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USA - Underscoring the increasing importance of live sound to its overall growth strategy, Digidesign has announced the appointment of former EAW executive and industry luminary FrankLoyko to the position of worldwide director of sales for the Digidesign Venue live sound product line. In hisnew position, Loyko will be responsible for defining and leading all live sound sales strategies worldwide,including managing Digidesign's direct live sound sales team, the company says.

"Frank brings an entrepreneurial spirit and tremendous track record for building professional audio brands,and successfully leading high-performance sales teams," says Tim Carroll, senior director of worldwide sales at Digidesign. "His broad experience in all aspects of live sound sales, along wi

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UK London-based Event Concept is the first UK production and hire company to take delivery of the new Chroma-Q Color Split multi-purpose LED fixture.

Event Concept provides a creative event design and full technical production service for both corporate and private clients, and is listed as an approved supplier in over 35 of London's most prestigious venues.

Roger Deane, Event Concept's head of company operations, had been considering a number of LED products on the market when he contacted long-time supplier A.C. Lighting, who recommended the new Color Split fixture.

Deane comments: "The Color Split is ideal for our needs. It provides a very smooth colour change without any sudden 'jumps' that are common with other products and also a very smooth output for uplighting columns or walls. The colour mixing effects are also very impressive - I've seen people trying to use

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UK - Hoist UK Ltd has announced a new strategic alliance with Litestructures GB. The alliance allows both companies to distribute each others products and services.

Hoist UK's Tony Dickson says: "This is a great opportunity for both companies, the natural union of truss and motors makes this a symbiotic relationship, you can't think of one product without thinking about the other. By forming this relationship we can offer the end user a very economic and customer orientated service. The partnership gives the opportunity to offer a realistic one stop shop for rigging projects in entertainment, retail and industrial applications."

Litestructures' Adrian Brooks comments: "I have known and worked with Tony Dickson for several years on different projects, when he and Paul set up their own company I was really pleased that Litestructures were amongst the first people

featured content

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 - ETC is to show its two newest consoles at PLASA 07: the Eos system, for sophisticated control over multimedia lighting productions, and SmartFade ML, the compact, portable desk.

Eos won the Product Award for Lighting at Showtech 2007, the control system's second such honour - last year it took the Product of the Year Award for debuting product when it was introduced at LDI. But the Showtech award was the first ever European award.

The SmartFade ML is designed for small touring acts, schools, product launches, corporate events and other applications, as it brings professional features like palettes, parameter "fan" and built-in dynamiceffects to novice and experienced users alike.

Also on the ETC stand will be the ETC Congo lighting control console, which among other installations, has recently been hired out by ETC dealer Northern Light for an Erick Morillo DJ

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Czech Republic / Denmark - Martin and Robe have entered into a licensing agreement, entitling Robe and its affiliated companies to utilize Martin's US patents 6,601,973 (the "973-patent"), 6,971,770 (the "770-patent") and 7,222,997 on gobo holder and animation wheel technology, covering Robe's Color Spot product series. The licensing agreement also entitles Martin and its affiliated companies to utilize technology covered by Robe's US patent application 10/534927 (titled 'Equipment for a change of rotary gobos').

The agreement allows Robe to manufacture, market and sell its Color Spot product series in the United States and allows Martin Professional to manufacture, market and sell products incorporating the technology in Robe's patent application.

The licensing agreement follows litigation in the United States in which Martin claimed that Robe's Color Spot

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UK - Lightfactor will launch two new exclusive ranges at the show - Cogent and SFAT. Cogent has a new modular LED screen range in different sizes plus a complete range of LED products and drivers. SFAT offers a comprehensive range of special effects machines for indoor and outdoor use including confetti, foam, wind, air tubes, snow and bubble machines.

LFS is also showing core theatre and live performance orientated products from high profile manufacturers SGM, LDR, Stark and Novalight from Italy; VXCO from Switzerland, and LightProcessor from the UK. LFS is the exclusive UK distributor for all these products.

Cogent is a totally new LED screen range exclusively from Lightfactor, currently consisting of six LED Screens, four for external use and two for internal - all of varying pitches. There is also a range of LED strips of varying pitches and sizes, link LED, MR16 fixtures,

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UK - Since being designated as a New Town in 1967, the conurbation that has been developed around the village of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, has grown rapidly in the ensuing 40 years.

One of the latest construction projects, centred on the Denbeigh district of modern Milton Keynes, is stadium:mk - a football stadium, arena and retail / hotel development. stadium:mk is also home to MK Dons, the football club famously (and controversially) moved from its former home and incarnation as Wimbledon FC, whose chairman Pete Winkelman is the mastermind behind the stadium development.

As a former music industry producer, and previously the owner of Great Linford Manor recording studios, it's unsurprising that Winkelman has taken a keen interest in the stadium's acoustics and audio system, going to great lengths to ensure that the sound quality is as high as possible for both footbal

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USA - Nexxus Lighting has announced the hiring of Mark Masterman as its new vice president for the pool & spa division and Steve Gasperson as its director of sales for the division.

Prior to joining the Nexxus Lighting team, Masterman and Gasperson served as general manager and national sales manager respectively for the pool and spa division of Energy Focus, formerly Fiberstars.

(Jim Evans)

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Germany - For this year's Arnsberg International Summer of Art, designer Heinz F.W. Stahl and sculptor Friedrich Freiburg made imaginative use of light in the creation of two concrete sculptures - with integrated LEDs from VLM.

Art and Light was the theme of the 11th International Kunstsommer Arnsberg (Arnsberg International Summer of Art), which ran from the 22 June to 5 August. The festival, in the historic capital of the Dukedom of Westfalia in Germany's Sauerland included a pair of sculptures equipped with ultra-modern LED systems - the work of the designer Heinz F.W. Stahl and sculptor Friedrich Freiburg.

The two objects - one (Lichtobjekt) an obelisk and the other (Ein heißes Eisen) a giant pair of pliers - are cast in concrete and attracted a great deal of attention on the Ruhr Promenade - especially at night, as Stahl and Freiburg equipped the two sculptures wi

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UK - Allen & Heath has made an addition to the leading Xone DJ range, with the launch of the Xone:42 high performance 4-channel DJ mixer with USB audio interface.

"Designed to seamlessly interface with current leading edge DJ technology, the Xone:42 has an ergonomic, intuitive layout, making it one of the easiest to use hi-tech mix tools around," comments Xone designer, Andy Rigby-Jones.

The Xone:42's feature set is built around 4 dual-input stereo channels; channels 1 and 4 are phono/line, while channels 2 and 3 are line/line. All four channels have a powerful +6dB to total kill 3-band EQ, a 9-segment 3-colour bar meter, gain control, and 60mm VCA faders with illuminated X/Y crossfader selection. Xone's Voltage Control Filter is included on each channel via illuminated assignment switches, with selectable filter type, resonance, and frequency controls.

The mixer s

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Switzerland - TiMax Audio Imaging has featured prominently in the sound design of a major outdoor theatrical event in Switzerland. Specified by Thomas Strebel of Swiss sound design and resourcing company audiopool, a 16-input, 32-output TiMax Rack system was integrated with a Studer Vista8 console for the 2007 annual Welttheater production in Einsiedeln.

Das Einsiedler Welttheater features a cast of more than 300 players performing in a roughly 50m x 60m open square in front of the imposing bulk of the town's massive Kloster Einsiedeln monastery. Much of the cast moves all over the space either singing or playing musical instruments, wearing a variety of eclectic garb ranging from nun's outfits to life-like oversized heads.

The primary objective of the sound design was to amplify them authentically and unobtrusively while ensuring that their multiple audio images tracked their

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UK The Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, south west London, home to the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, has taken delivery of a Renkus-Heinz Iconyx digitally steerable array loudspeaker system for its popular crush bar where up to 500 concert-goers enjoy their interval drinks.

Formerly a church, Cadogan Hall was transformed into a modern concert venue in June 2004 and boasts an airy 900-seat auditorium with excellent acoustics and unimpeded sightlines.

One area that was due for an upgrade was the hall's crush bar, an approximately square, low-ceilinged and highly reflective room where the buzz of the interval drinks crowd made voice announcements calling people back to their seats inaudible in many areas. The room is also let out for other functions such as book launches, where again the requirement is largely for speech reinforcement.

Acoustic consultants and system engineers COMS had

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USA - Symetrix is now shipping version 2.0 of the Integrator Series Zone Mix 760 paging and music management system. Hot on the heels of the InfoComm-released version 1.2, the new 2.0 was designed in response to user feedback.

Version 2.0 adds and refines a number of feature enhancements to the 760, a zone mixer that is designed to deliver the optimal feature set and I/O count needed for restaurants, hotels, sports bars and nightclubs "at a ground-breaking price".

New features include full support for the analogue control inputs, each of which can accept up to two switches/control voltages or one potentiometer. And as the 760 is used in heavily trafficked, public areas, Symetrix has added an emergency system integration feature that accepts a logic input from an emergency system to mute all outputs, or route input 3 to specified outputs at specified volumes in case o

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UK - Radical Lighting's new PixelDrive 2 lighting control software will be running lights and enhancing the aesthetics on two stands at PLASA 07 - HSL (stand D49) and PixelRange (stand F45). Radical is taking the opportunity of the industry's leading trade show to showcase its newest and most flexible and accessible products yet.

Radical's Emma Long, Simon Carter and Sophie Woode will be at the show, dividing themselves between the two stands. Sales and marketing manager Sophie Woode comments: "PLASA is an ideal environment for us to show off the new streamlined Radical products, which fit into many areas of the live entertainment and architectural sectors."

A special version of the popular RADlite NG media server has been developed specifically as a control option for PixelRange's new PixelArt video batten, and this will be in use on their stand. The PixelArt sectio

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UK - Due to circumstances beyond their control, Deco Leisure Group has been forced to pull outof the forthcoming PLASA Show at Earls Court.

The company suffered severe damage to its Birmingham manufacturing plant during the recent floods in the UK, and had hoped to have time to recover from the damage. However, the situation was exacerbated by a reoccurrence of the drainage problems over the week-end of 1 September, prompting CEO Sammy DeHavilland to make a formal statement:

"We consider the PLASA Exhibition to be the most important in the calendar; however the recent flooding has forced us to focus on the continuity of supply to our customers, rather then attending the show - it has become obvious we cannot do both.

DeHavilland explained: "Ironically the main problem, which involves the run-off of excess water from the site, was not our responsibility until last y

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UK - Blitz has partnered with Blue Box Entertainment to provide the interactive video system for Eurobeat - Almost Eurovision. The musical, written by Craig Christie and produced by the Glynn Nicholas Group, recently won the award for the Best New Musical at the 2007 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Mel Giedroyc, of 'Mel & Sue' fame, hosted the show where the audience vote for their favourite song by sending a text message and the winner is then announced live on stage.

Blitz worked alongside Blue Box Entertainment to create "an affordable, yet stunning end product" and provided a full range of services for the show. The AV equipment included a simple-to-operate video system to playback the VTs and project the PPT/PC images live onto the screen. Blitz's project manager, Mark Lewis offered technical advice to ensure that the interactive video system created maximum imp

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UK - To celebrate the scout movement's 100th anniversary, 5,000 members of the UK South Coast Movement, recently came together in Hampshire in the south of England. The programme of the open-air event at the New Forest Showground in Hampshire featured speeches, presentations, theatre performances and a performance by the Gosport Gang Show, supported by a 5-piece live band.

These diverse demands presented a challenge for Guy Morris of MLS, the local rental company. For this event, he required a sound system that could do a top job of reproducing speech, prerecorded music, and live music equally well over a large area. He chose the HK Audio Cohedra Compact line array and set up eight CDR 108s and four CDR 210 subwoofers on each side of the stage, and powered them with three matching PR8 amp racks with digital field controllers.

Due to the width of the stage, two ConTour Series C

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UK - Slingco has installed a CableNET tensioned wire grid system into the Studio Theatre in the Student Union building at the new £50 million Queen Margaret's University College (QMUC) in Musselburgh, south-east Edinburgh.

This complete new build project opens this month and is the first new Scottish University Campus of the 21st century and replaces QMU's three previous city centre sites. It has been designed and built as a state-of-the-art centre of academic excellence, complete with vibrant student village and an innovative learning resource centre at its core. It will cater for up to 5,000 students plus staff.

Queen Margaret University specifically requested that a Slingco CableNET was installed in the new theatre, following its huge conceptual and practical success at their previous Gateway Theatre in town. This was installed by Slingco in 2002 and was enjoyed and l

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UK - Production company Event Concept has designed the lighting for the National Army Museum's ground-breaking exhibition Helmand: A Soldier's Story. The exhibition recreates the experiences of soldiers in the troubled Helmand Province of Afghanistan and is believed to be the first to explain a conflict while it is still unfolding. The idea for this powerful exhibition came from the first NATO troops who entered the Province and it has been built, written and contributed to by them.

Describing his approach, Event Concept's designer Dan Terry says: "I wanted a rise and fall in lighting levels as visitors walk through the space as well as contrasts in colour; the open areas are lit in bright desert tones, while the buildings are more darkly atmospheric, with strands of brilliant white light to recreate sunbeams through windows. As many of the displays have written expl

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UK - Ben Kovler has joined worldwide lighting manufacturer High End Systems Inc (HES) as international product support specialist. Based in London, Kovler will focus his technical support on HES products in the UK and Europe, although his territory extends worldwide.

Kovler started in the entertainment industry at a young age, supporting various products both as a freelance technician and most recently, running the service department for UK company Lightfactor for two years.

"I am excited about joining the team and strengthening the support in Europe and the rest of the world for HES," says Kovler. "I look forward to working closely with both the office in Austin and with customers on the ground ensuring that the trust and reliability of the HES brand continues at the highest possible standards."

Bill Morris, executive vice president of HES, says: "W

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UK - XL Video supplied 254 panels of Barco MiTrix video screen and Catalyst media server control for the 2007 Nationwide Mercury Music Prize Awards, staged at London's Grosvenor House.

It was the first time that scenic video has been used on the event. The MiTrix was specified by lighting and visual designer Nigel Catmur, who has lit the show for the last four years, and wanted to introduce a new contemporary look. The show was broadcast "as live" on BBC radio and television, and was won by The Klaxons with their album Myths of The Near Future.

With 11 of the 12 nominated artists performing live, the video element added to the dynamics and presentation of the show, ensuring that each band's set looked different.

Richard Turner came onboard as video designer and programmer to work with Catmur in producing special content for the show. They also collaborated c

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