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The Netherlands - Just over a year ago, Dutch systems integrator Hecla Professional Audio and Video specialists met with real estate agent Flipse to advise it on how to get the biggest impact when advertising the company's selection of properties for sale. Now, it has an eye-catching Lighthouse Technologies' LED video screen installed on the side of its building in Dronten, Holland.

"Flipse was looking at using a digital screen to offer its clients a variety of services," explains Hecla's marketing and sales director Jos den Hartog. "There were several options - magazines, photographs in the shop window, etc - but they were looking for new and exciting ideas that would create the maximum possible impact."

Hecla advised Flipse that if it was to achieve the con

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UK - United Business Media (UBM) has announced an agreement to acquire Theme magazine and the Bar exhibition from Mondiale Publishing, to complement the 'Publican' group of publications and events which UBM acquired in February. Integration of today's titles into UBM's operational infrastructure will reduce overheads and generate cross-selling opportunities, say the company.

The purchase price is £5m million in cash. Theme and Bar Show generated £2.1m of revenue and £0.6m of EBITA in the year to end of June 2004. The proposed acquisition should be earnings enhancing in its first 12 months and is expected to exceed UBM's hurdle rate of return in its first year. The transaction is subject to approval by the OFT.

These businesses will report into Bernard Gray, CEO of CMP Information (CMPi) and United Advertising Publications (UAP). Gray said: "These leading publishing ass

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USA - Genlyte Controls is now accepting reservations for the Level 1 Systems Technician Training Class, which is set to take place from 20-22 July 2005. The class is designed to introduce field service technicians to a variety of architectural and theatrical dimming and controls products from Entertainment Technology and Lightolier Controls, say Genlyte. It will cover basic programming and troubleshooting of Capio Plus, Intelligent Raceway, IPS Distributed Dimming Products, Vista DMX control, Horizon DMX interface and control, Marquee lighting control console, Pathport, System Networking, and LYTEmode Systems.

Skills necessary to participate include an ability to solder, read schematics, interpret shop and job drawings and program lighting consoles, as well as a basic working knowledge of DMX512 control wiring and computer networking. Attendees should also have basic computer sk

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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 - At the IBC show this year, HHB Communications will show its broad range of broadcast audio technology, including the company's own HHB Portadrive location sound recorder, HHB Portadisc portable MD recorder, HHB CDR830 and 830 PRO CD recorders and the new HHB CDP-88 professional CD player - which features a full complement of balanced and unbalanced analogue and digital I/Os, a Word Clock input with SRC, frame accurate cueing and instant start.

Also new at IBC is V2.0 operating software for the Portadrive, which incorporates a number of important developments including enhanced iXML implementation, copying to external DVD±R/RW and CDR/RW, and support for UDF format for DVD-RAM, providing compatibility with Fostex DV40 and DV824. In line with a policy of continually developing the Portadrive platform in response to user feedback, V2.0 also addresses a number of operational e

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USA - Tomcat USA is pleased to announce that Swing Wing received the award for Best Truss or Rigging Product at the recent AV Communications Excellence Awards Banquet, one of many events held in conjunction with InfoComm trade show. This is the second product award for Swing Wing since receiving the EDDY Award in 2003, say Tomcat. Tomcat USA CEO, John James said: "We constantly strive to create products that are innovative, but useful to the entertainment industry. This award is a great tribute to that mission. We are honoured."

From a stackable, self-contained transport position to a functional rigging position when flown, Swing Wing Truss is an intelligent pre-rig, say Tomcat. Designed to hold a wide variety of conventional and intelligent fixtures from the X.Spot and VL1000 ERS to the Martin 2000 and Studio Colors, Swing Wing accommodates virtually any fixture. Simi

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UK - Plans for the opening of the major new indoor sports and entertainments venue, Number One Piccadilly at the London Pavilion, moved closer this week with the appointment of specialist building services company, the Orostream Group, to carry out the internal design and refit of this prestigious project - scheduled to open in April 2006.

Number One Piccadilly at the London Pavilion is a listed building occupying the triangular site bounded by Shaftesbury Avenue, Great Windmill Street and Piccadilly Circus - which was previously occupied by Rock Circus. Plans include flexible layouts which will create a high quality central London venue ideal for events for up to 1,000 guests - including room for 500 seated hospitality, and a 500-seat auditorium for sporting fixtures such as boxing or snooker which will be unparalleled in the West End of London.

Making the announcement at Lon

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Australia - The AM Pro XR series speaker systems are versatile, high performance two-way injection moulded enclosures offering features such as rotatable high end drivers and fold back kits as standard across most of the range. The XR series is equally ideal for installations and live sound reinforcement applications, say the company. The XR series ranges from a 6" + 0.75" through to a 15" + 2". The rotatable high end driver on the XR8, XR10, XR12 and XR15 make them ideally suited for foldback use or for mounting horizontally where low ceiling heights, or impeded sight lines are an issue in installations, say the company.

Also new from Australian Monitor is the Installation Series IS600 and IS1200 - both 2U stereo power amplifiers. The IS600 delivers 300W per channel at 4 ohms and the IS1200 delivers 600W per channel @ 4 ohms. Designed for permanent installat

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UK - Denon has overhauled its popular DN-D4000 professional dual CD/MP3 rack-mount player, introducing a number of new features. Known as the DN-D4500, the new playback device features vastly-extended MP3 functionality - including hot starts - which will come as great news for the mobile and club DJ requiring a simple workhorse with high reliability.

How to improve an already award-winning product was the challenge facing the Denon design team, who turned instinctively to the MP3 section of the player. As a result, Key Adjust, Auto BPM Counter, MP3 Seamless Looping with B-Trim edit, MP3 Hot Starts, MP3 File Search System, MP3 Frame Search, CUE Stutter and wider +/-24/50/100% pitch ranges for audio CD's are just some of the enhancements that have been introduced.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - An Avolites Pearl 2004 console and Robe fixtures are at the heart of a new lighting installation at Villa Marina, the Isle of Man's leading live music and performance venue. Villa Marina opened last year after a £14 million refurbishment project. Its production facilities have been designed to offer cutting edge technology aimed at encouraging top international acts to play the Isle of Man, without the hassle and expense of bringing in their own production.

The initial phase of installed technical infrastructure at the venue involved the design and specification of a JBL VerTec line array audio system, ready for the grand opening last year. A year down the line, it was the turn of lighting to take centre stage.

In the interim period, explains Villa Marina's chief lighting technician Alex Davidson, they utilized a hired lighting rig. This gave them the ideal opportunity t

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UK - Canford has supplied Durham Cathedral with the equipment necessary to bring their sound reinforcement system up to date. The work was carried out by the Cathedral's own Clerk of Works, Bob Mathews and his team. The Cathedral is a World Heritage Site built in the late 11th and early 12th centuries and as such the installation required special care and attention to detail.

It is freely admitted by those at Durham, that for many years, their speech reinforcement system in the Cathedral has needed updating. Unfortunately, there have also been spots within the Cathedral where the spoken word has been unintelligible due to the intense natural reverberation caused by the Gothic architecture. It was decided that a new sound system should be installed to include new microphones, induction loops, video distribution, CCTV and control circuits associated with the upgrading of the speec

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UK - A new compact colour touch screen has been introduced by iLight for their intelligent lighting control systems. Launched at CEDIA Expo 2005 UK, the unit has a 3.5" backlit LCD screen, giving it a discreet presence and enabling it to fit in a standard double gang backbox. Easy to use, the screen is software configurable, enabling the controls to be custom designed for the precise requirements of the user. Building plans, photos and 3D graphics can be incorporated in the display to enable simple fingertip selection of lighting scenes, as well as providing control of other integrated systems such as audio, security, heating and blinds.

Also introduced by iLight at CEDIA is the new iCAN/RS232 serial interface. This system integration node allows third party equipment to be controlled from an iLight iCAN network via their RS232 serial ports and allows the iCAN network to be

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Germany - When BMW launched the new 3-series at its flagship showrooms on Kurfürstendamm, Berlin's most exclusive shopping area, they wanted a store display that would stop passers-by in their tracks. Like all car showrooms, the windows are large and imposing, and BMW didn't want to block the showroom from the view of window shoppers, yet the display needed to be bright enough to create drama at night. The solution was the new PhantomFrame system from G LEC, with its transparency and high intensity LED pixels.

Each of the lightweight, 1m x 1m units of PhantomFrame supports 16 clear polycarbonate tubes, each housing 16 high intensity LED pixels spaced 60mm apart. The space between the tubes is just air, allowing the window shoppers in Kurfürstendamm to see the PhantomFrames as well as the full range of the new BMW 3 series in the showroom behind.

Lars Wolf, managing director

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China - Shure Incorporated has hosted the grand opening ceremony for its two new locations in China: a manufacturing facility in Suzhou, and a sales and marketing office in Shanghai. "We are all very excited about this new chapter in Shure's history," said Chris Schyvinck, executive VP of Shure. "China is a key market for our company's strategic growth goals as we expand into Asia, and it's essential in order for us to provide support and service for our growing customer base in the region."

The Suzhou manufacturing facility has been conducting production trials for several months, but is now at full production of selected product lines. In March, Shure appointed Oscar Fulvio Hernandez as plant manager for the facility, which features the same calibre of superior testing equipment utilized in other Shure plants. "Just like all of our other plants, the Su

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UK - Turbosound's Aspect series has just completed one of its first major tours - going out on the road with Britannia Row Productions for a 27-date European tour with iconic sixties band, The Shadows. Billed as Together Again for One Last Time, the tour took in 10 countries, culminating in two Encore Concerts at the NIA in Birmingham, UK, where Britannia Row deployed 40 Aspect cabinets to provide the 5,000-strong audience with near 180° coverage. With numerous dates across Scandinavia, the tour also included concerts in Belgium, France, Germany and the Netherlands.

A typical configuration of the rig, as at Birmingham, involved a three-wide, three-high main hang each side, comprising six Aspect TA-890H touring mid/highs and three TA-890L touring LF cabinets, all used in horizontal orientation. Britannia Row augmented the main hangs with an additional two-by-two hang of T

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Germany - Following its purchase last November of an HK Audio COHEDRA Compact Coherent Dynamic Response Array system, German event specialist Moonlight has now purchased a COHEDRA system. At the same time, the company has become one of the first German owners of HK's new ConTour CT 112 high-performance loudspeaker cabinet for professional nearfield sound reinforcement, purchasing eight cabinets.

Moonlight took the decision to purchase 12 CDR 208 S and 12 CDR 208 T mid/high cabinets having won the contract for BUGA 2005 in Munich. BUGA (Bundesgartenschau) is held throughout the entire summer, from late April to early October, and is a spectacular horticultural festival celebrating three gardening seasons in five months. Moonlight is responsible for providing all the sound equipment for the entire festival across five different locations throughout the summer, including COHEDRA an

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Uk - Blackout supplied three bespoke fibre-optic starcloths to exhibition expert Silver Knight Events, which are currently being deployed in London's Science Museum for its new pan-galactic interactive visitor experience -the Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Exhibition.

The exhibition takes visitors on a journey from Arthur Dent's kitchen to the far reaches of outer space. It brings to life the witty and satirical narrative of Douglas Adams' iconic story. Blackout's hire and sales co-ordinator, Nico Beukes, collaborated with Silver Knight's project manager, John Nearn, to ensure that the three bespoke drapes met his exacting specifications.

Designed in a range of sizes, the fibre-optic starcloths, measured 12.2m x 12.2m, four metres by one metre and three metres by four. They played an integral role in the rich set design, which combined over 200 original props, creature

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Sweden - Swedish AV specialist Massteknik's recently-purchased Lighthouse R16 16mm pixel pitch LED video screens have been installed into Copenhagen's famous Tivoli Gardens for its summer season of concerts. From April to the end of September, Tivoli is using the two 5x5 panel screens, measuring 5.1x3.8m and controlled by Lighthouse LVC88 processors, to show live footage of the concerts interspersed with video clips.

Massteknik's Claes Winberg says: "We purchased the R16 screens because they have excellent resolution, picture quality and the weight of the panels makes them easy to install for this type of application. Of course the price is always important and they offer a very good return on investment.

"Also, because Massteknik isn't running the screen - Tivoli is handling that in-house - they must be easy to use. The Lighthouse screens fulfil all the necessary cr

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UK - Fuzion plc are expecting high demand from project architects and interior designers for the next generation of aesthetically-styled Work Studio series. Manufactured by Spanish company Equipson, these compact, two-way loudspeakers build on the past success of this series with an improved technical specification - all hitting the same price points as their predecessors. The performance key is in the significant improvement offered by the use of a small horn tweeter instead of a direct radiating driver.

Available in black or white - and with a 100V/70V line option - the Studio series has been designed to achieve hi-fi background music reproduction whilst visually enhancing a variety of environments, such as bars, retail and general leisure purposes. Contractors will also benefit from the improved tilt bracket, which is available as an option.

The ultra-compact Studio 20 hous

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UK - Automation specialists Kinesys has teamed up with cutting-edge product designers, Carallon, to develop a brand new motion control software solution - K2. The product will be officially launched at PLASA 2005, staged in Earls Court, 11 - 14 September. K2 is a ground-breaking motion control technology that is more powerful, logical, easy to operate and accurate than anything seen before say the company.

Kinesys initially approached Carallon to help realize K2 because: "Their pedigree is second to none" explains Dave Weatherhead The Carallon design team has extensive experience producing specialist entertainment industry hardware and software, including iconic products such as the WholeHog range of digital lighting consoles. The team's track record, combined with their energy and enthusiasm for K2, meant Kinesys knew they'd found the right partner with the right skil

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UK - TerraTec Producer's Hi Jack is a quality studio preamp featuring a variable high-impedance input, designed as an ideal front end for electric guitars and acoustic instruments equipped with electric or piezo pickup systems. With a discrete FET input amplifier stage serving as the front end, the compact box boosts pickups' signals to line level, say the company, and offers gain reserves ranging from 1dB to +40dB. Loaded with high-quality components, its circuitry is designed to provide amplification distinguished by low noise levels and first-class audio quality, TerraTec adds.

Sporting 2M-ohm high impedance circuitry, Hi Jack's instrument input has a significant audio advantage over conventional line inputs on mixers: it puts an end to muddy signals due to mismatched impedances of pickups and amps. This input stage makes instruments shine by capturing their brilliance in all

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UK - Community Professional Loudspeakers, based in Chester, Pennsylvania, has announced the establishment of Community UK Ltd to distribute its products with the UK and Ireland from 1 July.

Distribution had previously been handled by Blackburn-based HSL. Simon Stuart, managing director of HSL, commented on the change: "Our core business is production, which has grown very rapidly over the past few years. With greater investment in people and equipment, and many more systems out on major shows and events than ever before, it has been difficult committing the resources to the distribution of Community that this diverse brand deserves. Our relationship with Community enabled us to discuss matters openly to find the best way forward for both parties."

Stuart continued: "I think the establishment of Community UK is the right decision for both of us. HSL will continue

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