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UK - As sound designer for UK Productions' hugely successful touring musical adaptation of Disney's classic animated movie, Beauty and the Beast, Glen Beckley collaborated with Funktion One to deliver a system that met his high specifications.

Over 130 sound effects are used in the show, and the score is one of the most popular of the modern Disney features. It was important to both Beckley and musical supervisor Gareth Williams that every part of the complex arrangements was present and audible, even during moments of underscored dialogue. This, along with the need to maintain the attention of a young audience, led Beckley to opt for a sound that was clearly amplified, rather than simply reinforced.

Beckley explained that the great paradox with an amplified show is the need to

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UK - The new wall-mounted, compact lighting controller from Artistic Licence simplifies customized performance and venue lighting. Artistic Licence's new 'Dimmer-Switch' joins 'Light-Switch' as part of a new range of Wall Mount DMX Controllers.

'Dimmer-Switch' provides the ideal solution for varied lighting requirement in pubs, clubs, conference rooms, retail outlets, trade shows, museum exhibits and domestic environments. Six independent LED illuminated faders are capable of playing back a static look or a dynamic sequence with the seventh 'Grand Master' fader providing overall intensity control.

The output is DMX512 with control over all 512 channels. Housed in a two-gang wall mount panel, Dimmer-Switch has all its electronic components mounted on the rear panel so there's no need for bulky or cumbersome external control boxes. The entire system can be programmed in two ways

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UK - CBS News recently decided to move its London studio from Knightsbridge out west to leafy Chiswick and upgrade the studio's lighting rig in the process. CBS called on the services of consultant Alan Bermingham to assist with the specification. His brief was to design the lighting system - including the suspension system, the control system and the luminaire package. he also oversaw the installation, set up the lighting and trained the staff to operate the system.

Bermingham, who spent over 20 years providing training in television lighting at the BBC and is the author of several books on technical TV production, worked closely with David J. Fairweather, CBS' director of operations for Europe to ensure the new studio was capable of meeting all the needs of a live 24-hour television news service. After initial discussions, Bermingham specified an ETC SmartFade compact lighting

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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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USA - A solo tour by Tori Amos is not what immediately comes to mind when thinking about a high technology production, but then again, Tori is anything but predictable. On this month-long tour of US theatres in support of her latest album, The Beekeeper, she performed over 90 different songs - a challenge for all concerned.

"I program, on average, three new songs every afternoon," sighs Dan Boland, Tori's long-time lighting director and, for the last few years, lighting designer. "It keeps the afternoons very interesting." Each night, Boland receives the ever changing set list minutes before Tori takes to the stage. Even then, the set can change midway through a show. Boland, however, incorporates this unpredictability into his design, and this was a key factor is his decision to use video.

"Every time that it's just Tori and a piano on stage, she can

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Germany - Sound designer Peter Jehle from Neomy Sound & Light had more than one reason for choosing a Camco-powered Nexo GEO S tangent-array system for the Open Air festival in Reutlingen, south-west Germany.

With more than 60 open microphones on stage, the festival's Classic Night opening event at the Kreuzeiche stadium was a major project. Peter Jehle's first choice of PA was Nexo's GEO S. "Besides the first-class sound characteristics, we were particularly impressed by the compact, inconspicuous shape of the Nexo GEO S system and the fact that the software support enabled the volume in the auditorium to be predicted exactly. That's what convinced us. In retrospect, the sound reinforcement quality was exactly what we expected. On stage, there were as many as 60 open microphones in use simultaneously. That could only be done without great difficulty because of the GEO S sy

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Russia - Nearly 100 Robe Show Lighting fixtures of various types have been installed in Moscow's Crystal Casino - one of the largest casinos in Eastern Europe - as part of a major technology upgrade aimed at providing a visually stimulating environment as part of a high quality guest 'experience'.

Crystal has three restaurants, several bars, a nightclub and dancefloor, and offers nightly onstage entertainment including a variety of singers and bands. The club also has its own permanent cabaret/musical show once or twice a week, and the dancefloor is in use five days a week. The new installation was designed by Sasha 'Eagle' Vasilyev - the club's chief LD - and Slava Savin, LD and desk programmer/operator, and undertaken by Moscow-based Light Sound Contractor (LSC), one of Russia's leading installers.

Robe fixtures were chosen for the primary moving light elements of the upgrad

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UK - The chain of supply in any industry is a fascinating animal, one mistake or miscalculation along the line can screw up numerous other businesses in that same chain. However, it is something most end users rarely consider.

In the lighting industry one of these links is Mico Lighting. Started in 1972, when it was run from a small unit and an upstairs bedroom in Pudsey, West Yorkshire by Michael Kitching and Colin Durber, it is now one of the largest privately-owned distributors of lamps in the industry and boasts in excess of 100 years of lighting experience by its three directors (Kitching, Durber and Graham Waite-Pullan).

Today, the Pudsey-based company distributes, in the main, to UK-based commercial end users and specialist suppliers from a 30,000sq.m warehouse. The company's dedication to customer support and total quality is the key to its success, say Mico, an ISO 90

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Canada - XL Touring Video's Des Fallon from the company's London office and John Wiseman from the Los Angeles office worked together as the video contractor for Coldplay's Twisted Logic Tour 2005. Video content consists of two of the new Barco SLM R12 Plus Performer projectors, a Sony 5 camera system, and a Lighthouse LED screen provided by Pete's T.V.

Production design was conceived by Bryan Leitch, Hangman and Coldplay. Touring on behalf of XL Video is Andy Bramley as video director/creative consultant, Alan Yates as video crew chief, Mark Antonuik as camera man, Jimmy Johnston as projectionist/camera perator and Mark Wilkinson as camera operator. Tour production is under the management of Mark Ward and tour management is Andy Franks. The North American leg of the tour began 2 August in Toronto and wraps up on 9 September in Bristow,Va.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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UK - Stage Technologies has been awarded a contract by Fincantieri for the supply and installation of the complete stage rigging systems for two venues on board the Emerald Princess being built in Monfalcone, Italy. The Emerald Princess will be another of the 'Grand' family of ships that started with the delivery of Grand Princess in 1998.

Stage Technologies has many years experience of working in the Italian shipyards of Fincantieri supplying and commissioning stage automation systems for the theatres on board many of the large cruise ships that have been built there, including ships for Disney, Carnival and Princess. However until now this has always been as a subcontractor supplying only part of the theatre rigging system, for installation by others. This contract direct with the yard includes the supply and installation of the complete stage rigging system.

The completed s

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UK - Lightfactor Sales will be showing a variety of its core theatre and performance orientated products available from Italian manufacturers SGM and LDR; Wireless Solutions from Sweden; Xilver from the Netherlands and LightProcessor from the UK at PLASA 2005.

Designed and built by SGM, Synthesis is the first of a new generation of moving head fixtures from SGM. Featuring two types of interchangeable 700W lamps, with automatic hot re-strike, colour mixing, precise linear dimmer, automatic electronic pan/tilt unlocking and silent operation. Synthesis achieves exceptional brightness, and is the world's first moving head fixture fitted with wireless DMX as standard and using technology with an operating radius of over 500m.

Other SGM products on display will be the Palco LED colour-changer and the Regia Lighting Desks including the new Desk Pilot 3000.

New from Xilver is the Xo

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UK - Marquee Audio - AuviTran's UK distributor - will be showing a complete range of the EtherSound products by AuviTran on its stand at the PLASA Show this year. AVRed-ES, AVKit-ES and the AVBridge32-ES will join AVY16-ES cards that have found homes in a variety of Yamaha equipment on display.

"AuviTran had a very exciting and productive year. As a Digigram Authorised Implementor, we had been very busy with services we have offered to other ES licensees [A&H, Archean, Camcmo, DiGiCo, InnovaSON, Nexo and Martin Audio]" said AuviTran's business development director, Wlodek Sielski. "Being able, at the same time, to design and develop our own unique EtherSound products, is something we are very proud of."

AVRed-ES secures an EtherSound connection with two redundant links A/B as well as automatic real time measurement of communication quality and four samples

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Italy - SIB 2006 - Italy's international event and entertainment technology exhibition (11-14 March 2006, Rimini Fiera, Italy) will once again host specific demo areas where trade visitors will be able to test equipment efficiency and effectiveness. 'Sound Power' - the world's only opportunity for trade members to see and hear the best and most advanced sound reinforcement systems currently on the market in action under outdoor working conditions - will have some interesting new features for 2006, say the organizers, including the location: the demos will be set up in a reserved zone near the West entrance - a much larger area that will ensure a better yield from the systems. The participation of six different high-powered systems has so far been confirmed.

There's also news as far as performances are concerned. The regulation 10-minute performances will be divided into two part

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UK - Beyma will be present at the PLASA trade fair through its distributor Miltec Ltd., on stand K64.

This year Beyma has centred its work on renewing its range of coaxial loud speakers, as well as continuing to develop models to enable the design of compact and efficient Line Arrays. Beyma's coaxial family was the last family in the Pro range which remained to be improved, after the intense and deep renovation that has taken place in its general catalogue over the past two years.

Two new series within the coaxial family were born: the XA series, which substituted the well-known KX series, and the XC series. The 12XA30/Nd and 15XA38/Nd are specially designed to provide an extremely flat response with a wide dispersion (80%) and high sensitivity (98 and dB at LF and 105 dB at HF). They include 4" coils of flat aluminium wire for considerable power management (700W Program)

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UK - Stage One, one of Europe's leading scenic production companies is using its expertise to help BMW with its current high profile promotion of the 1 Series. The Company was brought on board by production company, TRO, to realize the creative design of David Hatton. The challenging brief required delivery of a futuristic viewpod, capable of displaying two vehicles (at differing levels) and containing technical information about the 1 Series.

The shape and profile of the viewpod was a key design factor and so Stage One faced a major construction challenge to produce a balanced, seamless, 'floating' structure, able to bear a weight of nearly one-and-a-half tonnes, whilst at the same time ensuring it was aesthetically pleasing and in keeping with the designers vision.

Stage One rose to the challenge, fulfilling the brief by constructing the pod in steel and then cladding it in

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USA - On 2 June, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame members, ZZ-Top embarked on Whack Attack, a six-month North American tour. With a complete lighting package provided by Bandit Lites, lighting designer Chris Stuba is continuing an 11-year tradition as the extended tour continues to move through the US and Canada. "Working with Chris Stuba is fantastic and his show design and execution is beautiful," said Bandit Lites VP Mike Golden. "The ZZ-Top staff are all true professionals and it's a pleasure to work with them each year."

The Vari*Lite portion of the complete lighting package includes four VL3500 spot luminaires.For the Whack Attack tour, Stuba was looking for a sort of a retro-garage feel, as there is diamond plating on the set which is partially made up of amplifier cases and LED tubes. The amplifiers also have electro-luminescent rope for piping, which outline

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UK - ELC Lighting will introduce its new Switch5DC at PLASA. This latest member of the dmXLAN family will, the company says, mark the difference between a "compustore" switch and a professional tool for the touring industry. The unit features a truss-mount/table top housing with built-in M10 nut and safety eye; four powered 10/100BaseT ports on Neutrik Ethercon connectors; PoE (Power on Ethernet) IEEE 802.3af with auto-detection, for powering Node 1 and Node 2; 1 x 10/100BaseT uplink port on Neutrik Ethercon, and AC power - switching PSU 85 to 264 Volts with fixed mains lead.

The company has also announced the latest software kit for the Sidekick, which contains not only the last firmware - fader10_v102.sfu - but also upgraded configurations files for Martin Light Jockey, Hog 2 and Hog PC, Sunlite and Cybercontrol. ELC Lighting can be found on the stand of oits UK dist

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UK - Star Events Group Ltd was approached to offer a staging solution for three regional football stadiums- Hull, Ipswich and Nottingham Forest for the UK leg of the REM World Tour. The brief from promoters CCE was to maximize audience capacities whilst maintaining the large, festival appearance of a traditional Vertech stage and of course accommodate REM's exciting and creative lighting and video set. After the first round of site surveys it became obvious that the way to maximize the capacities would be to construct as much of the stage as possible in the terraces of the stadiums. Once the limited height to the underside of the stadium roofs was taken into consideration it became apparent that a new approach would be required.

With the experience gained from involvement with the Wembley Pavilion project where a large back stage area was required, the Star Events Group design t

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UK - Pharos Architectural Controls has announced that the Lighting Playback Controller (LPC) is now shipping. The award-winning LPC bridges the gap between entertainment and architectural lighting in retail, themed or architectural environments, say its makers. A powerful, solid-state lighting controller, the LPC is very compact and supports many different interfaces including Ethernet. The LPC comes in variants with one or two DMX ports; both models are now in stock and available from distributor TMB.

Version 1.0 of the powerful and intuitive Designer software has also been officially released for the Windows platform and is free to download from http://www.pharoscontrols.com/software.html. The Designer software has been available for beta testing and evaluation for several months and has been very well received. New features include support for the LPC1 and LPC2 over USB or Et

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Europe - PRG Europe is making room for new and updated rental equipment by selling some of its older stock. The sale, at PRG's Greenford offices in west London, will feature control consoles, automated and fixed lighting, followspots, dimmers, truss and motors, special effects equipment such as smoke and haze machines, strobes and LED battens, along with cabling.

Scheduled to run at the same time as PLASA, so that show visitors can visit both while in the capital, special offers include Wholehog II consoles, Source Fours and Vari*Lite fixtures and infrastructure.

PRG Europe group asset manager Paul Weaver says: "As a single source provider of lighting and projection solutions for the entertainment and events industry, we offer a range of resources unmatched anywhere. This means we have an enormous amount of stock, and storage space isn't cheap, so to make room we'd prefer

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UK - K.M.E will be showing its newest innovations at PLASA 2005. This year's highlights say the company are its; Line Array, Remote Control Module V.2.0 and Individualized PA systems CA 4 and CA 8.

As an innovation in the fields of installation and system integration in networks K.M.E. will show the follow-up of the TCP/IP remote control module, the RCM V2.0 an optional accessory for active speakers QSA 200 and QSA 500 D. Improvements and new features have been developed for the RCM V2.0 with both, hardware and software reengineered extensively.

The hardware part was completed by a PowerOverEthernet circuit, which gives the user a redundant power supply for maximum safety within the installation. An automatic speaker impedance control system was included to complete the remote diagnosis feature. An integrated three-port Ethernet switch minimizes cabling complexity and the need

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UK - It's still possible to pre-book spaces for this year's seminar programmes at the PLASA Show by logging onto: www.plasashow.com/seminars. Tickets cost £10 per session, or you can save money by booking a three-session pass for £20. Tickets can be collected on the day from the Seminar Theatre located on the Top Deck at Earls Court.

(Lee Baldock)

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