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UK - As tight timescales go, it was a test of spirit and ingenuity for Environ Audio, working closely with its supplier Harman Pro UK. The two companies collaborated to supply and install 43 South Molton Street - a new, exclusive private members club - with a top quality audio system in time to open for a party the next night!

The venue - designed by the award winning Russell Stage - features an event/party space in the basement, a restaurant on the ground floor and a lounge on the top two floors. It's independently owned by three young entrepreneurs who understand the importance of good sound.

They chose Environ's sound design - created by classical musician and acoustic engineer Dan Eades - based on a package of Harman products including JBL, dbx and Crown - above others, even

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UK - The world record times for the indoor Women's 3000m, Men's 1500m and Men's two mile races were illustrated by Stage Electrics during the Birmingham Indoor Grand Prix on Friday 18 February 2005.

A lighting system designed by Stage Electrics' Simon Baker allowed the athletes to race against banks of lights around the track. The lights were carefully programmed to chase at the world record pace, meeting the exact specification set by Bob Caple production manager for Fast Track. The chases were set up to be accurate to within 0.01 of a second and the whole event was broadcast live by the BBC.

Working for Fast Track, UK Athletics and BBC Sport, Stage Electrics ensured that the system was robust and wouldn't let the athletes down during the races. 100 floor cans were rigged around the 200m track and controlled by Martin Light Jockey and a Strand 520i desk. Other equipment used

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USA - Lighting designer Bob Dickinson has used Martin Professional's MAC 2000 Wash fixtures recently for both the Grammys and the Oscars awards ceremonies. For the 77th Academy Awards show at Hollywood's Kodak Theatre, Dickinson used around 260 MAC 2000 Wash fixtures into this year's design. "Good colour mixing combined with exceptional output make it the perfect tool for television, especially broadcasts with very high trim heights," he said. "The Grammy's had trims of over 80ft and the Oscars were some 45ft."

"Considering a live television broadcast is a one chance circumstance, dependability is very important," Dickinson states. "I have come to trust the MAC 2K as a solid player, a very dependable light. The MAC 2K Wash is a lot of light when you want it, where you need it and you know the damn thing will be working when the cue is called!&

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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 - When the Imperial War Museum in London needed lighting to enhance the launch of its new touring exhibition, Their Past Your Future, TPYF communications manager, Sarah Dowd, turned to White Light Events, following the successful collaboration between White Light and the Museum on the 1940's House exhibition in 2001.

Their Past Your Future is a new educational project led by the Imperial War Museum, and funded by the Big Lottery Fund, which aims to inspire people of all ages to discover the Second World War, how it shaped and altered the world's course, and why it is still relevant now and in the future. It is now showing in nine different locations around the UK, including: Bluewater Shopping Centre in Dartford, Kent, Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Action Stations at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, Forest of Mercia Innovation Centre, Staffordshire, Blackburn Mu

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Germany - A new German distribution company has been formed by Hans-Joachim Rockel, Christian Schiele and Jan Wintersberg. Working with ProdyTel, of Fuerth, Germany, the new company, also called ProdyTel, has been formed to distribute the company's 'Audio via TCP/IP' solutions worldwide, as well as a portfolio of other products including Clearone audio-conferencing products in Germany.

The company emphasizes the modern direction of ProdyTel as an IT/AV distribution company. In Germany, it will offer solutionsincluding Clearone and Gentner audio-conferencing; CUE media remote control systems; Teldat WAN-routers, switches and merchant gateways; ProdyTel audio via TCP/IP solutions, and S-Cluster; and Prodys IP codecs, E1/T1 multiplexers and ISDN Codecs.

(Lee Baldock)

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France - To be launched at ProLight&Sound exhibition in Frankfurt next month (6-9 April), InnovaSon's new range of interfaces allows for greater connectivity between InnovaSon consoles and third party compatible products whilst at the same time increasing the I/O capabilities of the Sy80 and Sy48 digital mixing consoles considerably, say the company.

As yet un-named, the first product in the range provides a link for 64 bi-directional audio channels between the DSP cards of two InnovaSon consoles using an EtherSound interface card. Alternatively the same cardset can be used to access up to 64 channels of audio from external devices via EtherSound, or to connect to a second InnovaSon stage box which, InnovaSon tells us, will be available shortly, after the first audio links ship.

The interfaces comprise a host daughter card attached to an Sy80 or Sy48 DSP module that can hold

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UK - HSL Productions is supplying all lighting equipment for the current Bill Kenwright UK tour of "Jesus Christ Superstar". Lighting designer is Nick Richings and Simon Sherrif operates the show.

The rig includes a wide variety of Martin Professional MAC moving lights - 11 MAC 2K profiles, eight MAC 2K Washes, 12 MAC 500 profiles, six MAC 250s and four MAC 300s. There's also four DHA Digital Light Curtains and the generic lights include 36 Source Four Profiles with different lenses, and a selection of PAR cans.

All the generic fixtures are fitted with either ChromaQ Broadway or ChromaQ PAR scrollers, and Sherrif is running the show from a WholeHog II console. HSL has also supplied three Avolites ART dimmer racks and one of its custom built mains distro. The whole rig is completely self-contained at each venue apart from follow spots, which are supplied by the house.

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Russia - An interesting challenge was handed to Harlequin, when Russia's famous Bolshoi ballet called the dance floor supplier to provide a custom designed sprung dance floor. Unusually, the floors were to be installed on a pair of metal ballet wagons, each 15m (49' 3") x 6m (19' 7"), that when not in use were to be stored hanging vertically.

In most theatres and opera houses wagons are trucked on and off stage, but at the Bolshoi the wagons are winched to the back of the stage and hauled up into a vertical position, then dropped into a storage slot at the back of the stage until called for again. Since each of the two wagons was estimated to weigh 1.5 tonnes complete with the basketweave floor construction, Harlequin appointed structural engineers at the early design stage to calculate loads and devise special fixings to ensure the total weight was adequately supporte

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Malaysia - One of Kuala Lumpur's newest clubs, the Rum Jungle, has been opened by Trend Matrix in the shadow of the Petronas Towers. Themed on the Malaysian ecosystem, tropical foliage envelopes the building's perimeters, reinforced in a cover of jungle mist, atmospheric lighting, water features, flaming torches, giant river boulders, and even a trapeze and a swing-rope.

Supplied by Electro-Systems Industries Pte Ltd, sound reinforcement for Rum Jungle offers the guests the most diversified acoustic experience to be found on the strip. Planning the sound reinforcement for the different areas (main room, VIP area, dining area, foldback for stage) meant using different speakers to perform the various audio tasks: because of its open-air architecture, designing the live sound reinforcement for the main room posed some acoustic challenges especially as the room's seating was on two

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UK - Stagecraft is celebrating after winning and completing a new live events contract with global pharmaceutical company Schering-Plough. Salisbury based Stagecraft has worked with Schering-Plough on a number of events over the last year and was responsible for the creative and technical management of the Company's National Business Conference in January 2005.

Colin Hurst, Head of training and development at Schering-Plough commented: "Stagecraft won the business after showing a clear understanding of our local business needs and corporate drivers. The company offered us a creative approach to our move forward, showing a clear vision of what and how our meeting would look, feel and sound."

Working with Schering-Plough, Stagecraft was responsible for the production of the conference, which was attended by 600 delegates. The company provided all creative, editorial, t

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UK - Le Mark has created a range of heat, solvent and tamper-resistant identification labels/nameplates for industrial tooling manufacturer, Perkins Engines. The requirement was to develop and manufacture a label which would remain in place at all times and clearly identify the company's products. A Japanese pressure-sensitive self-adhesive system unique to the UK (SSS 5585) which forms an incredibly strong bond once cured, was selected. A combination process of screen-printing and steel etching was required to ensue durability to meet the Perkins specification.

Over 12 months of testing, evaluations were carried out with extreme temperatures, vibration, oils and solvents. These extensive tests showed LeMark's product, to be able to produce the best solution, and therefore winning the contract, amidst fierce opposition within the industry market.Le Mark's sales director Linda G

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USA - Beyoncé, at the 77th Annual Academy Awards show, broadcast live on ABC from the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday, February 27th, sang three of the Oscar-nominated original song, using her standard Sennheiser RF microphone, which pairs an SKM5000-N handheld transmitter with a Neumann KK 105-S capsule.

RF systems provider and frequency coordinator for the show, David Bellamy, whose Burbank-based Soundtronics Wireless company specializes in RF equipment rental for major entertainment, sports and broadcast events, supplied the remainder of the Sennheiser microphones and RF gear for the telecast. "We had SK5012 beltpack transmitters and SKM5000-N handhelds, plus EM3032 receivers," says Bellamy.

In addition to Beyoncé's own mic, Soundtronics Wireless supplied Sennheiser/Neumann hybrid handheld mics for host Chris Rock as well as for Josh Groban, who joined Beyo

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UK - In celebration of the 35th anniversary of the release of The Who's legendary album, Tommy, a production of the musical Tommy has hit the road for a 20-week European tour with lighting supplied by PRG Europe. PRG won the opportunity to supply the lights after the show's production company, Theatrical Management Group (TMG), decided to change lighting and audio suppliers at the last minute. "I chose PRG because they enabled me to stay in budget while keeping my original design," said Michel Boersma, the show's producer.

Given only two weeks to ship and set up the equipment at the tour's opening in Frankfurt, PRG's Alan Thomson and Loz Wilcox, together with independent production electrician Simon Needle, pulled out all of the stops in delivering a solution on-time. In the process, they recognized that rigging changes would need to be made in order to achieve

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USA - Loud Technologies Inc has announced the acquisition of St. Louis Music Inc, a Missouri-based manufacturer, distributor and importer of branded musical instruments and professional audio products. As part of this acquisition, St. Louis Music will become an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Loud Technologies Inc.

Founded in 1922 by the Kornblum family, St. Louis Music's products include world-renowned Ampeg bass guitar amplifiers, Crate amplifiers, Crate Audio sound reinforcement equipment, Alvarez guitars and string instruments, and Knilling orchestral string instruments. The company is also one of the largest distributors of music accessories, offering retailers a complete line of branded accessory products.

"This acquisition demonstrates that Sun Capital Partners, our principal shareholder, is committed to the expansion of our portfolio into related markets,&q

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Germany - AV retail entertainment creators and provider, Cube Music, has been specifying BSS Soundwebs as the digital hub of its distribution systems into high-end retail sites on a regular basis. When Ed Manwaring of EM Communications was asked to put a BSS-driven network onto the Cube Group's stand at the recent EuroShop retail trade fair in Germany - using a pair of SW9016 video/audio matrix switchers and an SW9010 'Jellyfish' remote - it was not only to enable salesmen to stream different content to potential clients via the remote panel, as Cube CEO Fiona Ryder explained: "Soundweb has become an absolutely key element of our retail installations," she said. "The first time we used it was for a client at the Bull Ring and we love the whole flexibility and the way it works. From that point on it became standard for us, and so it was critical we had one to show on

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UK - Workwear manufacturer Setwear has announced the availability of EasyFit 2 - a tough yet flexible glove made from 0.5mm synthetic leather with durable gel foam padding in the palms for extra grip and neoprene reinforcement over the knuckles for flexibility and protection, while Lycra panels between the fingers increase mobility and give extra comfort.

Machine washable and fast drying, these gloves allow you to dial your phone, tie knots and operate equipment without taking them off, say the company. The gloves "built for the needs of the technician working in the live entertainment industry" are now available from stockists in the UK and Europe.

(Lee Baldock)

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Germany - At the Frankfurt ProLight&Sound exhibition next month (6-9 April), German distributor Camco will be hosting the exhibition display of its most high-profile line, the sound reinforcement products of Nexo. These will be shown alongside Camco's own acclaimed power amplifier designs and network control software.

One of the most popular models in the range is the Vortex 6, which has this year powered world tours by Metallica, Marilyn Manson, and Slipknot, with Robert Plant and Garbage getting ready to tour with Camco racks. The Vortex 200V is the latest addition to the line: specified at more than 3kW per channel RMS at 4 Ohms, the Vortex 200V delivers voltage at the output of 200V per channel.

The Tecton Series has won new converts to Camco's High-Efficient-SMPS (Switch Mode Power Supply) design concept, the company says. The Tecton models, targeted at the sound contra

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UK - Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs and Spot 250 XT moving lights are on Natasha Beddingfield's current UK tour - her first shows with her own production to promote the successful debut album, Unwritten.

Lighting designer Dave Gibbon decided to buy the XT 250s himself, having used them extensively last year on the Hadley vs Cox tour and other events. "There's absolutely no doubt that they are the most reliable and cost-effective fixtures available for the type of work I do" he says - which ranges through a variety of touring artists to corporate and special events.

It was important that Beddingfield's lighting rig was adaptable and flexible as it's visiting a great variety of venues, from student union gigs and clubs to large theatres. It also had to fit into an expedient amount of truck space.

Gibbon chose the six Spot 250 XT's for their small size and large brigh

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UK - It has been announced that if you register for this year's PLASA show before Friday 8 April you will automatically be entered into the draw to win a pair of tickets to see Kylie at Earls Court on Saturday 30 April. Please note: only the winner will be notified by email. Terms and Conditions apply.

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USA - Bandit Lites has been named as the number one entertainment lighting company in the world not once but twice in the start of this year. Bandit was named the Lighting Company of the Year in Los Angeles at the PLSN Parnelli Awards on 25 February, right on the heels of the Pollstar Awards for Lighting Company of Year in Los Angeles on 4 February. This is the first time in history any firm has won both of these awards in the same year.

CEO Michael T. Strickland states: "Winning both the Pollstar C.I.C. 2004 and the PLSN ProProduction 2004 Lighting Company of the Year Award is simply staggering. The high quality of our competition coupled with the population of executives that voted us these awards make this very special to everyone at Bandit. All of our people, from Asia to the US to Europe are committed to making 2005 even better. We wish to thank the entire industry fo

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Australia - Melbourne-based Lightmoves Pty Ltd has appointed Lauren Carter as marketing coordinator. Her main responsibility involves exposing the company's "best kept secret" - the diversity of its activities as well as the knowledge and skill they posses. Lightmoves says it has kept this secret for 15 years and now believes it is time to uncover it!

After achieving outstanding results in her university degree, Bachelor of Multimedia and Business Marketing, Carter says she is looking forward to the challenge.

(Lee Baldock)

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