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UK - This month ABTT members got their first opportunity to see the new Junction Theatre, Cambridge, at a special open day hosted by the venue's development director Robin Townley and architects Plowman Brown.

Junction 2, a 220-seat timber clad theatre - nicknamed The Shed - which opened in March 2005, is the first purpose-built public theatre to open in Cambridge since the 1930s and will house the company's growing programme of contemporary drama, dance, poetry, comedy and world music.

Anne Minors, chairman Society of Theatre Consultants, said of the visit: "The ABTT visit to the Junction demonstrated how a persistent client, a design team who detailed the building early on, and an interested contractor and subcontractors, achieved good value for money, and an attractive b

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Borneo - Glasgow-based Cheer Productions managed the sound requirements for the annual Rainforest World Music Festival, which took place recently in Borneo, selecting an Allen & Heath ML5000 VCA live sound console as the FOH mixer for the main stage.

Established in 1998, the three-day festival takes place in Borneo's Sarawak Cultural Village, attracting over 5,000 visitors with "world music" groups from across the globe. This year, the festival included performances from Colombian singer, Petrona Martinez; Faiz Al Faiz from Pakistan; Italian gypsy quartet, Acquaragia Drom; the Namgar from Mongolia; Djamel Laroussi and his band from Algeria; Polish bagpiper, Marcin Ruminski; and a debut from the American group, the Foghorn String Band. The festival also features daytime workshops, ranging from story telling sessions, to interactive dance and percussion jamming.

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UK - Automation designers and engineers Kinesys has expanded its closely knit team with the addition of Martin Honeywill as senior design engineer, who joins founders Dave Weatherhead and Andy Cave at the South London HQ.

Honeywill has worked with Unusual Rigging for the last 12 years and before then, with various lighting companies since his graduation from Keele university in 1985 with a BSc in Electronics and Computer Engineering.

Kinesys' Weatherhead and Honeywill originally met whilst the former was also working at Unusual after leaving University. Honeywill headed up the automation department, and Weatherhead was there for four years before leaving to go freelance and then on to form Kinesys.

"It's great having Martin onboard" says Weatherhead "Apart form his wealth of experience, he's a known quantity - both by me personally and at large in the industry

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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 - Revolver Audio has been providing professional audio production for a variety of clients throughout Sydney and surrounding areas for more than 20 years. Manager Keith Clarkson believes that there are still some people who view Revolver Audio as a company with a lot of older equipment in its fleet; but nothing could be further from the truth. Over the last few years, Revolver has extensively upgraded its audio hire stock - with the help of Jands.

"We've recently upgraded all of our drive equipment and we're now running everything on BSS digital processing," Clarkson stated. "We've also got a large inventory of Shure microphones and we're constantly upgrading all the equipment to the point that the majority of our hire stock is new."

Revolver Audio recently purchased the first Soundcraft GB8 console in Australia. The new release Soundcraft GB8 32 channel

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A variety of theatre products from manufacturers SGM, LDR, LightProcessor and Wireless Solutions were shown by Lightfactor Sales. From SGM, the Palco LED colour-changer (IP65), the Ribalta - a batten style LED fixture (also IP-rated) and the Giotto 400 CYM - a new moving head projector. Italian theatrical lighting manufacturer LDR launched several new products at the show including its new line of Xpress Scrollers. LightProcessor's new Dimension 3000 19" rack-mounted dimmer was seen at ABTT for the first time. Finally, also on show was Swedish company Wireless Solutions' award-winning W-DMX, a wireless DMX transceiver system, broadly based on GSM (mobile phone) technology.

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The ABTT Theatre Show returned to London's Horticultural Halls in June, and was a great success by all accounts, with more exhibitors than before and a healthy visitor count of around 2,400 over the two days. The show also maintained its characteristic sociable buzz.

The ABTT Awards were presented at the show's dinner bash on 15 June, and the winners of the chromium-plated Hook Clamps were as follows: Lighting Product of the Year was won by Telectra for its Ice*Lighting Super-batten; Sound & Communications Product of the Year went to Orbital, for the HME DMX 200 digital communications system; Rigging Product of the Year was won by Triple E for its 3Way extruded aluminium track system; and the Widget Product of the Year went to Rope Assemblies for FROG, which enables one-handed connection of safety lines to secure points. The Stand of the Year Award went to The Revolving Stage Company,

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PCM was showcasing its extensive range of electric and manual winches as well as the industry standard CM Lodestar hoists, Böcker Alp personnel lifts and the award-winning Unibar system. The focus, however, was on the GIS range of electric chain hoists, boasting a number of innovative features designed to make use and maintenance even easier. The company reports increased growth and profits across all areas of the business since summer 2004.

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Italy - Italian commercial TV broadcaster Mediaset struck a winning vein eight years ago, when it launched a comedy show from Milan's legendary Zelig cabaret club.

Since 1997, when the first of 100 shows was given late-evening screening, the program has grown from a niche show into a true media phenomenon, with its comedians' by-lines becoming part of day to day jargon throughout the country, and the popularity of the live show exploding to such an extent that the producers (Canale 5 and Area Zelig) were obliged to stage the latest edition - aired in a prime-time slot on Canale 5 - in an 1,800-seat marquee on the outskirts of Milan, renaming the show Zelig Circus.

The weekly comedy show ran for three months, followed by a series of 'specials' featuring the highlights. The hosts were actor, comedian and author Claudio Bisio (at his fifth consecutive year on the show) and beauti

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UK - Star Orbit provided a 20m two-bay Orbit stage for the recent B-Live event on Clapham Common which was sponsored by Bacardi. The three evening event opened on Friday 1 July with a Latin Splash night, featuring latino dance bands and R&B acts, the second evening featured world class dance DJ's and the event closed on the Sunday with the headlining act Jamiroquai creating a giant party atmosphere across the park.

Along with the impressive stage, Star Events Group provided the two large PA towers that were rigged at 10m, an 11m high follow-spot platform and a large front of house structure.

Star Orbit were called in at the last minute to provide all of the staging structures after the organizers were let down and were left without a stage just three and a half weeks before the event was due to take place. Despite it being one of the busiest weekends in the outdoor event calen

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Germany - Showlight, the quadrennial conference about lighting design in all its manifestations, took place in Munich in May. Under the guiding hand of chairman John Watt, the Showlight committee brought together designers, business-people, technicians, educators and students to talk about lighting. There was no grand theme; the constant clash of ideas was, in fact, the point. Thanks to the stimulating topics, the good companions, and the excellent German beer, a good time was had by all.

Sunday, 22 May opened with Mark White, regional manager or ETC UK and Eire, chairing the opening sessions. First, Australian lighting designer Nick Schlieper presented 'Four Years on Wagner's Cycle', his epic tale of how the smallest opera company in Australia (official staff number: five) took on the first locally-created staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle. The result, a strikingly sleek, modernis

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Allen & Heath was showing its latest GL Series models - the GL2400, GL2800, GL3800 and GL4800 live sound consoles. The dual-function desks include features such as ambient matrix recording, fast IEM mixing, aux-fed sub, and engineer's wedge monitor. Other features include a responsive 'musically-tailored' EQ, extended preamp gain range of 74dB with input on XLR or jack, and a new ultra-quiet mix head amp design for optimum dynamic range.

Frame sizes vary from 16 to 56 channels, in all-metal space saving frames that feature individual card and nutted pot construction; the GL3800 and GL4800 are also available in different combinations of mono and stereo channels. All models now include dual power supply capability, multi-function mic/line stereo channels, and an option for the Sys-Link V2 expander system. Allen & Heath reports that it has sold 40,000 GL mixers since the Series was launch

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Hall Stage hosted Visual Act, the Swedish creator of the Advanced Wagon system, which allows for cable-free horizontal movement of any type of stage element. The wagons use a laser locational system to position loads of up to 600kg - to millimetre accuracy - without any tracks or guides on the stage.

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Germany - Two of the biggest players in the laser display market have announced a joint venture. Lothar Bopp, president of laser show market-leader Lobo, and Rüdiger Müller, founder of the global Tarm empire, have announced that the Tarm building in Bochum, Germany, will host a Lobo representation as a centre for installation and rental projects in the near future. Bopp and Müller have expressed their confidence that this association of former competitors will prove a successful model.

From now on, Tarm laser and showtechnik OHG will not depend on its old-fashioned Tarm technology, but can configure a product line together with Lobo which unites the high-tech solutions of Lobo with parts of the former concepts of Tarm. The new range of special device configurations will, say the companies, withstand the globalization of the laser show industry in regards to performance and pr

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Finland - Slayer's sound engineer, Tim Quimby, has been mixing the epitome of power metal for seven years: "I also do Testament and DiAngelo, but not for the last couple of years; these guys keep me really busy." Despite having had less than three hours' sleep, and without the aid of stimulants, Quimby was remarkably lucid and keen to be interviewed after the show. "Slayer are performing at 32 festivals across the summer," he continued. "At eight of them we pick up absolutely everything at the festival; not even using our own consoles," the Sauna festival being a prime example.

Sauna is unusual in many ways, not least because it's staged downtown, at the heart of Finland's second city, Tampere. As such there is no muddy field to negotiate, and no associated peripheral events like circus performers or Reki readers. It also means a strict 10:00pm curf

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Strand Lighting introduced two products - the EC21 dimmers and the OneLight range of daylight luminaires - both of which were recognized in the awards. The EC21 dimmer racks offers up to 96 Sinewave dimmers in a single rack. Users can mix and match both Sinewave and conventional dimmers, say Strand. The OneLight range includes a 575W Par and Fresnel with an integrated head and ballast design, allowing users to rig a single piece luminaire rather than a separate head and ballast. The fixtures offer remote start at power on, or control from any DMX console using the optional plug-in DMX control module.

Also perched on the Strand stand was FocusTrack - a new database system for tracking and documenting the use of moving lights for theatrical productions, developed by Rob Halliday - a leading moving light programmer and, of course, a contributor to L&SI. For more, see our Technical Focus f

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Track systems specialist Triple E, exhibiting at ABTT for the 21st time, announced the successful launch of its 3Way curtain track system. The product scooped the coveted Engineering and Rigging Product of the Year award at the annual gala dinner - its fourth ABTT award to date. Also on display was a Harley Davidson to promote the charity ride across the USA that David Edelstein recently participated in to raise funds for the Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids charity. "ABTT this year was the best yet," said MD David Edelstein. "The quality of the attendees was a league above previous years, which underlines the growing value of ABTT as a vital showcase for our industry." Triple E also used the show to make the announcement of J&C Joel's appointment as the principal UK distributor of its product line.

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Stage Electrics showed new products from Prolyte, Apollo and Teclumen, plus its own brand, Encore. The company reported a good response to Prolyte's trussing, staging and chain hoist ranges after its appointment as distributor earlier this year. Apollo's colour scrollers are also a new product to Stage LX, as is the wingnut spanner, which incorporates a handy bottle opener and is new to its own Encore range. It's designed to be used on 10, 12, 17, and 19mm wingnuts.

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A European first at ABTT was the Vortek rigging system - a theatrical system designed and manufactured by Hoffend in the USA and represented in the UK by Slingco. The hub of every Vortek system is a patented brake, designed specifically for theatre applications. This continuously applied, variable-load, back-up brake is claimed to eliminate overspeed brake and 'shock-load' problems and operates independently of any electrical or drive-train system. It also features overload and underload protection, and is capable of operating multiple battens, controlling up to 250 Vortek units as a system.

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UK - The technical production for this year's Download Festival included the services of SSE Hire for the audio systems, Neg Earth for the lighting, XL Video for the screens and Star Events Group, builders of the main stage. But rather than looking at these aspects, L&SI takes a look at how the event's safety procedures managed an influx of 50,000 energetic fans of heavy rock for a weekend . . .

Ian Baker, (normally assistant director of leisure safety at Capita Symonds) was employed as the acting licensing officer for the local authority for the festival. He said that with 35,000 people camping, it was good planning by ClearChannel to open the campsites two days before the festival started. ClearChannel also encouraged people to collect rubbish by offering them beer tokens on delivery of a black bin bag full of rubbish - which proved a good motivator.

"Noise is a thorny

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Having recently opened its own WYSIWYG design studio, Hawthorn took exhibition space for the first time this year to raise awareness of its Hire, Sales and Installation teams and to give staff the opportunity to meet the people they talk to on the phone. Hawthorn was started nearly 20 years ago by MD Martin Hawthorn, hiring equipment out of his garage, and has now grown into an international company with over 85,000sq.ft of warehouse space in Old Dalby, near to Melton Mowbray.The company has also announced further Hawthorn@Home open day dates - including on 2 September Generic Lighting, featuring product representation from Selecon, ETC, Thomas, ADB and Strand, and on 7 October Flash, Bang and Feedback - a demonstration of pyro by Le Maitre plus radio mics from Sennheiser, Sony and Trantec. More details from the website.

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AVW Controls was highlighting the latest software upgrade for its Impressario stage automation control system, currently in use with Billy Elliot: The Musical at the Victoria Palace Theatre and The Far Pavilions at the Shaftesbury Theatre. The latest version of the Impressario offers control of up to 255 pieces of scenery and rigging simultaneously.
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