises so as to be able to extend still further its range of activities. The new 2,000sqm facility in Quebec offers considerably more space for the Service department plus greater storage capacity to meet increasing demand.

Show Distribution has more than 300 rigging lifts, 100 VarioLifts and 25 VarioTrolleys at its disposal at all times; this is material that Show Distribution has purchased and uses to support customers in the hire business who, in 2004, accompanied tours by Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Shania Twain and Tim Graw with lifting gear and controllers from ChainMaster. Show Distribution also furnished chain hoist systems from ChainMaster for live shows and marketing events staged by Everlast Productions of Florida and

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UK - XL Video supplied video production including the massive 16 x 7m Unitek V9 central LED screen and two 30msq 16:9 ratio Barco S10 LED side screens for The 25th Brit Awards, staged at London's Earls Court 2.

The screen was integrated into Mark Fisher's scenic design. It split apart vertically into two sides and both sides tracked off-stage utilizing a Kinesys movement system for millimeter perfect accuracy. It was the third year running that XL has been the supplier of video screens for the show to MJK Productions and production manager Mick Kluczynski. It was the second year running that automation specialists Kinesys were called in by show production riggers Outback, to co-ordinate the moving of the screens.

The project was managed for XL by Paul Wood and for Kinesys by Dave Weatherhead. Kinesys attached two variable speed winches to staging company StageCo's 46m wide gro

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USA - Tomcat celebrated 13 years of in depth industry training courses with another successful Hoist and Rigging Workshop in Midland, Texas. Top-notch instructors and 62 industry professional participants from all over the United States, and even Mexico attended the workshop as well as the all new Advanced Workshop.

Don Dimitroff of Columbus McKinnon, as well as TOMCAT's own Dave Sowa, coached participants through the Lodestar electric chain hoist. Rocky Paulson of Stage Rigging, a Freeman Company and Morgan Neff of Mine Safety Appliances stressed safety in rigging techniques and fall protection equipment while Keith Bohn, Tomcat design manager, and Will Todd, Tomcat project manager, offered a course in truss theory and design. Not only did participants receive four days of power-packed, informative classes, but also four nights of fun filled entertainment, including the traditi

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UK - Audio system design and installation specialist Blue Box has completed a compact and versatile audio system for the newly-opened Broadway Theatre in Barking, East London. The theatre, designed by Tim Foster Architects, occupies a former municipal assembly hall, completely redesigned and rebuilt to provide high quality performing arts facilities to the community and accommodation to Barking College School of Performing Arts. Its core is the Dudley Moore Auditorium - a new performance space with galleries and seating for 341. With the retractable stalls bleacher seating removed, there's space for 650 standing.

The venue is designed for a mixed programme encompassing music, theatre, concerts, family friendly performances, contemporary dance and live arts installations. New facilities include an expanded backstage, scenery production storage and rehearsal rooms and technical s

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UK - Hawthorn Theatrical hosted their 18th birthday in style when they transformed their Leicester premises into a party venue. Around 300 invited clients and Hawthorn's staff moved between the main bar (complete with table football and giant Jenga), a nightclub with live band stage, karaoke room, second live band room, and a chill-out room as they partied the night away to the early hours.

After 18 years providing technical and creative solutions for events of all shapes and sizes, Hawthorne's general manager Simon Wood, working with MD Martin Hawthorne, applied their experience to produce a stunning party. This included supplying everything from their own décor, lighting, screens, sound and power, having considered all of the health and safety issues.

Martin Hawthorn, founder commented: "It seemed an ideal opportunity to thank our customers and 60 full-time staff for

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UK - UK company LM Productions LLP has been contracted to supply a StratoFantasia show for a two-week event in March called Planet Coke. The company will be supplying its StratoSphere projection globe, complete with new fire safety doors, and 360° seamless video projection on the sphere utilizing five high-powered video projectors. The brand awareness show for Coca Cola will include live performances in the sphere that the public can attend by collecting tokens from promotional bottles of Coca Cola. The video content will include a three-minute promotional video and 30 minutes of abstract visuals.

LM Productions' laser show designers have pre-programmed a laser beam show using three of the company's new full-colour DPSS whitelight lasers, three DPSS green lasers and a new DomeScan 360° laser projector. The six lasers will be positioned at 60° intervals around the per

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UK - Business analyst Plimsoll Publishing has claimed that acquisition activity is likely to increase in the UK's sound equipment industry in 2005. A new study highlights 54 cash rich companies that are ideally placed to enhance their earnings by acquiring a competitor: 51 companies have been identified as their acquisition prospects. Ranging from some of the smallest to some of the largest in the industry, each is displaying symptoms of financial stress, with low pre-tax margins and high levels of debt. The average level of debt for these companies is 11% of turnover. However, the analysis also demonstrates that each of these businesses could be turned around in a short period of time.

David Pattison, Senior Analyst at Plimsoll, says: "These under pressure companies are running out of options. As the average industry profit margin is only 1.4%, and over half of companies

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