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UK - ACE PA selected a 40-channel Allen & Heath ML3000 VCA live sound console configured with six stereo channels to provide sound reinforcement at the 80th Rotary International Annual Conference, held at Manchester's MEN Arena in April.

Production company Comtec Presentations appointed ACE PA to provide a PA system for the various speakers and performing artists during the three-day conference and celebration. Approximately 3,000 club members attended this year's event. For the conference - where guest speakers included HRH Princess Anne, Duncan Goodhew and Orpheus Trust founder Richard Stilgoe - there were inputs from two lectern mics, six radio mics, with VT, PC, DVD, CD and MD feeds. The first evening's entertainment included performances from a steel band, three school orches

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UK - XL Video and video artist/designer Sven Ortel of Mesmer have been working together again on their latest project - Vanishing Points - staged at the Gymnasium (also known as 'The German Gym'), sandwiched between Kings Cross and St Pancras Stations.

An promenade performance pushing the boundaries of technology and imagination in a site specific collaboration between writer John Berger, poet and novelist Anne Michaels and theatre-maker Simon McBurney. Performed by Complicité, the event was production managed by John Farquhar-Smith.

McBurney asked Ortel onboard to produce special visuals that played a major role in the show's narrative. The potent and emotional work explores themes of immigration, displacement, deportation and conflict, taking the audience on the fast track from industrial to the metaphysical via the memories and hidden histories of 'arrivals' and 'de

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Canada - Cast Software says it is anticipating a great response to its Competitive Products Promotion, endorsing the WYSIWYG Design product level. Effective on 1 May 2005, through to 31 July 2005, Cast will be offering users of competitive products the opportunity to purchase WYSIWYG Design or WYSIWYG Design Educational versions at extremely discounted rates. For as little as $319, these users can own WYSIWYG Design Educational or for $619 they can own the complete version of WYSIWYG Design.

Competitive products including VectorWorks, MSD and LD Assistant will be honored. "We've spoken to several industry professionals who are frustrated with their purchase and wish they had bought WYSIWYG", says Bob Mani, V.P of sales and business development. "We understand their dilemma and would like to protect their investment by offering them the latest and best software ava

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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 - HHB Communications has introduced a new range of 1X - 8X speed DVD+R and DVD-R recordable discs, offering reliability and compatibility across an even wider range of DVD hardware products. Whether using a professional DAW, personal computer or a standalone DVD recorder, this latest generation of recordable media, says HHB, provides an even greater level of user confidence through its instant plug-and-play compatibility with a vast array of professional and consumer DVD devices.

With consistently low block error rates and ultra-low jitter performance, HHB DVD media combines excellent performance with absolute security. The company's new recordable DVD media offers enhanced reliability using a unique azo dye formulation, which guarantees complete stability and a secure archival life in excess of 70 years.

Full metallization of the entire surface of the disc yields a greater

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UK - A £200,000 conversion of the upstairs bar in Halstead, North Essex - has presented owners Paul Maybank and John Craig with a self-contained 250-capacity nightclub called The Scene.

Previously used as an overspill balcony bar after the owners had transformed the former Cooperative Society building five and a half years ago, Paul Maybank divulged his plans to Andrew Baldwin from locally-based specialists, Jedi Lighting & Sound, who had carried out regular maintenance work during the venue's five year history.

"He contacted us six months before the conversion became public knowledge, as a result of which we arranged a number of sound and lighting demonstrations," said Baldwin. Among these was the Martin Audio Blackline range and as a result, four Blackline F12's, with dedicated flying yokes, form the pivotal dancefloor sound, angled at 45° over the main floor, wh

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Australia - Laservision has announced it has recently won first place in four major national awards that recognise the creative and technical solutions Laservision provided to Hong Kong's Harbour and its Symphony of Light spectacular.

The awards were for Australia's Best Small Business, Entrepreneur of the Year, presented by the Australian Institute of Engineers, Best Creative Small to Medium Sized Enterprise, presented by the Hong Kong Australian Business Association, and NSW Exporter of the Year in the category of Arts and Entertainment, presented by Austrade and the Australian Institute of Export.

The Hong Kong spectacular was produced for the Hong Kong Tourism Commission. Described as the largest of its kind ever attempted, the Symphony of Light celebrates the permanent illumination of 18 of Hong Kong's most prominent buildings. The sensory medi

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USA - The Universal Forum of Cultures, with walls built from coral-like blue concrete and water flowing from a giant reservoir on the roof to keep it cool in summer, is a spectacular architectural addition to Barcelona's seafront. Known locally as the Forum, it was, quite fittingly since the Toyota Prius was the official car of Forum Barcelona 2004, the site of Toyota's European Regional Dealer Managers Conference 2005, an event produced by Jack Morton Worldwide. Sound was provided by UK sound production company Delta Audio, with DiGiCo D5 Live consoles providing their mixing solutions.

"In the past this event has been held in the Palau Saint Jordi in Barcelona, and also in Lisbon," explains Delta Audio's sound designer for the event, Jim Lambert. "It's a conference and party for 5,000 Toyota car dealers and managers from around Europe, held over two days. This ye

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UK - David Atkinson Lighting Design (DALD) recently completed the lighting of the UK Pavilion at World Expo, Aichi, Japan. The theme of Expo is Nature's Wisdom, with the aim to raise people's awareness of the global environment and explore the ways to promote a sustainable future. The UK pavilion called www.my-earth.org.uk was designed and created by Ten Alps Events, Landesign and the Natural History Museum (London).

The pavilion site incorporates a garden and an internal exhibition space. Both the garden and internal space contain specially commissioned artworks by nine renowned British contemporary artists on the theme of mankind's relationship with nature.

Although the garden would be viewed during daylight hours throughout the summer months DALD chose to illuminate the space for dusk and overcast conditions. The pre show queuing area consists of large 'leaf-filigree' woode

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Germany - The MS-4002 Master Station in Telex's Audiocom party-line series is both compact and powerful. Only one rack unit in height and 19" wide, it offers four channels, four amplifier power supplies and a built-in speaker as well as being fully programmable from the front panel. By obviating the need to fiddle around with a screwdriver and DIP-switches, the Advanced Programming Mode not only saves time but also increases considerably the operational security and reliability of the system. Like all the other Audiocom master stations and line power supplies from Telex, the MS-4002 is equipped with an impedance generator that - regardless of the actual load - maintains the power supply load at a constant level, thereby ensuring that the audio level itself remains constant.

Despite its wide range of features, the Telex MS-4002 is simplicity itself to use. Just plug it in (a

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France/USA - Digigram presented the XIP882 as first product to embody its eXaudi technology, an IP audio streaming, processing, and routing system at the NAB trade show in Las Vegas. Creating a new product category, XIP882 combines in one single device the functions of four different traditional product categories: IP streaming client/servers, audio processors, routers, and codecs. eXaudi enables the integration of radio automation applications and audio transport over IP networks within a single scalable, manageable, and integrated system, which makes the entire broadcast chain easier to manage and significantly reduces engineering and operating costs. Digigram has described the underlying network-centric approach of radio infrastructure in its white paper Digitalization of radio broadcasting - the next step, which is available for download at

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USA - Audio-Technica microphones were omnipresent throughout this year's VH1 Save The Music concert, which saw a host of musical greats turn out stellar performances at Manhattan's Beacon Theatre. The concert made extensive use of Audio-Technica's Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF wireless system on lead vocals for artists including Alicia Keys, Rob Thomas and John Legend.

The show was held on April 11, and employed A-T wireless and wired mics in numerous applications. A-T Artist Elite 5000 Series Wireless additionally facilitated presentations by Heidi Klum, Gisele Bundchen, Christina Applegate and LL Cool J. The large selection of hardwired A-T microphones on hand included the AE2500 for bass guitar amps, ATM35 and AT4054 on horns, AT4051a for hi-hat and ride cymbal, AT4054 on background vocals, and AE5100 for audience.

Audio production mixer Al Centrella, whose credits in

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UK - PLASA Media has received a warning about a con-man operating in the London area who has stolen several thousand pounds worth of equipment from a London-based AV hire company. The culprit gave his name as David Jones from BBC Worldwide, and presents convincing paperwork - and an internal answerphone message at the BBC itself - to back up the claim. He then collected, via courier, a range of equipment including laptop computers and plasma screens, and disappeared.

The BBC is aware of the problem, we are told. If anything suspicious arises, please contact Simon Brown at the BBC's investigations department on 0208 752 5094.

(Lee Baldock)

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Denmark - Mach's 20.04 Digital Speaker Management Controller has been designed as a high quality, easy to use digital management control system for small and medium sized installations. Together with the Mach C-Range of installation speakers, the 20.04 provides an ideal audio control solution for a wide variety of applications, say the company.

The 20.04 is a 2-input, 4-output controller suited for 2, 3 and 4-way speaker management, channel distribution and room EQ. This digital circuitry is based on DSP technology and comes equipped with the latest 24-bit A-D and D-A converters. With up to 200 manufacturer definable presets, the 20.04 may be used across a number of different pre-defined speaker set ups. Each preset offers carefully optimized crossover points and slopes, polarity, delay, limit settings and EQ settings to fit the individual characteristics of each Mach loudspeake

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UK/Norway - Software providers Stardraw.com recently announced the appointment of leading Norwegian distribution specialists, Benum AS, as resellers throughout Norway for the entire range of Stardraw's design and documentation packages.

With nearly thirty-five years experience in distribution, Benum represents over sixty premium brands in the audio, video, broadcast and MI market sectors including Renkus-Heinz, Digigram, NetCira by Fostex, Digidesign, Shure and Telex to name but a few.

Benum sales manager, Ronald Hernes, says he is pleased to include Stardraw products in the Benum portfolio. "We already count a number of other software tools among our product range, and therefore have experience in the market. We also carry a number of complementary ranges with whom Stardraw has already forged a relationship including Digigram and NetCira by Fostex, so the addition of Sta

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UK/USA - Stardraw.com's most recent application, Stardraw Control, has been selected as a finalist in the Best Software Product for the Commercial Market category of the InfoComm Installation Product Awards. Stardraw Control has already been honored with a PLASA Award for Innovation at London's PLASA show in September 04 and an Innovation in Technology Award at the recent NSCA show.

Stardraw's marketing director, Rob Robinson, explained the key features of Stardraw Control that set it apart from other control solutions. "Stardraw Control generates standalone, customized control programs that can manage any remotely controllable equipment from any manufacturer using any protocol over any communications infrastructure. Instead of being locked into closed architectures wherever system control, monitoring or signal routing has been required, Stardraw Control offers systems inte

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Greece - Cadac has recently supplied two S-Type Compact Live Production Consoles to Hyatt Regency Hotels & Tourism SA, via its local distributor Telmaco S.A. The S-Types have been installed in Hyatt Regency Hotels' Vergina Theatre, located next to the Regency Casino complex in Greece's second capital city, Thessaloniki. The state-of-the-art Vergina Theatre has a 550-seat auditorium, and regularly plays host to a wide variety of shows, spectaculars, contests, award ceremonies and live TV broadcasts. A key element of its design revolves around its adaptability - a philosophy underlined by its choice of the S-Type consoles, say Cadac.

The S-types comprise a total of 44-mono and 4-stereo input channels, housed in a 24-way and 33-way frame respectively. The consoles can be used individually or linked to handle larger productions. Commenting on the reasons behind its choice, the Vergi

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UK - If you can hum the tune to Spirit in The Sky or know the words to I Think We're Alone Now, then chances are you're hooked on Hit Me Baby One More Time, the latest offering from production company Granada. Airing in ITV1's prime time Saturday evening slot, the light entertainment show gives the pop idols of the past three decades a chance to reclaim their fame.

Proving that Heaven is a Place on Earth, PRG Europe provided the lighting rig for the show, along with premièring the G-LEC PhantomFrame. Seven heats see five artists performing two songs each week - their signature tune and a contemporary track - while the public vote their favourite through to the grand final.

With artistes such as Belinda Carlisle, Baccara, Gloria Gaynor, Limahl, Shakin' Stevens and Chesney Hawkes all playing on the same stage, an extremely versatile set and lighting arrange

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UK - The transformation of a North London venue by two former international athletes has resulted in a new leisure and hospitality complex being established at the top of Muswell Hill. Former British decathlon stars Steve Gutteridge and Brian Taylor have converted the separate function room of the former Green Man into West End-style nightclub, The Hill, which has been brought to life using LED mood effects from Lighting Effects Distribution.

13 eight-head Alkalite Tracpod 80 linear intelligent LED battens are recessed the length of the ceiling to provide a dramatic colour wash down either side of the room. In the centre is the DJ podium, above which is a three-way plasma triangle, facing out on three axes. The displays form part of a 16 plasma and LCD flat screen array (which includes local booth TV's), giving the venue a genuine sports bar theme.

All the sound, lighting and

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UK - Hawthorn is in the throes of a European exhibition programme for Allison, the commercial vehicle transmission manufacturer. Allison's stand features two transmissions displayed in huge transparent water tanks, which form an integral part of two columns on the exhibition stand. Hawthorn lit the tanks with Pulsar Chroma Par 36 fixtures in a red hue, to compliment Allison's corporate colours.

With Hawthorn's experience of LEDs and its continued investment in the technology, the company was able to meet Allison's requirements of reducing its power costs and also minimizing heat output. The stand design incorporates a low ceiling and is lit with Thomas Par 90 LED fixtures which were integrated into the stand framework to provide an even light distribution across the whole stand.

Project manager, Peter Boott commented: "As water and electricity do not mix, we used IP68 wat

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UK - The British Council's Pall Mall offices in London now allow visitors to take a tour of the world while waiting in the reception area. The council has installed a visual communications system from Visual Planet which uses Holographic screens incorporated into a glass partition to create a dynamic 'information wall' which displays - via film and moving graphics - the work of the Council. The purpose of the British Council is to build mutually beneficial relationships between people in the UK and other countries and to increase appreciation of the UK's creative ideas and achievements.

This ethos was a major driver behind the refurbishment of the reception area which, as facilities manager Steve Ellis explains, is multi-functional: "The work of the British Council is better known overseas, so the reception area has a role in explaining and promoting its activities, not jus

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UK - Located in central Rome, Studio EMME is one of the main film archives for major Italian national and American films as well as specialising in content mastering for the entertainment industry across the board, from DVD production to broadcast and cinema postproduction.

They recently took delivery of a Soundtracs DS-00, supplied by Soundtracs' Italian distributor Audio International. "The console has enhanced their facilities for multi-channel audio," explained Audio International's David Butterworth. "It makes Studio EMME the first Italian facility capable of generating Dolby E masters."

Their choice was based on the ergonomic design of the DS-00 along with its affordability. "And because it's so easy to use, their sound engineer was able to "drive" the console in no time at all," adds Butterworth.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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