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UKExploring the boundaries between classical opera and popular musical theatre, English National Opera are mounting the first-ever London revival of the original 'New York, New York' musical, Leonard Bernstein's On The Town. Directed by Jude Kelly and choreographed by Stephen Mear - joint winner of this year's Best Choreography Olivier Award for his work on Mary Poppins - the production will play just seventeen performances at ENO's home, the London Coliseum, between March 5th and May 24th.

Fitting a full-scale musical into ENO's already-busy rep meant that lighting designer Mark Henderson and ENO's head of lighting Kevin Sleep decided to add some additional automated lighting equipment to complement the automated Robert Juliat 2.5kW PCs in Licht Technik yokes that w

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Australia - A collective featuring some of Australia's most popular contemporary musicians performed at Waveaid- a once in a generation event that generated approximately $2 million in funds for the millions of people whose lives have been irreversibly impacted by the recent tsunami disaster in Asia.

The sold-out show was held on 29 January at Sydney's Cricket Ground before an audience of 50,000. The concert was broadcast live on many radio networks around the country and highlights televised on various channels the following day.

The concert saw over eight hours of quality performances from the likes of Nick Cave, The Finn Brothers, Kasey Chambers, The Waifs, Missy Higgins, Powderfinger, John Butler Trio and highly anticipated sets from both Silverchair and Midnight Oil. This was the first time that Silverchair had performed for over two years while Midnight Oil was lured o

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USA - The International Communications Industries Association, Inc. (ICIA) and PLASA Media, Inc., have announced that PLASA Media's magazine, Lighting&Sound America, will sponsor the Lighting and Staging Pavilion at ICIA's upcoming InfoComm trade show, 4 - 11 June, 2005, in Las Vegas.

With over 25,000 attendees and more than 700 exhibitors expected, InfoComm is the annual international marketplace for rental and staging companies, systems integrators, design consultants, production studios, video professionals, dealers, independent representatives, and buyers from more than 15 vertical markets.

"Lighting and staging technologies are vital to the systems approach that visitors look for at InfoComm," said Randal A. Lemke, Ph.D., ICIA executive director. "Our partnership with PLASA Media is designed to round out the broad array of products and services at th

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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 - Music business hopefuls are being offered the chance of some business mentoring from a teaching team including Stevie Wonder's UK manager. Keith Harris is a well-respected figure in the music industry with 30 years of managing and promoting some of the world's biggest acts.

The former head of promotions for Motown UK, he has chaired leading industry bodies including the Manager's Forum, and is on first name terms with the key players from the industry and government. For the last 10 years he has taught on the commercial music degree at the University of Westminster. He's offering the chance of some personal coaching to anyone who comes onto a short course for people wanting to launch a business in the music industry.

The Music Business Course is run in association with local enterprise agency, Harrow in Business. Keith is one of the tutors on the course, along with studio

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UK - Kramer Electronics UK Ltd recently announced that it is expanding its cable business. The new and expanded cable line-up complements the Kramer hardware.

"Anyone who buys a Kramer product will need cables, and Kramer is committed to providing the best possible one stop shopping solution for our customers," said Paul Robertson, product manager for Cabling and Adapter Products. "By expanding the line-up and actively focusing on this segment of our business, we will be making system solutions easier for all of our existing customers, and gaining customers who want the great combination of quality and value that Kramer can offer."

The new line features three categories: Bulk Cables, Cable Assemblies, Connectors and Termination Accessories. In the Bulk Cable category, Kramer has increased its product from two varieties to eight, including single-coax, dua

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UK - No longer hidden outside of town, the Pulrose Power Station in the town of Douglas was rebuilt into an environmentally friendly, aesthetically pleasing structure with a bold Martin Architectural colour changing illumination.

The Manx Electricity Authority (MEA) has constructed a combined cycle gas turbine power station at Pulrose on the Isle of Man. The structure includes a 75m tall flue stack and 30m high glass wall (turbine hall) that allows the generation process to become visible. The design includes a bold lighting concept in conjunction with lighting design firm Speirs & Major Associates.

The new plant has been designed to be cleaner environmentally and, because the plant no longer lies hidden outside of town, less visually intrusive. A striking water feature has been built into the design and, instead of the two chimneys of the old plant, just one, of modern desig

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Germany - Electro-Voice is introducing the latest member of its line-array family: the X-Line Very Compact, which comes in two variations for different applications: the ultra-compact 1 x 8" XLE and the somewhat larger and more powerful 2 x 8" XLD. Each of the two full-range line-array elements contains two ND2S compression drivers for maximum high-frequency headroom and each can be complemented by the matching XS212 bass cabinet for low frequency extension.

With the X-Line Very Compact, EV is setting new standards in terms of the precision of its coverage and dynamic headroom. The XLD281 combines a three-way design with CCT (Coverage Control Technology) to control the horizontal coverage to 250 Hz. It contains an 8" neodymium LF transducer, an 8" neodymium LF/MB transducer and two ND2S neodymium 2" voice coil compression drivers combined through two Hyd

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UK - XL Video UK has purchased 625sqm of Main Light Industries' Soft-LED drape. This is the first Soft-LED product to be purchased in the UK. 300sqm of it has gone straight out on the Kylie Minogue Showgirl world tour, which kicks off next week in Glasgow - for which XL is supplying full video production. The Soft-LED was specified by LD Vince Foster.

The remaining 325sqm is designated for other up-coming XL projects - including Maroon 5 and Destiny's Child. The company is also about to invest in a further 1000sqm of Soft-LED. XL's Lee Spencer said: "When I saw it in action at the Kylie rehearsals I was well impressed. The product's incredible impact has achieved exactly what the designers where looking for". XL Celebrates its fifth birthday this month. "Five years on, and XL is still at the forefront of video display technology" continues Spencer &quo

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UK - Qudos System 3 is a brand new product and concept in Compliance and Risk Management software, offering users a 'One Stop Solution' for the enterprise. Qudos System 3 seamlessly integrates with SQL database, giving organizations a management system where meeting minutes, risk assessments, customer surveys, audits and action plans provide continuity and improve productivity.

Distributed by Avanquest UK, experts in business process management solutions and compliance, Qudos offers a viable, cost effective solution to quality managers, compliance managers and CEO's in a wide range of business areas from health to manufacturing. Qudos System 3 provides the infrastructure to run any compliance or business management system - for ISO 9001 Quality, ISO 14001 Environment, Occupational Health and Safety and various legal and regulatory compliance arrangements. Its flexible design all

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France - VTG Holdings is exploring digital snake technology with EtherSound. "We know that digital distribution is the 'next big thing' in professional audio," says VTG executive vice president, sales and marketing Darius Seabaugh. "VTG intends to be a leader in this trend and we've decided EtherSound is the platform we need to build the next generation of products for concert touring sound companies, video and sound contractors, recording studios, audiophiles and musicians."

In keeping with VTG's Custom Shop approach to guitar cables, XLR-balanced microphone cables and snakes, direct boxes, splitters, speaker wire, audio transformers, connectors and bulk wire, VTG will display a 16-channel rack mount device using D-sub connectors on the rear for analog audio and RJ-45 connectors on the front for the Ethernet-compliant EtherSound network. "This is a prot

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UK - The world's first amateur production of the musical The Hunting of the Snark was staged at the open-air Minack Theatre in Cornwall, with sound control from three Allen & Heath mixers.

Originally produced and performed in London's West End in 1991, The Hunting of the Snark is Mike Batt's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's 'nonsense' poem about a voyage in search of a mythical creature. Batt, who flew down to watch the first night at the Minack, had declined all previous requests to stage the production until Croydon-based amateur performers, The Mitre Players, approached him in 2004.

"Apart from Batt's original elaborate production, there was no formula to follow, just a script, a score, a few production stills, and a poor quality audio 'bootleg'," comments the Mitre Players' drummer, Richard Wear. "The original show featured a full, on-stage 50-pi

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Germany - ChainMaster of Eilenburg, the German manufacturer of chain hoists and chain hoist controllers, has developed a new eight-channel load indicator for chain hoists. The 19"/1U device is of universal application and is especially recommended for use with a BGV-D8 chain-hoist controller, which can be upgraded with the load indicator to BGV-D8-Plus.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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France - The organizers of France's annual domestic entertainment technology exhibition again announced an impressive 25,000+ visitors to the event this year. This is certainly a well-attended event, with a good steady buzz around Hall 5 where the majority of the lighting, sound and staging exhibitors were, but many visitors seemed to be crammed into the 'Siel Nuit' hall downstairs, which catered for late night entertainment - more of a crowd puller than LEDs and line arrays.

Upstairs, there was entertainment technology aplenty, with the hall dominated by a number of the country's leading distributors. Impact is one of the major presences, representing brands such as Prolyte, EAW, MA Lighting (reporting continued strong business), Robe Show Lighting, a wide range of LED lighting effects from Pulsar and Color Kinetics, DMX tools from ELC Lighting, the Pandora's Box media server f

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UK - Amazingly, Arc 05 held at the Design Centre in Islington last month, was the UK's first lighting show entirely dedicated to the Architectural market. The event's debut on the circuit was by all accounts more successful than predicted, with 2,295 attendee's, 88% of which were from the UK.

Paul James, editor of Mondo Arc, told me: "We've had very positive feedback with everyone appreciating what we're trying to do. We realize that, for some people, there were a lot of LED companies as a proportion of the overall exhibitors, but for the inaugural year we are absolutely delighted with the visitor figures, which were above our target. With the feedback we are getting from current exhibitors and companies who are eager to come on board, we are confident that Arc '06 will grow as we forecast."

So what was interesting and different about this show? Of note were those co

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UK - John Houldcroft has had a distinguished career in the Public Address industry, having worked as chief engineer for Eagle International, and with engineering positions with Millbank Electronics and Federal Signal. A specialist in amplifier and PA loudspeaker design, John has expertise in the field of voice evacuation and it is this regard that he and ADSworldwide have come together.

John will be heading up the engineering team and will be responsible for R & D engineering quality control as well as customer services in terms of maintenance. ADSworldwide has enjoyed ISO9001 and Investor in People status for the last 12 years continuously, but according to company chairman David Hopkins OBE, a company is only as good as the level of service that it offers. John Houldcroft will strengthen the team considerably, bringing in-house a level of expertise that few companies in the in

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UK - Panorama Led RGB and Panorama Led White are two Led-technology professional projectors suitable to perform in most applications such as outdoor: architectural and urban applications, amusement parks and circuses, exhibitions, theatres, convention centres, cruise ships, tourist and resorts precincts, orchestras, musicals and touring, fashion catwalks.

Panorama Led RGB is recommended for TV studios, disco and entertainment venues, concerts and events; Panorama LED White is a solution for halls, shopping malls, schools, churches, hotels and restaurants as well as interior decoration.

The technical specification is of 36 luxeon LEDs (1W each; declared lamp life 100.000 hours) luminous source with step zoom, dimmer, strobe, built-in automated functions, remote control, DMX 512, DR1 compatibility and an IP66 protection rating.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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UK - Serious Stages was brought in to design and build the bespoke structure that's housing the high profile 'London 2012 Bid Experience' in Trafalgar Square, and also designed and fabricated the adjacent 9m high statue of an athlete. The structure is part of a public awareness raising initiative for the City's bid to stage the 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

The walk-through project, wholly funded by Ballymore Properties, was conceived and led by PR agency Fleishman-Hillard on behalf of Ballymore. Serious was asked onboard by production company Vibe, which is working with RPMC on staging the event. It remains at the high profile Trafalgar Square location for two weeks before moving on to Canary Wharf for a further two weeks. Serious's project manager is Steven Corfield.

The 15m wide, 22m long and 8m high custom-designed building provides 300sq.m of exhibition space a

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France - Lab X Technologies recently announced a new ESX Ethersound I/O Module The new module is mechanically compatible with CobraNet CM1 and CM2 modules and therefore offers an easy upgrade path to EtherSound network technology.

The ESX uses an advanced FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) that provides increased input/output channels, GPIO (General Purpose Input Output) control functions and signal processing capabilities. This "soft core" architecture allows each implementation to be tailored for a particular product, and lowers parts costs by enabling the ESX module to perform product-specific functions.

The ESX is based on a Xilinx Spartan(TM) 3 FPGA. In addition to its EtherSound duties, the Spartan 3 has an embedded microcontroller. The chip can be programmed via firmware to perform EQ, mixing and other audio processing. It provides scalable input/output sche

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UK - Orbital Sales has been appointed as an official UK dealer for the internationally acclaimed 'Stage Research' show control software. With over a decade's experience Orbital was selected by SFX as a specialist in its field. The company's in-house technical support team provides the know how and ability to offer 24/7 system support, in line with SFX's rigorous standards.

SFX offers a contemporary alternative to traditional playback equipment. It boasts automated facilities that increase control, enhance operations and maximize creative potential. It enables the creation of a rich landscape of sound, thus making shows and installations more interactive and realistic. It promotes cohesive sound design, whilst simplifying FX operation.

Developed from the ground up by a team of theatre specialists, it gives total control over sound and playback. Based around its Cue List and GO

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France - Proving that some people will go to any lengths to procure their mixing console of choice, French sound, lighting and video company ETF-Procon recently hired a JCB to install a Midas Heritage 2000 at front of house for the Festival International des Pyrénées, Olorons Ste Marie, France.

The concerts during the festival took place at various outdoor venues, including the town square, where the front of house position was in a control room constructed above the performance area. As 800 temporary seats for the public had already been installed in the town square, access for the 56-channel console into the control room was restricted. Heads were put together, and it was decided that the easiest way of delivering the console was through the rear window of the control room.

The remainder of the equipment, which included a Midas XL250 for monitors, was delivered to the squa

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Italy - Three performances of Puccini's La Bohème, directed by Luciano Pavarotti, were staged in December in the historic Italian town of Fano. The production saw the return of opera to the Teatro della Fortuna, designed in 1845 by architect Luigi Poletti and recently restored. The involvement of Pavarotti, who gladly accepted the invitation from Fano town council, made this a high profile event on the international opera scene.Produced by Fanum Fortunae, the production combined the talents of Pavarotti with those of maestro Marco Balderi (conductor), Artemio Cabassi (set and costume design), and some talented young artists including tenor Yu Quaing Dai (Rodolfo) and soprano Simona Todaro (Mimì). La Bohème, the second opera directed by Pavarotti, has a special significance for him: it is the opera with which the great tenor debuted, and the role he has performed most frequently
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