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USA - Tomcat USA has teamed up with Cirque du Soleil once again to provide equipment for Delirium. The show is a live music concert that features remixes of existing Cirque music and reinterpretations of performances from other Cirque productions. Not a traditional Cirque show that plays over multiple weeks in a city at a time under their trademark Big Top tent, this is a multimedia / theatrical production designed to perform in arenas for one or two nights then moving to the next location.

For its part, Tomcat delivered two new curved bridges to be used as replacements for the bridges originally created for the show. These new pieces were specifically designed to be smaller and lighter. With the pre-existing bridges weighing in at approximately 1,200 lbs a piece, the goal

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UK - Stage Electrics is supplying a large lighting package to The Sound of Music, playing in the West End. The rig includes Martin MAC TW1 Tungsten wash fixtures, MAC 700 Washes and MAC 700 Profiles. The show premiered at the London Palladium on Wednesday 15 November, with Stage Electrics also supplying the lighting to the after-show party.

Working alongside production electrician Fraser Hall and production manager Matt Towell, Stage Electrics supplied a total of 17 tons of equipment; the equipment was delivered to the Palladium in just three weeks from point of order. The Martin fixtures are complimented by 19 Vari*Lite VL1000AS.

The lead for this new production of the Rogers and Hammerstein show, one of the world's most loved musicals, was decided via the reality television show How Do You Solve A Problem Like Maria? with Andrew Lloyd Webber as the ultimate jud

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Sweden - Lab.gruppen has announced the ending of its distribution agreement with Sennheiser UK. Sennheiser has distributed Lab.gruppen products in the UK for over two years and the relationship has been rewarding and fruitful, says the company. "I would like to thank Sennheiser UK for the hard work they have done in developing the Lab.gruppen brand in what is undoubtedly one of the most competitive markets in Europe," says Claus Behrens, European sales manager, Lab.gruppen, "But with our ever expanding and more diversified portfolio of products we feel the need to get more directly involved with the UK market and are therefore working on a distribution solution that will allow this approach."

The company expects to make an announcement about its new distribution plans in the very near future. In the meantime Sennheiser UK will continue to supply Lab.gruppen

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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 - Dialight Lumidrives, the UK based LED technology provider, has appointed PatrickVan Der Meulen as European OEM technical sales manager.

Van Der Meulen, 37, joins Dialight Lumidrives with over 12 years experience in thelighting industry. He joins having spent the previous six years with LEDmanufacturer Lumileds, initially as a mechanical engineer and latterly astechnical support manager for Europe with responsibility to train and educatecustomers on how to use high-power LEDs. Before joining Lumileds he worked atPhilips Lighting Development Laboratories.

Van Der Meulen will be based near Eindoven in The Netherlands. He will be responsiblefor focusing on Dialight Lumidrives OEM customers across northern Europe andproviding them with sales and technical support.

Gordon Routledge, managing director at Dialight Lumidrives says: "Patrick'sappointment is part of the conti

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UK - Christie, a provider of visual solutions for business, entertainment and industry, launched the latest in its series of 3-Chip DLP HD resolution presentation products, the Christie Roadie HD+30K and Christie Roadster HD18K projectors at Integrated Systems Europe 2007. Providing a total of seven new, powerful models ranging from 5,000 to 30,000 ANSI lumens of brightness and 1,600-2,000:1 full field contrast ratio, Christie projectors power the most demanding presentations in boardrooms, houses of worship, post-production, broadcasting and rental/staging marketplaces.

The new Christie Roadie HD+30K projector generates 30,000 ANSI lumens of brightness at 2K resolution (2048 x 1080). Combined with extensive warranties and Christie service, the unit features a unique split-body design, a scooped hood for improved airflow, built-in rigging points and body handles or optional stac

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UK - Rosco will be introducing the X factor to the annual Architectural, Retail & Corporate Lighting (ARC) trade show this year 12-13 February, Business Design Centre, London). The X-Effects large-scale 3D image projector provides large scale 3D effects previously unavailable to lighting designers. Utilising a 200W Enhanced Metal Arc source, whose short arc allows for an output of 5,000 lumens and a 7,000-hour lamp life, the colour temperature is similar to a Xenon source at 6000°K but with nearly twice the luminous effectiveness of a halogen source.

The effect is created by rotating two X-size glass gobos off centre of the optical path; this results in a projection that does not appear to have a visible direction or pattern, say Rosco. The colour slot will accept dichroic colour filters and the projector includes onboard potentiometers to control the speed and direction of

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USA - Elektralite, manufacturers of entertainment lighting fixtures and controllers, haveannounced the launch of PaintSpot, an affordable color changing spot fixture, to compliment the extremely popular PaintCan flood released last year. By using the same lamp types as its wide angle brother (either the economical GLA or GLC 3200K) and utilising a 24° beam angle and six colour wheel (plus white), users have plenty of "light muscle" available to punch through the strongest colour washes, even in haze or fog, say Elektralite.

With two gobo wheels - one rotating and indexable, the other fixed - a myriad of dynamic effects can be created and played upon the chosen subject. And being interchangeable, gobos can be switched around or substituted with others from the large Elektralite collection. Other features include full electronic focussing, an iris and strobe facility

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UK - In November 2004 Dirty Dancing transferred to the stage in Sydney Australia. The London production - the latest in what is to be a worldwide roll out - opened at the Aldwych Theatre in October 2006, and is slated as being the fastest selling theatre show in the West End, with future sales already grossing an incredible £30 million.

Responsibility for the audio design was put in the hands of Bobby Aitken, who has made his first foray into the XTA DP4 Series processors for speaker control, plus some tried-and-trusted Dynamic EQ for tricky vocal parts.

The front of house loudspeaker system is predominantly d&b with a centre cluster of dVDosc and EM Acoustics' new small size base cabinets in the corners of the auditorium. Crossovers and system management is from six XTA DP448s with XTA SiDDs across some of the vocals. "The actors all wear mics up in their ha

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UK - XL Video Uk supplied screens, cameras and PPU for two separate events at the recent Russian Winter Festival, staged in London's Trafalgar Square.

The Festival was organised by Eventica - a Russian-EU relations event management team - for the GLA. XL was working for production company Out Of The Blue for the first, a London v Moscow ice chess match, who in turn were brought onboard by PR company Freud Communications.

XL supplied one of their Barco B10 mobile trailer-mounted screens for the ice chess which took place live via a two-way satellite link between London and Pushkin Square in Moscow. The screen measured 10 square metres and was located right next to the action taking place on a giant chess board made from Steeldeck.

Team London was led by UK Grandmaster Nigel Short, the strongest British chess player of the 20th century, helped by author Peter Ackroyd and 8-yea

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UK - Allen & Heath has launched the XONE:S2, a new installation DJ mixer for use in clubs and bars,and by professional mobile DJs. It is a 19" rack-mounted 4U mixer,available with either linear or rotary VCA channel faders, and features fourstereo dual-input channels, two mono mic/stereo line channels, a USB audiointerface, and boasts features to enhance the DJ's performance andaid the installer.

XONE:S2 has amultitude of features designed to integrate it into a typical PA system. Oneof the key features is an output limiter system that enables the engineer topreset the maximum output level of the mixer, irrespective of input level.

The main mix outputs are on balanced XLR, and an additional mono output,also on XLR, can be used as a zone feed or can be used to feed a sub-bassstack. A dedicated alarm input mutes all music channels when active andthere is also a dedicated al

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UK - The huge educational technology show BETT, the world's leading educational information & communications technologies (ICT) event, attracted 600 educational suppliers and over 28,000 visitors to Olympia for four days of innovation and inspiration.

Organised by EMAP, this year's event saw a significant trend towards live demonstrations and presentations on stands, according to Lauren Steadman, manager of PSL Exhibitions, the approved supplier of all audio-visual services for the event. "In the field of business-to-business (B2B) exhibitions, this is one of the busiest shows on our calendar. However, this year, we saw a significant rise in the number of sound systems and plasma screens we were providing for live events on the stands."

In addition to providing full AV facilities for more than 50 exhibitors, including Adobe, LEGO and Tomi, PSL serviced the four prese

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Elba - When high-tech giant Motorola decided to host a special event to cement relationships with several hundred VIP clients, the firm's European division regaled its guests with a fete at the Villa San Martino on the island of Elba, off the coast of Italy, best known as Napoleon's 'summer residence' during his exile from France nearly 200 years ago. In addition to stunning views and sumptuous Italian cuisine, Motorola's favoured few also enjoyed live entertainment from Diana Ross, who was heard through a system of Meyer Sound's M'elodie compact curvilinear array loudspeakers.

Sound reinforcement design for the event was entrusted to Chris Marsh, Ross's FOH engineer and a close associate of Wiltshire, England-based sound hire company Major Tom Ltd. "The brief called for a compact and lightweight full-range system," Marsh says. "The producers wanted a big, excitin

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Germany - At the forthcoming ProLight&Sound exhibition (Frankfurt, 28-31 March), Axxent will introduce its new constant voltage audio amplifier with 2 x 500W of continuous power in a constant voltage line of 100V.

All features of the AX-2500T are targeted at professional audio installations, say the company: front gain controls are detachable and can be protected against misuse, while all other controls and in and output connectors are situated on the back panel for maximum protection.

Input connectors are XLR-type and each input is slaved through an XLR male connector. The power connector is an IEC type and is detachable also. The 100V output connectors are touch-proof binding posts. DIP switches provide limiting function per channel, 40/80Hz subsonic filters, stereo or parallel operation mode. Safe operating temperature is provided by a controlled low-noise fan. Axxent is al

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UK - London's first festival of light, 'Switched On London', will be switched on at the Pool of London tomorrow night at 6pm and will continue until 16 February in conjunction with The ARC Show (Business Design Centre, London, 12-13 February).

Members of the lighting design and architecture community from all over the world are being invited to attend the festival to examine the relationship between light, architecture and the city consisting of temporary lighting installations and a series of light related events with an overall concept theme of 'theatre'.

The Pool of London is a natural amphitheatre within the city, encompassing the River Thames, bordered by Tower Bridge and London Bridge and including many famous landmarks. A number of iconic landmarks in the area including The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast and City Hall will be temporarily and spectacularly li

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USA - Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems Inc has announced the NSCA debut of the LS9 series of digital mixing consoles (Orlando, 15-17 march). The 32- and 64-input consoles were designed specifically for sound reinforcement requirements within small- to medium-sized houses of worship, regional sound companies, and corporate audio/video presentation, say the company. The consoles can also be used as auxiliary mixer/channel expanders for the M7CL and PM5D consoles.

The LS9 series console is housed in a small footprint frame, and consists of built-in mic pre amps on the first layer of both the 16- and 32-input consoles. The console shares the same sound quality, built-in effects, EQ, and dynamics processing as Yamaha's M7CL console.

Currently available, the LS9 series will replace the Yamaha GA series analogue console. The LS9 provides a low-cost digital solution, intuitive and easy

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Italy - Rome-based rental company Brokershow is the latest Italian hire company to invest in Robe Show Lighting's new DigitalSpot 5000 DT.

Massimo D'Aiello (one of the three brothers who own the company) explained that they have invested heavily in Robe moving lights over the last three years, and now have over 60 Robe products including ColorSpot 1200 ATs, ColorSpot and Wash 575 ATs and ColorMix 575 ATs. They like the brand because the fixtures are reliable and hard wearing - essential features for a busy rental company.

When the DigitalSpot was launched, they were keen to get the new fixtures into their hire stock, and went ahead with the purchase of two units. "It was a hugely versatile, new and exciting product and we knew we would have work for them immediately - so we didn't think twice about it," says D'Aiello.

Brokershow was founded five years ago. They sup

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UK - March once again brings the RSAMD (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) Graduate Exhibition and Trade Show (21-22 March, 10.00am - 5.00pm). For two days, final year students of the Technical and Production Arts Course will be exhibiting a broad range of work from their three years of study in the Chandler Studio Theatre.

At the same time, the Academy's main theatre, the New Athenaeum, will become an exhibition space for the Technical and Production Arts Programme's sponsors and suppliers, enabling them to demonstrate and discuss their most recent equipment and products with prospective clients and visitors to the Academy. Companies such as Black Light, Stage Technologies, ETC, MA Lighting, Green Hippo, Selecon, Martin Professional and White Light will be taking part.Alongside this, a range of seminars will also be taking place over the two days, lead by Bernie Davies

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UK - The sound design for the London production of Dirty Dancing includes a DiGiCo digital mixing console. But the new D5T12 that sits at front of house brings a little extra to the power of the D5T platform.

The show was first staged in Australia two years ago, with a further production in Germany last year. The film was named one of the most popular of all time and London's Aldwych Theatre is seeing a replication of that popularity for the stage show, a fact that is being born out by an estimated £30 million of forward sales.

The team that is now in place is second to none, and claims amongst its credits a sound design by Bobby Aitken, at whose behest the D5T12 exists - the new console is hybrid of the D5T digital theatre mixing system, but with an additional four faders, taking the number to 12, rather than the standard eight and providing more DCA control with

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Hong Kong - The Canon Corporation has recently installed the latest Laservision LED technology at its prominent Kowloon skyscraper base, called Oterprise Square, so that the building can participate in Hong Kong's record-breaking Symphony of Light Show.

"Artificial light accounts for almost one-fifth of the world's electricity consumption - substantially more than the output of all the nuclear power stations in the world. Within 25 years, the global demand for artificial light is projected to be almost twice today's level as the developing world moves towards western living standards," say Laservision.

The company says that a shift in global climate trends and an international focus on sustainable energy has seen high-rise buildings around the world favouring energy efficient lighting design as a means of retrofitting structures for modern times.

Many governments a

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The Netherlands - At the recent ISE Show in Amsterdam, the Dutch professional video distribution specialists Pixlvision, part of the Ampco / Flashlight Group, were appointed as distributors for Holland by two of the world's leading names in video technology - Altinex and Christie. In the case of Altinex the distributorship is exclusive. Pixlvision is headed by video industry specialists Hans Denekamp (sales manager) and Robert Kaarsmaker (account manager).

The company was appointed by Christie, the leading provider of visual solutions for business, entertainment and industry, as a distributor for the Netherlands from 1 February. It will handle the complete range of Christie's business products and solutions and provide full technical support to the Dutch marketplace.

Christie manufactures purpose-built systems for professional use. Over the last 30 years the company's systems

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UK - Members of the industry are being asked to join PLASA in supporting The National Skills Academy for the Creative & Cultural Industries by completing a consultation questionnaire. The Academy is designed to address shortages in offstage and technical skills for live music and the performing arts. Detailed plans being prepared by Creative & Cultural Skills, the employer-led Sector Skills Council, will be submitted to government in April 2007.

For more information on the National Skills Academy and for the chance to give your opinion on what skills are needed you can complete the online questionnaire at the web address below by 28 February 2007.

(Lee Baldock)

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