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Europe - Since the acquisition by the Genlyte Group of Strand Lighting Inc, and the closure of Strand Lighting UK Ltd last month, Strand Lighting Inc reports that it has been working on interim arrangements to provide "the best possible levels of support for our valued European dealers and end users".

For the present, Strand says its products will be supplied to European customers from Strand's US and Hong Kong warehouses, with customer service being carried out in the Strand Lighting Inc facility in Cypress, California. Technical Support is once again available in Europe for all Strand products, and will be provided by field service technicians under contract to Strand Lighting Inc (see contact details below). Further support for project planning and commissioning will,

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UK - At the PLASA Show this year, Midas will be showing the XL8 live performance system on stand M40 for the first time at a UK trade show. XL8 heralds the leading console manufacturer's entry into the digital mixing realm, offering an incomparable design combining exemplary sound quality, flexibility and reliability with an ease and familiarity of use unrivalled by other digital control surfaces. XL8 is the first of a new generation of open-architecture, cross-platform, integrated audio control and distribution systems, which brings control of not only audio, but other aspects of live performance to a single, intuitive control centre.

As well as offering classic Midas audio quality and superb reliability, XL8 actually improves upon the performance of the analogue consoles which have established the brand as the number one choice of sound engineers the world over. XL8 represents

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Germany - tarm Showlaser GmbH has reported the best first half in the company's history. Among numerous other first half highlights were the opening festivities of the 2006 Paralympics in Turin; The Night of the Astronauts for the European Space Agency in Barcelona; the presentation of telephone-company ETISALAT's new logo in Dubai; the presentation of Porsche's new GT3 at the Porsche Sports Cup races at the Hockenheim-Ring; Vodafone's kick-off in Bucharest; and the opening ceremonies of the FIFA World Soccer Championship's Fan Festival in front of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate on 7 June.

The company already has a substantial backlog for the second half, which, according to managing director Ralf Lottig, demonstrates that technical know-how, uncompromising devotion to quality, and creativity pay off.

tarm Showlaser GmbH will be exhibiting at PLASA 06 on stand - P54.

(Chri

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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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Germany - ChainMaster has introduced the JumboLift, designed to lift heavy weights such as video cubes. The BGV-C1 chain hoist will be capable of lifting weights as great as 6,000kg, and is equipped with a frequency converter, incremental encoder and (optionally) with an absolute value encoder. The controller is available in both one- and two-channel configurations; a control cabinet control system with breakdown control can also be implemented. The JumboLift is also available as a BGV-D8 version, say the company.

Also new from ChainMaster is a manual controller for up to 48 chain hoists. With the remote control, which is equipped with a 5.7" touch-screen, it is possible to program runs as well as display individual positions and loads. It will also be possible to effect a group shutdown in the event of the synchronicity tolerance being exceeded, the target position being o

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UK - Lite Structures will launch Digitruss - an innovative, cable-free, truss system that incorporates both live circuits and data rails within the one structure - at the PLASA Show this year. The data rails can carry both the architectural protocol DALI and the entertainment industry standard DMX512, enabling both conventional and intelligent lighting to be attached to the same truss without the need for extension cables.

Litestructures says: "With Digitruss from Lite Structures it is now possible to cost effectively create, seamless, colourful mood paintings or micro climates. You can now stimulate your audience with an endless variety of canvasses in a fraction of the time and with reduced labour costs. Any number of light, sound and visual sources can be incorporated in the one, cable-free, lightweight, low maintenance, environmentally friendly, infinitely flexible trus

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Germany - Protonic Software, developer of the Easyjob rental management system, has introduced what it calls "an easier way to make informed business decisions" - The Easyjob Business Information Center (BIC). This new tool critically analyzes data from an existing Easyjob database and displays key figures on one easy-to-read screen. Users can quickly and easily determine the profitability of projects, the return on investment for purchases, the cost-effectiveness of employees and freelancers, plus much more. Full-colour reports and statistics can be saved and distributed in a variety of formats such as PDF and Microsoft Excel files.

Protonic Software representatives will conduct live demonstrations of the new Easyjob BIC at the 2006 PLASA Show (10-13 September, Earl's Court, London). Protonic software GmbH/Corporation is the leading manufacturer of software solutions

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UK - The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA) has awarded Prof. Dr. Jorg Sennheiser the title of "Companion." With this award, LIPA is expressing its gratitude to the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of audio specialist Sennheiser, both for his pre-eminence in the field of sound engineering and his long lasting support for the Institute.

The Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts awards the title 'Companion' in recognition of outstanding achievement in the service of art and entertainment, and honours those who share their knowledge and their experience with the students. Mark Featherstone-Witty, who co-founded LIPA with Sir Paul McCartney, says: "Sennheiser provides the fuel of support to propel the vehicle of future talent. Their practical friendship is treasured."

According to Prof. Dr. Jorg Sennheiser, "We were fascinated right from the

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UK / Finland - Clockaudio Limited has appointed Starlike Oy as its Finnish distributor. Starlike will be responsible for the sales and distribution of Clockaudio's extensive line of microphones, mixers, headsets and accessories within the growing Finnish market.

Located in Vantaa, close by Helsinki city centre, Starlike Oy is a professional sound and lighting company that was founded in 1986. Its services include system design, installation and manufacturing as well as distribution and sales.

Starlike pro audio sales manager, Pauli Molner, comments: "We are proud and excited to be taking on the distribution of Clockaudio products in Finland. Clockaudio is synonymous with good quality, reliability and flexibility. We are looking forward to a long and fruitful relationship with Clockaudio.

"Our clients include public and private organisations, construction industry,

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UK / Italy - A.C. Lighting has been appointed as the sole UK distributor for D.T.S. show products and will launch final production models of the innovative new Delta LED IP rated moving light range at the PLASA show.

Until recently, D.T.S. has been known as a high volume manufacturer of branded and OEM lighting products combining excellent build quality, performance and reliability at an affordable price. However, as a result of long-term investment in state-of-the-art R&D and manufacturing facilities in Italy, the company has developed a new generation of advanced products aimed at the professional end of the entertainment market.

The new distribution deal will exploit A.C. Lighting's position as a leading one-stop supplier of cutting-edge entertainment technologies to the most demanding users in all areas of professional and architectural lighting applications. The deal cove

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Worldwide - LaserNet's summer began with a bang when it was selected to join the 20th Anniversary tour of the legendary rock band, Poison. The rigorous tour schedule, 55 cities in 65 days, proved to be no problem for the rugged Verde projector, and LaserNet's 20W Verde Beam Raider - an air-cooled, green-only laser system - made its tour debut. Poison's tour manager Mark Hogue says: "We were very pleased with the reliability of the LaserNet system, it never missed a beat. Plus, never having to mess with water hoses made it a dream come true."

LD Mark Miller added: "The laser projector is very well built and we have worked it hard with no problems. I can see more rock and roll in its future and even corporate gigs."

LaserNet's president, Tom Harman noted: "The Beam Raider system has been very successful in clubs, but getting it on the road was the acid t

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UK - To date, Funktion One's renowned large-scale bass systems have been focused around 18"s in the form of F218s (with their unique and highly efficient loading technique) and the Infrabass/Infrahorn systems (for extreme low end reinforcement down to 30Hz and below).

In the 1980s, Funktion One's Tony Andrews had also pioneered work with Precision Devices on the development of the first widely used 21" (6" voice-coil) loudspeaker. This provided the low end for his highly regarded Flashlight system design of the time which was used on world tours by groups including Pink Floyd and Dire Straits. "In 2006, with F1s access to advanced materials and Andrews' heightened understanding of loudspeaker and enclosure tuning, his original 21" concept was due for a revisit. This work has resulted in a new product with dramatically increased performance," say the

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UK - Coinciding with the recent hike in interest rates and amid concerns that levels of borrowing are escalating, a new analysis by industry specialists Plimsoll Publishing has looked at how high levels of debt are impacting on the financial health of the top 200 sound equipment companies.

It found that 80 of the 200 companies analysed are in fact, in more debt now than they have been in the last four years. Using other people's money to finance your company is, it seems, an increasing trend.

David Pattison, head of research at Plimsoll, commented. "We are always surprised how no one at these companies seems to realise their debts are rising and the effect it's having on the overall financial strength of the company. Unfortunately it's not something they tend to measure until it's too late. Our analysis spots these problems earlier."

The Plimsoll analysis points to

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Belgium - The perennial Rock Werchter festival was held again at Werchter Park in Hasselt, Belgium, from 29 June to 2 July. Rock Werchter is one of Europe's largest music festivals, with over 300,000 people attending each year, and over 60 artists performing on two stages throughout the four-day festival.

30 Bands including The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Who, Arctic Monkeys, Black Eyed Peas, Depeche Mode, and Kanye West graced the main stage while Collective Soul, Death Cab for Cutie, Elbow, The Streets and many others were featured on the second Pyramid Marquee stage.

EML Belgium, who have been associated with the festival for the past 20 years, was contracted to provide the sound system and design. They know exactly what the demands are, and each year aim to fine-tune and deliver what has become one of the largest Adamson Systems Arrays used in an out-door even

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UK - Top of the Pops the long-running BBC TV music show, has been broadcast for the last time in its 42-year history. The one-hour finale, shown on BBC Two on Sunday 16 July 2006, looked back over the show's four decades and featured a number of memorable archive clips.

Roger Williams has been the lighting designer for Top of the Pops for two years now and has learnt where the camera gets the most out of the lights. As this was the final music show he filled the studio grid with as much as he could using various lamps and manufacturers, but not trying to, "make it too much like a trade show!".

The lighting design is usually left to Williams once the positioning of the set pieces has been decided on in the Monday meeting. Williams has two preferred rigs, Martin MAC 500 and MAC 600s beams and washes alternately to provide strong vibrant colours and sharp

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UK - The last ever event to be held at the Wembley Conference Centre saw Pearce Hire install the complex PA system for an acoustically challenging and unusual event.

With the continuing development of the Wembley site, the next stage of the regeneration is the pulling down of Wembley Conference Centre after 30 years of holding numerous conferences, seminars and private parties. For the final time, the venue was used by an American composer, Yoav Goren to showcase his work to a selected audience.

Goren who is responsible for creating trailer music for many blockbuster movies including Spiderman, Van Helsing and X-Men, has developed his trailers into full music compositions and was performing them using a 65 piece orchestra, 60 piece choir and full rock band, which included Feeder's drummer (who worked with Aerosmith and Bon Jovi).

Pearce Hire's Andy White headed the team and

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Belgium - Barco are showing the all new MiStrip at PLASA 06, which is making its debut on the Mesh City Bon Jovi tour. At the show, Barco demonstrates that LED no longer has to be rectangular or flat. With the whole portfolio of creative LED solutions on show it is easy to see that the only limits are those of the imagination.

MiStrip, entered in the PLASA awards for innovation competition, sets a new standard for LED display technology in a wide variety of applications. From large free-form video displays to architectural visual design.

High brightness and high pixel density in a slim and lightweight yet rugged package make MiStrip a true all-round performer.The possibilities with this product include not only bright video displays of any size, shape or form but also lighting-type effects, in one package.

Also on show is the MiSphere which pens up the door to new, bold and

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UK - The Sound Division Group has added Mews of Mayfair to its bar/restaurant portfolio, adding tailored audio visual packages to each of the four floors in this remarkable £2m conversion.

Located within a historic cobbled courtyard behind London's New Bond Street, two traditional Mews buildings have been beautifully converted into an exclusive restaurant, lounge and cocktail bar by James Robson, formerly of Salt Whisky Bar, and his partner Robert Nearn.

Aimed at a discerning clientele, the two men assembled a top creative team and Sound Division soon appeared on their recommended list.

"Most of the companies I had known from previous projects, and although we hadn't dealt with Sound Division before, I was immediately impressed by their client list," recalls Robson.

From the first site survey undertaken by Sound Division 12 months ago, Sound Division MD Dav

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Ireland - "This is a state of the art sound system for people who are serious about what they do," said Dave McDonnell of Dublin based pro-audio company McDonnell Systems. He was referring to the d&b audiotechnik PA system his company had recently installed in one of the latest venues on the Dublin nightlife scene, Radio City at the Isaac Butt Bar.

The recently renovated bar is a Mecca for music lovers and clubbers in the city. It has a variety of bars spread over three floors with 'Radio City' situated in the basement where the d&b system is installed. This is a venue for late night gigs where up and coming bands are showcased.

The system, comprising d&b Qi7s and Qi subwoofers with Ci80s providing delays and E0s serving a number of blind spots, was specified and designed by the Butt Bar's resident sound engineer Andy Colbert in co-operation with Kevin McGing, sound

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Singapore - Singapore's highly-respected arts centre Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay has become the first customer in Asia to purchase the new Soundcraft Vi6 digital console. Esplanade's head of sound Robin Shuttleworth says: "The features we get on the Vi6 made it worthwhile for us to pioneer this console."

The first use of the Soundcraft Vi6 console was at Baybeats, Singapore's own local annual indie music festival at Esplanade, a free festival of live indie music which attracts bands from countries such as Malaysia, Norway, UK, USA, Australia and of course, Singapore itself. At Baybeats, the console was used as a monitor desk for the Powerhouse stage: soon after, at another festival to commemorate Singapore's National Day, the Soundcraft Vi6 was used for front-of-house control.

"We operate two outdoor venues, and frequently run shows which feature five or six

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UK - Madonna, one of the biggest names in the music industry, played a one-night show at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on Sunday 30 July to an audience of 60,000 during her Confessions Tour.

Star Events Group Ltd has recently been appointed as the technical management company for the Stadium. Part of its remit is to enable the production to fully utilise the capacity of the retractable roof. After consultations with the engineering company, the stated capacity of the roof was increased considerably: over 50 tonnes can now be flown above the arena stage positions and, for the first time, shows using the whole stadium can fly delays from the retractable roof as well. This enabled Star Events Group and Madonna's production team to replace the proposed ground support solutions for the delay PA, spotlight platform and mother-grid needed to support the protruding mirror ball truss with

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UK - Lightfactor Sales is showing a variety of its core theatre and performance orientated products available from Italian manufacturers SGM, LDR and Novalight, VXCO from Switzerland and LightProcessor from the UK.

SGM's new Pilot 3000 is a value-added DMX controller ideal for use with small rigs, with all functionality of larger consoles. This includes 1024 DMX Channels, two DMX outs and four in; touch screen for quick access to all functions. There's six programmable scene control faders and four encoder wheels for attribute control during programming, and effects control during playback. A 'Joy Ball' gives intuitive Pan/Tilt control.

The Genio Mobile is a reliable, compact, stylish LED colour-changing fixture with incredible brightness. Producing a wash light effect generated by 16 high-powered Luxeon LEDs (1,800 lumens). Lamplife is at least 100,000 hours at maximum power.

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