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UK - XL Video is supplying three dual output Catalyst digital media servers, a Catalyst DL1 moving head projector, a Barco SLM R12+ and six Sanyo PLC XP56i projectors for the much heralded Sam Buntrock revival of Sondheim's Sunday In The Park With George.

The show has just transferred to the Wyndham's Theatre in London's West End after a popular opening run at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Visual designer Tim Bird's animated versions of (George) Suerat's pointilliste technique are a vital element of the show and bring a whole new 21st century dimension to the stage. They reflect the artist's ability to create huge compositions with tiny, detached brushstrokes of contrasting colours, too small to be distinguished when looking at the entire work, yet resulting in paintings

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UK - The Who started their 2006 European with an exclusive gig at Leeds University, the venue of their landmark 1970 Live at Leeds. Also celebrating a return to the venue was Showsec, having been awarded the contract to manage audiences at the venue.

This was the hottest ticket in town, quite literally with the soaring temperatures in the intimate venue packed with 2,100 fans. The band showed why they're still at the top with a set comprised of classic tunes spanning the bands four decades inter-dispersed with new material from the soon to be released Wire & Glass rock opera.

Leeds University recently appointed Showsec to manage crowds at all of the shows at the famous Student Union Refectory venue and associated events (such as the recent Tetley Hall Ball) for at least the coming two years. Showsec worked at the venue through the nineties until four years ago.

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UK - The recent upgrade of Hatfield Swim Centre in the London suburb of Hertfordshire included a new communication system designed and installed by Stuart Graham's company Clarity in Sound, Light and Vision. Under the direction of health and fitness manager, Amanda Morris, Graham designed a four-zone system, selecting 26 QSC AD-CI52T ceiling speakers to be distributed across the two floors, powered by a QSC CX 204V, four 200W 100V line amp, and fed by two 5-play CD players. He also provided mood enhancement in the swimming pool with some inspired LED effects and a 26in LCD screen in the gym.

Graham thought long and hard about the multi-zoned design solution before coming down in favour of the white, easy-fit AD-CI52T's in this arduous environment. The AD-CI52T's feature an unusually wide frequency range and the ability to deliver higher SPLs. Coupled with wide and even dispersio

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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 - Vity Technology, a French manufacturer of corporate and home automation products based on LCD Media Bus touch panels and controllers, have extended their global marketing by appointing Fuzion plc to handle their products in the UK.

Fuzion sales director Paul Ward describes the IP-addressable range, which includes LCD professional panels, matrix switchers and scalers for the corporate boardroom and multimedia market, as a perfect addition to the company's product portfolio.

Ward says he is delighted to have acquired the exclusive UK rights to an integrated, solution driven system. "Our technical sales manager Jez Hunter initially wanted to enhance the control possibilities of our Symetrix SymNet system - but when he discovered Vity, we both saw we could take this a lot further."

Fuzion will be marketing the full Media Bus Control range but concentrating specifi

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Afghanistan / Iraq - Multimedia service providers Presentation Services Ltd (PSL) have helped The Sun newspaper provide a touch of World Cup magic to troops in the desert war zones.

Up to 12,000 hard-working British troops have a vital job to do in Afghanistan and Iraq, so The Sun teamed up with the RAF and PSL to launch Operation St George and let them share the World Cup frenzy via specially-tailored big screen packages.

Aware of the multimedia support offered by PSL (from events such as the Beckhams' World Cup send-off party), The Sun contacted the Potters Bar-based company to see what they could offer.

"The problem we faced was that since this equipment would be going to a war zone we would not be able to send our own technicians - and so we had to make it simple to operate by non-skilled personnel," said PSL's project manager Stuart McLaren. "I had to pu

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USA / UK - DiGiCo has announced its intention to incorporate DiGiCo LLC into DiGiCo UK Limited as a wholly owned subsidiary, thus strengthening its global operation.

"Essentially, for our customers, nothing will change," says DiGiCo's managing director Bob Doyle. "The existing US team, including Alan Nichols and Taidus Vallandi, will remain the same. We simply feel that bringing the US into the same structure, both operationally and financially, as the rest of the DiGiCo world will enable us to share our resources in a more effective way and so provide an even better service to our customers."

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - The Great American Country Network (GAC) again produced a 4 of July Television spectacular on the banks of the scenic Tennessee River in Nashville and enlisted the services of Bandit Lites to make the event the shining star of the year in Nashville. Butch Spyridon from the City of Nashville put together a world-class staff to produce the event. The staff included Dennis Freeman and Chuck Young as production managers and Mike Frogge as lighting designer. Console operators were John Lucksinger and Larry Bostser.

The Nashville Symphony Orchestra was accompanied by country music legend Ronnie Milsap, current country superstar Josh Turner, and one of the newest sensations on the scene Danielle Peck. The star filled evening was a huge success capped of by one of the largest fireworks displays in the US on the 4 July. This event is recognised as the third best 4 of July extravaga

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UK - Built by Sir Christopher Wren in the 1680s following the Great Fire of London, St. Bride's parish church in Fleet Street is one of the Capital's best-known monuments - and as a place of worship dates back as far as the 6th century.

Long associated with the printing and newspaper industries, St. Bride's today stages a wide variety of events - from normal Sunday worship to lunchtime concerts, weddings, conferences, editors' forums, lectures and memorial services.

The broadening nature of the programme meant that serious limitations were being exposed in the existing public address system, and broadcast/multimedia specialists, Interactive View, have specified the replacement of the old sound rig with 16 discrete, ultra-compact Martin Audio AQ6 loudspeakers, as part of an overall package. These are powered by three Martin Audio MA900 amplifiers and optimised using Allen & Hea

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UK - ETC is organising a series of training courses for its Congo lighting control console in London at the end of July and throughout August. The basic course (running on 25 July, and 2, 16 and 23 August) covers Congo's major functions, including navigation and programming of the console. The advanced course (26 July, and 3, 17 and 24 August) features an overview of the soon-to-be-released version 4.2 software, including channel layouts, editing dynamic effects, new track editing, using multiple sequence lists and much more. Training is hands-on, with no more than two people per console.

The courses will be held at ETC's new demo room at the company's North Acton facility (which also gives attendees the chance to see ETC's amazing themed reception area) and cost £25 per person per day, including lunch.

For more information, telephone ETC on 020 8896 1000, or to book, us

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UK - Hawthorn has worked on Walk the Walk's London MoonWalk for the fifth year running. This year, as well as supplying the London Moonwalk held in Hyde Park, Hawthorn is supplying both The MoonWalk Edinburgh and The Sunwalk Bristol.

For the London Moonwalk, Hawthorn provided lighting, staging, rigging and power distribution for the whole site, plus a sound system for the interior of De Boer's pink 8,500.00sq.m marquee, which was large enough to host over 15,000 bra-clad walkers for a pre-marathon pasta party.

Hawthorn's rigging specialists installed Prolyte ground support truss which supported over thirty 6m long banners, as well as PSL's LED videowalls. "We are thrilled to be working on the Edinburgh and Bristol events and look forward to continuing our relationship with Walk the Walk over the coming years," said Hawthorn's MD, Martin Hawthorn.

"Moonwalk is

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USA - Audio-Technica, leading manufacturer of professional microphones and headphones, has announced the new 700 Series Professional UHF Wireless Systems. Representing the latest generation of A-T's popular Freeway(tm) UHF wireless systems, 700 Series systems provide automatic frequency scanning, which selects an open channel at the touch of a button - an unheard of feature in this price range - for interference-free performance and exceptional audio quality in a diverse range of applications including live performance, houses of worship, public address and aerobic instruction.

Available in handheld, headworn, lavalier, guitar and body-pack configurations, the new 700 Series Freeway systems feature automatic frequency scanning, eight selectable frequency-coordinated UHF channels, diversity operation for interference-resistant reception, and a Tone Lock(tm) squelch system that el

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Italy - Mixer Sound & Light, founded in 1986 and based in Romanengo, Cremona is one of Italy's leading sound and lighting equipment rental companies, and one which has invested heavily in Robe moving light technology. Mixer now owns over 600 Robe fixtures, making them one of the largest Robe stockists in Italy, with a wide selection of all types of fixtures, from the top-of-the range ColorSpot and ColorWash 1200 ATs to the handy sized 160 XTs.

The family-run company, owned by MD Walter Taietti, works all over Italy, extensively throughout Europe, and also worldwide - on a huge variety of productions, concerts, festivals and tours, including on some of the country's top TV shows. Mixer now employs over 30 regular freelancers, project managers and crew at any one time, and can supply everything needed to get a show on the road, from the design and conceptualisation to the equipmen

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Germany / The Netherlands - Spotrental supplied 14 Gladiator IV spot lights for the extravagant opening ceremony of the 2006 football World Cup in Germany, which started in Munich's Allianz Arena.

Triple World Cup winner Pele carried the trophy onto the pitch with German supermodel Claudia Schiffer at his side, followed by 150 former World Cup winners, as the hosts put on a spectacular show.

Spotrental is the world's largest dedicated followspot light rental specialists, servicing events all over Europe from their Dutch facility. They have a comprehensive range of state of the art spotlights to suit every application in live events and broadcast.

Spotrental's policy of vigilant maintenance and testing underpins the reliability of these lights when lighting events like the ten-minute opening of the World Cup, says the company. Viewed by a live audience of 100,000 and 150milli

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Greece - The 2006 Eurovision Song Contest, held in the O.A.K.A. hall in Athens, was an outstanding event once again. German company Procon supplied the lighting system, which included about 500 moving lights as well as a number of Barco video and Schnickschnack LED systems. The video and LED systems were built into motorized movable staircases on the stage. In total, 44 DMX lines were used, divided into four lighting worlds: moving lights, LED, white light and video/media server.

The complete lighting control was via MA Lighting's grandMA system - four grandMA full-size and a grandMA light, plus backup and 22 NSPs (network signal processors). A fibre-optic network with four HP switches was installed to maximise the stability of the lighting control technology network, say MA Lighting.

The complex control network was realized by two years of cooperation between mo² Design GmbH

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USA - D-Tools Inc, the specialist system integration software company, has announced that Premier Mounts has joined the D-Tools Manufacturer Vantage Point (MVP) program. Premier Mounts has been manufacturing and marketing mounts for over two decades, and has 1,000 products, and over 3,500 reps and dealers worldwide. Detailed information about Premier Mount's products is now available to users of D-Tools' award-winning System Integrator software.

"We are excited that we made the decision to join the MVP program," said Premier Mount's Jason Cole. "Now information about our products will be easily accessible to SI users worldwide, directly through the program. We are pleased to team up with D-Tools and have our company and product information available to such a diverse market of system integrators and custom installers. It is a great way for us to expand our reach.&

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USA - The Los Angeles office of Creative Technology (CT), an international provider of audio, video and staging solutions for corporate events, has significantly increased its arsenal of L-Acoustics products with the recent purchase of 68 dV-DOSC and 22 dV-SUB enclosures as well as 32 LA Series amplifiers. This brings CT's tally of L-Acoustics gear up to 80 dV-DOSC and 26 dV-SUB boxes, all powered by ten full racks of LA amps, now making CT one of the West Coast's largest dV system providers.

Among the first productions to benefit from the new equipment was Sony's pre-E3 press event announcing the forthcoming November 17 launch of its new PlayStation 3. Held at Stage 15 of Sony Picture Studios just prior to the convention, CT paired an elaborate video presentation setup with a 5.1 system featuring left and right arrays each sporting nine dV-Dosc with adjacent hangs of three dV-S

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USA - BSR E1.18, Standard for the selection, installation, and use of single-conductor portable power feeder cable systems for use at less than 601 volts nominal for the distribution of electrical energy in the entertainment and live-event industries, offers guidance on the selection, installation, and safe use of single-conductor portable power feeder cable systems used in the entertainment and live-event industries as power distribution systems, and is available for review until 28 August 2006. The draft standard and its supporting materials are available at http://www.esta.org/tsp/documents/public_review_docs.php

In addition to being asked to review the document to see if it offers adequate advice, reviewers are asked to look for protected intellectual property in the draft standard. ESTA does n

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UK - The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance on the promotion of good health and the prevention and treatment of ill health. Its remit covers guidance on public health, health technologies and clinical practice for the NHS in England and other parts of the UK.

NICE's main offices are in Holborn, London where the organisation has been based for the past three years. The Institute's main conference room, the Derwent Room, enjoys high utilisation by committees, researchers and other medical professionals wishing to conduct meetings and workshops in the pursuit of developing guidance for the NHS, and the room is also used for stakeholder meetings.

The auditorium can be configured in a number of ways: theatre style (taking up to 70 delegates), as well as in boardroom and classroom f

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UK - The smash-hit Broadway musical AvenueQ - a tale of the every-day life of people, puppets and monsters living in an outer borough of New York, which won the Tony Awards for Best New Musical, Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Score in 2004 - has now opened at the newly-renamed Noel Coward Theatre in London's West End. Lit by Howell Binkley - winner of this year's Best Lighting for a Musical Tony Award for his work on Jersey Boys on Broadway - AvenueQ is the first show in London to use Robert Juliat's new Super Korrigan followspot.

White Light, the exclusive UK distributor for Robert Juliat, supplied three Super Korrigans to the show's lighting supplier, PRG. Faced with the need to have three centre spots to ensure even coverage of the show's puppets and puppeteers, the show's creative team needed spots that were compact and quiet enough to mount in

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Australia - Music and drama are acknowledged as areas of excellence at The Geelong College in Victoria, which recently opened a new $8million music and performing arts centre. The impetus for the project was the generosity of Jill Humble, who provided approximately $2 million to the school for use in the centre, in memory of her late husband, the renowned musician, Keith Humble.

The Keith Humble Centre for Music and the Performing Arts features a 250-seat music auditorium, incorporating an historic Wurlitzer pipe organ, a versatile 'black box' drama theatre, a three-level foyer, a music technology laboratory, recording and editing booths, a bio box, green room, music library, rock studio, multiple classrooms and music practice rooms, drama rehearsal studios, staff, offices and much more.

McGlashan Everist were the architects for the project, with Rob Mitchell of RTM Internatio

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UK - Over 80,000 rock fans descended on London's Hyde Park last weekend, to witness the biggest ever Foo Fighters concert. Lighting Designer Nathan Wilson has worked with the band for many years, and his rig this time included over 100 moving lights and 80 PixelLine 1044s. The battens were used to outline the trussing and frame the video screens helping give the rig an overall shape.

Wilson says: "I chose the PixelLines because I like the fact that they are an LED fixture that you really can't see the LEDs - only the final effect which is great."

Neg Earth supplied all the lighting including the Catalyst and PixelMad control system.

(Lee Baldock)

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