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Germany/USA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Awards took place at The Beverly Wiltshire on Saturday, 9 February. These Awards differ from other Academy Awards. They are not restricted to achievements made in 2007, but are awarded to those who can "demonstrate a proven record of contributing significant value to the process of making motion pictures".

With this in mind, the Academy has decided that Jörg Pöhler and Rüdiger Kleinke from Ottec Technology GmbH should receive a Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificate) for the design and development of the battery-operated series of fog machines known as Tiny-Foggers. Their work was one of ten Scientific and Technical achievements honoured by the Academy this year from a short-list of 25.

Among th

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UK - Stage Electrics has invested in 22,000sq.ft of additional storage space due to the increasing popularity of the company's temporary ice rinks.

The new storage facility is situated in Croespenmaen, near Blackwood in Caerphilly which is situated close to the M4 just 40 minutes drive from the company's head office in Avonmouth. The storage facility is situated on a large mixed usage estate and potentially another half million square feet is available if required in the future.

This year Stage Electrics supplied 13 temporary ice rinks in the UK and Ireland including rinks of 850m2 in Manchester, 810sq.m in Brighton, 600sq.m in Cambridge, 450sq.m in Huddersfield, 325sq.m at Marwell Zoo and for the third year Gloucester's rink, two rinks in Bristol, a 600sq.m rink in Tralee, Ireland and an artificial rink at Earls Court at the Boat Show.

Gordon Wells, head of finance at Stage

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Germany - Danish manufacturer DPA Microphones will be co-exhibiting with its German distributor, Mega-Audio at Prolight & Sound 2008.

On the stand, musicians Benjamin Koppel and Jens Haack will be performing on a small stage, miked with DPA 4023 compact cardioid mics mounted on FGS4000 flamingo stands.

A listening post on the stand will present the company's new SACD, Miking A Grand Piano, recorded in the DPA in-house studio. The SACD presents a number of stereo comparison and demonstration recordings of a grand piano using different combinations of DPA mics.

(Jim Evans)

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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 - The new Electro-Voice SB2A powered 12-inch subwoofer eliminates the need for external system processing and amplification, addressing the demand for lightweight high performance portable sound systems, says the company.

Featuring dual 350W amplifiers, the SB2A's switch-able powered speaker output can drive either an external 8 ohm passive subwoofer or full range loudspeaker. It can be configured with a variety of loudspeakers for a multitude of sound reinforcement applications.

The SB2A shares the same injection-moulded enclosure as EV's passive SB122 subwoofer. Both utilize the EVS12S woofer, designed from the ground up for optimized performance within this small footprint enclosure.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Funktion One has added a new rental company to its UK Rental Network. The newly formed partnership between Steven Ward and David "Steedsy" Stevenson took delivery of their first Resolution 4 Touring system last week. Powered by the MC2 amplifiers and XTA loudspeaker management system, the rig was out on hire for the first time on Saturday night for a local charity event.

Steven Ward comments: "Steedsy and I had worked together 20 years ago, before both going on to having successful businesses within the entertainment industry. However, we had both been dabbling in sound hire and kept up with developments in technology. Following on from a meeting over a year ago we decided to form a professional sound & light hire company.

"After a trip to PLASA, we set our sights on a Funktion One system. There was an obvious gap in the market for Funktion One in Cent

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Germany - Home to the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Hall (Berlin Philharmonie) is one of the city's cultural icons. Its unique, pentagonally-shaped Great Hall, with its centre stage, has been praised for its intimate ambience and stellar acoustics. It now boasts a new Meyer Sound system.

"In a concert hall of this calibre, with its truly exceptional natural acoustics, there are limitations on what can be done in terms of sound reproduction," says Klaus-Peter Groß, Berlin Philharmonic Hall's audio engineer.

Provided by Berlin-based Werner Audi, the completed system is a multi-faceted design that creates natural imaging localising two sound sources. A centre array of 12 M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array loudspeakers is augmented by five UPJunior ultracompact Vario loudspeakers, which provide the source point imaging. A second array of five M

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UK - Since its debut performance in March 1968, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has become one of the most popular musicals in British history, with more than 20,000 schools and theatre groups interpreting the play.

The latest revival of the show, starring newcomer Lee Mead, takes place at the West End's Adelphi Theatre, and features the work of award-winning sound designer Mick Potter, who created a Meyer Sound loudspeaker system provided by London-based audio equipment sales and rental company Orbital Sound.

The main system for the Adelphi Theatre performances features 12 Meyer Sound M'elodie loudspeakers per side, along with four 600-HP and four 700-HP subwoofers per side.

"Working on a show like Joseph is quite different from a typical pop concert," says Potter, a veteran of West End and Broadway pro

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UK - Paradigm AV is launching the ultimate version of its Trojan transportable large screen rear projection displays.

A 110in, full 1080p HD resolution display was given its debut at last month's ISE Show in Amsterdam - making it the largest HD display on sale in the world, says the company.

The portable display is designed to wheel in, pop up, switch on - and be ready for use in just two minutes. The rig comes complete with ProjectionDesign Cineo 30 projector built into the housing, offering up to 6,000 ANSI lumens, with a 7500:1 contrast ratio (on/off).

Paradigm AV founder, Greg Jeffreys says: "All HD, data and video inputs are accepted and displayed and the image is optimised as a result of the high-brightness, high-contrast dnp optical screen."

The Trojan HD110 also obviates screen burn-in and enhances acuity. Advanced dnp optical screen technology delivers t

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UK - Technicians at the Royal Albert Hall will no longer have to don a safety harness and be hoisted 9ft into the air to focus luminaires, thanks to the safe thinking of senior technical manager Luke Manning, who has replaced conventionals with moving lights, including ETC Source Four Revolutions.

Manning reports: "The principal reason we've upgraded all our generic heads to intelligent units is for health and safety reasons. The whole industry has a duty to improve working conditions and to reduce the risk of accidents wherever possible."

ETC's luminaires product manager Tom Littrell adds: "The Source Four is the most efficient tungsten luminaire for entertainment, given its high performance lamp and a dichroic ellipsoidal reflector which pushes more light out of the front and heat out of the back. This means a 750W Source Four is as bright as a 1200W unit with

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There's more evidence that we are working in a global village: Glastonbury UK based Serious Stages shipped 10 containers with two of their new Solar Roofs to Australia for a busy summer festival season there, including Elton John's The Captain and The Kid tour. And still on the live music front, our list of unusual and different concert venues got another addition this week when Deep Purple and Tina Turner played at a party in The Kremlin for Dimitry Medvedev, widely tipped to be Russia's next president.

Popular television series are providing an unexpected and welcome bonus for all involved in the touring business. The latest to go out on the road is Strictly Come Dancing which is proving an excellent showcase for the industry's creative teams and products.

In the events diary, The ARC Show, the RIBA-accredited business event for those involved in architectural, retai

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UK - Codex Audio, a Midlands-based audio rental and production company that specialises in the supply of high quality systems to the corporate entertainment market, has recently taken delivery of six Lab.gruppen FP 10000Q 4 x 2500W at 2 ohm power amplifiers from the FP+ Series. The amplifiers were demo'd and supplied by LMC Audio.

Codex Audio had used the original fP Series amplifiers for many years. When Lab.gruppen released FP+, Codex's David "Lofty" Lockhart was keen to try them out. "My first question was, 'Can Lab.gruppen really make a better amp than the fP?'" observed Lockhart. "The answer has got to be a resounding YES - FP+ amplifiers are even better. We think FP+ is a real step forward in amplifier technology."

LMC Audio's Paul Hinkly adds: "We believe that Codex Audio is at the forefront of a new breed of PA company that is success

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Australia - Glastonbury UK-based Serious Stages shipped 10 containers with two of their new Solar Roofs to Australia for a busy summer festival season there.

The Solar Roofs were utilised for Elton John's The Captain and The Kid tour followed by Sydney's Big Day Out event, where the 2008 line rocked with Rage Against The Machine, Bjork, Arcade Fire, Carl Cox and many others.

Serious's 22m wide, 12m deep Solar Roof - as used on the Elton gigs - offers 12m of headroom and also featured a 2.4m thrust running its full length. This version of the Roof can support up to 24 tonnes of flown equipment. It was supplied complete with double out-rigged goal post towers standing 9.6m wide and 15m off the deck, facilitating two PA hangs and video screen supports each side.

The tour visited assorted wineries and country houses and was Elton's 12th of the country. Serious worked with

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Germany - At the Live Sound Forum, the Messe Frankfurt open air presentation area, K.M.E. is going to present the line array PANO "under conditions close to reality". The presentations take place daily. During the 20 minute demonstration the system will be presented by different styles of music and detailed information and explanations. The PANO setup consists of 12 tops QL 906 and four cardioid subs QCB 318 each side, amplified by four SR 7100 racks and adjusted to a defined area.

Another K.M.E. system will be on display on the Denon stand. DJ GFC will present the new DN-HS5500 Direct Drive Turntable Controller & Media Player using K.M.E.'s Individualized PA system CA 7.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - David Caulfield, the former managing director of Martin Professional Plc, has returned to the industry at the head of a new venture, Gator Europe. Formed in association with Tampa, Florida-based Gator Cases, Gator Europe will provide local contact and communication for Gator OEM customers, manufacturing 'own brand' case products for companies in the entertainment industry and beyond.

Founded in 2000, Gator is the largest case supplier in the entertainment industry, selling more than 80,000 cases per month to 90 countries worldwide. The company has over 2,700 dealers in the USA, and distribution takes place from two large warehouses in Tennessee and Utah with a two day UPS ground shipment to 95% of the USA. Gator has been nominated the NAMM accessory product of the year, winning three of the last four years.

The company has a 400,000sq.ft global manufacturing facility in D

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The Netherlands - Between 24 January and 3 February 2008 at Ahoy, Rotterdam, over 200,000 people flocked to see the tenth birthday party of Vrienden van Amstel 2008 Live music spectacular featuring many Dutch live acts.

Each artist performs two tracks and on the third track, the next artist comes on stage, sings part of the song before taking over to perform their two songs. With so many different acts and styles, it demonstrated the versatility of the MagicQ consoles, say the company.

Every day, the opening sequence of the show included a two-minute drum solo with audio, lighting, video and pyrotechnic all synchronised together using SMPTE timecode. The two MagicQ MQ100 Pro consoles each took a SMPTE feed to ensure perfect synchronisation with a total of 77 different lighting cues fired automatically during the opening sequence.

Ignace d'Haese from Arf & Yes designed the se

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World - American singer/songwriter and ex-No Doubt frontwoman Gwen Stefani toured the world on her The Sweet Escape tour, a critically acclaimed eclectic show described as "part pep rally, part Broadway musical" with special acts and plenty of costume changes. Lighting design was by Butch Allen who chose a Martin package of 68 MAC 2000 Washes and 13 MAC 2000 Profiles to light the show all under control of a Martin Maxxyz lighting console.

Lighting director was Jesse Blevins, who also helped with lighting programming and toured with the show. He commented on the decision to go with Martin MACs: "Due to the size of the LED walls and our sub-grid (half of the dates were shed gigs) the lights had to be small enough to fit into some pretty tight spaces but still bright enough to compete with all of the video content.

"The 2K Wash was a nice fit. It also h

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UK - White Light is showing products of use to architectural, event and retail lighting designers at The ARC Show 2008 in London this week.

The exclusive UK distributor for a wide range of product manufacturers from around the world, White Light's stand features images of a number of products of interest to those working in these fields of lighting, from LSC in Australia, LDDE in Austria, ELC in the Netherlands and Wireless Solutions in Sweden.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - For the 50th Annual GRAMMYs, held 10 February, 2008, at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, Audio-Technica supplied over 250 of its microphones, including an array of hard-wired mics and Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless Systems.

The sound system was provided by ATK AudioTek with FOH engineers Ron Reaves and Mikael Stewart, while the broadcast audio was supervised by Phil Ramone and Hank Neuberger. New York-based XM Productions/Effanel Music were onsite with their L7 remote truck to create the music mix, facilitated by Music Mixers John Harris and Eric Schilling.

Artists who performed using Audio-Technica's Artist Elite 5000 Series UHF Wireless System, with the AEW-T5400 handheld microphone/transmitter and AEW-R5200 true diversity frequency-agile dual receiver, included Morris Day and The Time in a performance with Rihanna; Kanye West; an all-star gospel revue featuri

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UK - Stage Electrics is supplying all lighting and electrics for the London production of Hairspray, currently playing at London's Shaftesbury Theatre. The show recently made West End history by receiving 11 Olivier Award nominations, more than any other show in the ceremony's history. The show is produced by Stage Entertainment and members of the original Broadway producing team.

Over 200 ETC Source 4's are being supplied to the UK production together with 15 VL2000 washes, six of the new VL2500 spots, 24 MAC 2000 profiles, 10 MAC 2000 performance and over 100 Rainbow Pro scrollers.

Flexibility comes from Wybron Colour Mixing CXI 'IT' Scrollers, 16 of which are employed on the show. This new product features Wybrons 'Infotrace' system allowing active feedback of all parameters of the scroller including heat, gel degradation, voltage sensing and even an aperture light s

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USA - Theatre Projects Consultants reports that Millie Dixon (TPC principal) and Jules Lauve (TPC associate) were voted into the American Society of Theatre Consultants (ASTC) at the ASTC Forum '07.

Dixon has been with Theatre Projects since 1997, initially working as a performance equipment specialist and then as a project manager.

Lauve joined TPC in 2001 with more than 25 years experience in the entertainment industry. He has managed entertainment operations for numerous large-scale projects and has designed scenery and lighting for many regional opera and ballet companies.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Channeling the spirit of Natalie Cole's virtual duet of Unforgettable with her late father Nat King Cole, Alicia Keys opened the Grammy Awards on 10 February by 'collaborating' with Frank Sinatra on Learnin' the Blues in a similarly manufactured moment.

Having just appeared the weekend before in front of millions watching the Super Bowl pre-game show, Keys performed at the 50th annual Grammys using Shure KSM9/UHF-R wireless.

(Jim Evans)

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