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UK - Following numerous enquiries and subsequent orders from sound hire and touring companies, Smart Sound Direct has launched a special PA package aimed at larger outdoor events such as carnivals, festivals and concerts.

The 'Carnival PA Package' comprises two pairs of Precision Devices-loaded Concert Performance CP115 tops and a pair of CP28SPD subs - offering a total power handling of 7.2kW RMS.

Fitted with a compression driver and super tweeter, the CP115s are rated at 3.2kW RMS, and the CP8SPDs at 4kW RMS. The latter offer added flexibility courtesy of a special input connector plate, allowing for 4 or 8 ohm operation.

Constructed from plywood with a hardwearing carpet finish, the tops and subs benefit from heavy-gauge, zinc-plated grilles for added speaker protection, pl

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Denmark - Drapes and rigging specialist Blackout was appointed by Endemol UK to supply all the soft goods for the stunning set at the opening event of HCA2005 - a celebration of the bicentennial of Hans Christian Andersen's birth. The event, staged in Denmark's national football stadium in Copenhagen, attracted 35,000 spectators, including a host of celebrity VIPs and members of the Danish Royal family. 600 artists performed 13 Hans Christian Andersen fairytales, celebrating the life of the legendary storyteller and poet.

Blackout's project manager Kevin Monks collaborated with Nick Levitt, and set designer Bill Laslett to help transform Parken into a magical fairytale environment. Working to Laslett's exacting specifications, Blackout supplied over 3km of silver voile. Specified for its silky texture and semi-translucency, it played a major role in his design, used by Blackout

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UK - Technolight, a leading designer and distributor of professional lighting systems, has announced the appointment of Louise Tester to its new division, Light Planning Techniques. Tester is well known in the entertainment side of the lighting industry, having worked for 14 years as sales manager of DHA Lighting Services Ltd. She will be providing services from Light Planning Techniques as a total lighting solutions provider. At the same time, Technolight has announced the appointment of John Hannaford as sales manager for Technolight.

(Lee Baldock)

featured content

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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Australia - When Pete Koole, senior lighting director for Channel 10 NSW, had the job of relighting a totally new set for the channel's 5pm News and Late Night News shows, he wanted to add RGB LED changeable coloured lighting, so contacted CDA to see what was the latest available.

The set involved a lot of timber panelling which had thin perspex strips fitted into it. "I wanted the flexibility of having the RGB LEDs as I could not access these perspex strips once the set was placed together," said Koole. The perspex was lit and fitted with 600+ of CDA's Covelight 100mm RGB colour changing LED strips, running from DC-8 controllers.

Koole also used the CDA Trio 3W high powered luxeon 6° LED fixtures in yellow to high light some vertical equipment panels in the background of the Late Night News. In addition, he used CDA's Solar M100 RGB high-powered colour changers to

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UK / Dubai - LTM - Lift Turn Move, the company set up by John Jones in September 2004, will attend its second PALME show next week (24-26 April, Dubai), and will be highlighting examples from its comprehensive range of CM Lodestar motors. A range of lifting and rigging equipment is available for sale from LTM, including Lodestar and Prostar electric chain hoists. Lodestar is now the entertainment industry standard hoist and can be found on most tours, events and festivals and in many venues around the world.

High integrity hoisting systems are also available, including equipment to BGV C1 German safety standard. Special features include double brakes, load sensing and multiple limit switches. Variable speed units and manual or computerized controllers are available to monitor safety features and drive the equipment. LTM has more experience of BGV C1 than anyone else in the UK. L

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UK - Arena Structures supplied over 23,000sq.m of temporary structures to this year's John Smith's Aintree Grand National, with sister companies Arena Seating supplying 1,250 grandstand seats around the course, and Arena Events managing corporate hospitality packages. Arena Structures first became involved with the event 10 years ago, and projects director Ron Smith still oversees one of the largest temporary structures installations seen at any sporting event.

Arena Structures installed a number of structures at Aintree including The Aldaniti Pavilion, The Sky Pavilion, The Red Square Vodka Mood Bar, The Cottage Pavilion and The Aintree Pavilion. Each pavilion was individually designed and built to cater for different needs such as varying hospitality arrangements, preferred situation along the course and each companies individual tastes and corporate identity. The Aldaniti Pav

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Denmark - Martin Professional has added a Fresnel version to its new MAC 250 Series of moving heads - the MAC 250 Wash - which joins the previously released MAC 250 Krypton and full-featured MAC 250 Entour profile spots to complete the new generation MAC 250 Series, say the company. The MAC 250 Wash has been designed for environments where powerful colour wash effects are required from a compact 250W Fresnel moving head - such as touring and special event applications, television studios, club installations, and retail and leisure environments.

Advancements include a new, more efficient reflector technology for greater output, fast and quiet movement, a variable frost filter for zoom effect and a CMY colour mixing system with a complementing colour wheel, say Martin. The company also says that a highly effective, multi-layered dichroic reflector gives the MAC 250 Wash an excepti

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UK - In a blaze of publicity, live music venue Koko in Camden was recently given a whopping technical refit. However, the last pieces in the jigsaw have now been put in place; new Midas consoles for front-of-house and foldback, including the first Siena to be installed in a live music venue.

"It's the comfort factor," says Santi Arribas, the technical manager at Koko. "Live promoters and engineers see the Midas desks and they know they are getting quality, it's very reassuring for them."

Midas dealer Glen Smith from GSA has supplied Koko with a 40-channel Heritage 1000 for front-of-house, and a 32-channel Siena for stage monitoring. Santi Arribas has had full responsibility for choosing and commissioning the new equipment, and says that both he and his clients are much happier now that the Midas boards are in place."Despite all the excitement about the

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Hungary - In Budapest, the Palace of Arts opened to international acclaim, featuring four Studer Vista digital consoles in both studio recording and front-of-house mixing applications.

The Palace of Arts is an arts complex that promises to change the landscape of Hungary's cultural life, and its technical specifications are world-class. Opening just in time to celebrate the 2005 Budapest Spring Festival, the Palace of Arts covers a ground area of 10,000sq.m in southern Pest, adjacent to the National Theatre. The centrepiece of the Palace is the National Concert Hall, the largest of its kind in Hungary, seating 1700 with standing room for an additional 200. Distinguished by outstanding acoustics and equipped to welcome international orchestras and virtuosi, its programming will also represent the wider scene of Hungarian culture, particularly its rich folk tradition.

The

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UK - Stockport-based LED lighting specialist Moodmaster Ltd reports that it has been inundated with requests for its LED dancefloor range. Using a Moodmaster LED Panel 600 system as its core, dancefloor contracts as large as 48 panels have recently been completed, say the company.

Moodmaster offers to dancefloor options - a four-panel module for rental and hire applications and individual floor modules for permanent venue installation.

The latest fixed installation is The Nightclub Company's brand new Bamboogy bar in Brighton, which has a 36-panel dancefloor provided by Bradford-based TMC. The Moodmaster dancefloor provides an eye-catching centrepiece for this, the first of a series of 70s-themed retro bars for the operator. Other venues using a Moodmaster LED dancefloor include two of Mitchell & Butler's latest 80s-styled Reflex bars in Preston and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where

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UK - The networking architecture of Australian Monitor's DigiPage matrix switching system is proving a winning formula for AV company, Selecter, in its installations for health club group Holmes Place.

Set up two years ago, Trevor Montgomery's company has been upgrading, fitting out and maintaining the Holmes Place audio visual systems for over 12 months. He remembers finding a lot of custom-built equipment within the estate - "expensive to build and maintain, with a lot of relays which were highly space consuming and proving to be unreliable."

After experimenting with another system, his desire for something "more PA-oriented" led him to the 8 x 8 DigiPage zoning system; and it has remained his preferred matrix device ever since. "We first used it at Barbican, which was a difficult site, and required something reliable and robust," he said. "

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UK - Following a merge in the last quarter of 2004, Audiolight became TEC International. TEC International provides specialist corporate entertainments services, and are the sole dealers for the Aurora Whitelight, Emerald, Saffron and Aqua lasers, produced in the UK.

Rob Fisher, of TEC told us; "We looked at the corporate and consumer markets, and discovered that where other companies provide the mainstream sound, lighting and other associated equipment, that's really where it stops. We actually produce the whole event, from supplying the main equipment, through to high quality catering, and the final touches, such as gifts, and the exact colours for the table cloths and flowers!"

He continues; "We are focusing our attention in these market areas, because nowadays people have less and less time to spend on organizing and planning the finer details of a private (

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USA - Lightfair International in New York was a great success for Martin Architectural, the company tells us. Reporting a busy booth and overall high level of interest from visitors, Martin was also pleased that its Inground 200 won the award for 'Best New Product of the Year'. Presented at an awards ceremony on 12 April, the award is considered the top accolade of the show. The Inground 200 was also granted the Best of Category accolade for Exterior Luminaires for Flood, Façade and Sports Lighting.

The Inground 200 Series is a durable range of IP 65/67-rated inground luminaires that integrates Martin's colour-changing technology into a system of buried uplights. Designed for all terrains and weather, the series offers high-performance tools for dynamic uplight illumination of facades, columns, landscapes, and interior applications. The series offers three different colour syst

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Australia - When planning for GTV9's StarStruck program was underway, several misconceptions about the availability of LED product were laid to rest, say Coemar DeSisti Australia (CDA). Lighting director Rohan Thornton and set designer Mark Dyson had previously had experience with other LED products, but what they wished to achieve on StarStruck appeared to be only possible via a very costly solution.

A number of ideas included the ability to create selectable colour changing in a variety of set pieces. These included very large pieces on either side, referred to as "waffle flats" which consisted of a matrix of lycra panels with webbing in-between. At the intersection points of the webbing, they wanted a "starry light" RGB effect. Fortunately, CDA was able to offer a unique, cost-efficient solution in the form of two custom ShowLED looms manufactured with 200

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Russia - The latest production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats opened in Moscow's MDM Theatre on 18 March. Produced by Carmen Pavlovic with associate producer Sam Burgess, this is the first Russian language version, and has seen PRG Europe expanding its presence in the Russian capital, after recently providing the rig for We Will Rock You.

PRG Europe provided the lighting for the Madrid production of Cats, and as the show closed in January, the most practical solution for lighting the Moscow production was to use the same rig - albeit re-configured to suit the new venue. Under the direction of lighting designer Howard Eaton, the revamped rig includes 81 moving heads, a range of conventionals, six strobes, two hazers, two followspots, 72-way and 48-way Avolites dimmers and two Wholehog II control desks - one as a spare.

Alan Thomson, managing director

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UK - Rory O'Neill has been appointed by Arena Structure's as commercial manager, an appointment which the company says is in line with its ongoing growth strategy. Specifically, O'Neill will be concentrating on developing projects outside of the traditional seasonal peaks, while also fostering relationships with existing clients'.

O'Neill has a varied background which includes eight years in investment banking. He has developed more obvious skills for his role with Arena Structures having worked on numerous events projects over 17 years, including being part of the production team for the 2000 Sydney Olympics. O'Neill commented on his new position: "I am thrilled to be given this opportunity to work with such a dynamic team, with a company that has secured such a varied clientele with such a vast range of products."

(Lee Baldock)

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UK / Worldwide - News from Funktion One, the British manufacturer of professional loudspeaker systems, which has informed PLASA Media of the addition of a number of new companies to its international distributor network: 100% Puro Design, based in Naples, is the distributor for Italy - contact Gino Passarella ; Macrosound Construction, based in Moscow is the distributor for Russia - contact Andrey Kremenchugsky, and Seesound in Barcelona is the distributor for mainland Spain - contact Nacho Alberdi. At the same time, Funktion One has also announced that it will be represented in Vietnam through Fantasie Show Light, based in Hanoi - contact Dinh Viet Hung.

Funktion One also rep

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Germany - Italian pro audio manufacturer Outline suffered a substantial theft of equipment during the break-down of its booth at the recent ProLight & Sound show in Frankfurt, on Sunday 14 April. A full list of the equipment stolen, together with the serial numbers where available, has been provided to the Frankfurt police. A copy of the list can be downloaded from Outline's website by clickinghere.

Outline's Giorgio Biffi says: "Obviously we'd like to warn the possible buyers of the risk incurring in buying this items . . . Fortunately very few items can be used, as they've been stolen without some essential parts, such as the Butterfly units, which are devoid of side bars and back side incremental bars, which are absolutely necessary for their normal use."

(Lee Baldock)

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UK / Sri Lanka - When the devastating effects of the tsunami struck the countries around the Indian Ocean over the Christmas period, the services offered by the entertainment production industry weren't those that were immediately required as part of the disaster recovery effort. Three months on, however, as the countries work to return to normality, the UK lighting industry has been able to offer assistance to colleagues working in Sri Lanka.

Production manager Alison Ritchie heard about the damage caused to the lighting, sound and staging equipment stock of her friend Thushan Dias of Mahinda Dias Engineers. MDS has supplied lighting sound and staging services in Sri Lanka for more than 50 years, and Ritchie knew Dias having worked with him when Shared Experience toured to Colombo in the 90s. After the tsunami, she contacted him to check that he was OK, and heard that though he

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Italy - On 26 February 2005 at the Salone delle Idee in Turin's Arsenale della Pace, a packed house attended the première of the concert Dal Basso della Terra by Ernesto Olivero and Mauro Tabasso, which was dedicated to the late Pope John Paul II. The concert, conducted by Salvatore Accardo - one of the world's greatest living violinists - was transmitted by Italian national state broadcaster RAI's channel 3 on 7 March 2005.

The audio rig for the event was from Outline, installed and fine-tuned by Bologna's Nuovo Service. It consisted of three arrays made up of Butterfly Hi-pack CDH 483 (6+5+6), two Victor Live subwoofers, four H.A.R.D. 212 monitors and four Micra enclosures, used for 'front-fill' purposes. The entire system was powered by Outline Series T power amps.

Nuovo Service's owner Willy Gubellini commented: "With artists of this calibre, it's the precisio

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Spain - Based on the success of its powered systems, D.A.S. Audio has expanded its offering with two powered stage monitors. The bi-amped SM-12A 12" two-way and SM-15A 15" two-way systems use the latest in power amplifier technology, offering a Class D 500W amp for the LF section and a 100 W Class A/B amp for the highs, say the company.

The SM-12A utilizes a high efficiency 12" low frequency speaker with a 3" voice coil. The large ferrite magnet structure and pole piece cooling provide high power handling and low power compression. The high frequency section makes use of a neodymium magnet compression driver with 1.5" exit and 3" titanium diaphragm. The compression driver is coupled to a narrow dispersion horn.

The SM-15A's LF section uses a high efficiency 15" speaker with a 3" voice coil. The HF section, as in the case of the SM-12A, u

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