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UK - Stage Electrics has recently provided all technical support, arc roofing for the festival dance house, power distribution, lighting and crew for the annual Towersey Village Folk Festival.

Once a year the little town of Towersey in Oxfordshire, with a population of 400, becomes engulfed with festival-goers, keen to soak up the five-day festival's atmosphere. Towersey is now in its 44th year, and has again attracted the cream of folk and acoustic music artists including The Commitments, who opened the show during the August Bank Holiday weekend. The festival also includes a showground, a wide range of trade stalls and catering venues. Daily visitors to this year's festival topped 2,500, with a further 3,500 choosing to camp.

Stage Electrics has been heavily involved with the

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USA - FocusTrack, the production lighting documentation system, is currently helping three shows with their Broadway transfers, all three taking advantage of the system's ability to precisely document the lighting in order to allow its faithful re-creation and then long-term maintenance.

Billy Elliot, lit by Rick Fisher and programmed by Vic Smerdon, has been using FocusTrack since the show opened in London in 2005. The show is controlled by a Strand 500-series console; FocusTrack imported the show data and generated a list of the focus positions actually used by each light; it then controlled the console to allow a photograph of each lamp focus, together with a written description, to be added. This left the production team with a complete record of the components that make up the show lighting, which has already allowed them to create the Australian production of Bil

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UK -Lighting control manufacturer LightProcessor is launching new dimming products at PLASA 08 and showing the full ranges of its Paradim and Dimension dimmers, along with its QCommander and Zip lighting control desks and dynamic range of DMX tools.

The new RCBO Paradim wall-mounted dimmer, offers all the features and values of the standard Paradims, with an RCBO on each channel for compliance with the new 17th Edition IEE Wiring Regulations (BS7671).

Also new at the show are two socketed versions of the Paradim wall mounted installation dimmer and two new versions of LightProcessor's Dimension wall mounted series. All four of these products feature 12 Cee 17s and 2 Schukos. The Paradims are available with MCB, Double Pole and RCBO options. The Dimension range continues to be one of the most versatile and cost-effective wall dimming ranges on the market.

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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 - UK mixer manufacturer, Allen & Heath, has made a significant change to its distribution structure in the UK by appointing John Hornby Skewes & Co. Ltd. (JHS) as the exclusive distributor for the PA and ZED Series of small format A&H mixers.

"Since adding the ZED series to the range, Allen & Heath's products are now more diverse than ever with consoles for touring systems to bedroom DJ's. Because of this, it was vital we found the correct distribution vehicle to cater for such diversity," explains A&H Director of Sales, Bob Goleniowski.

"Recently we have been examining how to broaden our reach in the UK MI sector. Knowing the JHS team well, it was clear they were ideal for the role. The products fit seamlessly into their portfolio, and with an 11-strong sales force on the ground servicing the UK, JHS was the logical choice to take the brand forward."

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UK - JBL's new Control Contractor 300 ceiling speakers have received their UK baptism in a new-build, multi-room Chinese restaurant in Bristol.

Situated in the Harbourside regeneration area, Zen is a luxurious, glass-fronted building on Millennium Square that caters for up to 400. The design mixes old and new, combining marbled toilets with chic private dining rooms. Zen artefacts, Chinese paintings and period Chinese furnishings complete the experience.

Owner Suzanna Ho, who also founded Dynasty in the BS1 postal district, is accustomed to renting in potent PA systems for corporate events; and with funky house music added selectively to the eclectic menu at Zen, she again needed a system at the same time capable of producing warm-sounding background music and a medium night club sound.

AET (Abbeymoor Electrical Technical) were recommended to the project by Premier Sound & L

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Spain - Rock in Rio has gained a reputation as the largest rock festival in the world, drawing crowds of over a million to the original Brazilian events. In recent years the show has expanded to include festivals in Lisbon, and this year marked the first Rock in Rio festival in Madrid, where more than 300,000 fans enjoyed performances by Bob Dylan, the Police, Shakira, Lenny Kravitz, Jamiroquai, Neil Young, Alanis Morrisette, Franz Ferdinand and other top-name acts.

Brazilian sound company Gabisom provided six Digidesign Venue systems for the event, as well as an Icon D-Control for post production tasks. Four D-Show consoles and two D-Show Profiles were in service at FOH and monitor positions. At the same time, all performances were simultaneously recorded on dual Pro Tools|HD systems, creating preliminary mixes in real time using one of the D-Show Profile consoles, and remixing

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Italy - The Alpha Beam 300 and Alpha Beam 1500, new concept Beam Moving Lights by Clay Paky, have been both nominated for the Plasa Award for Innovation 2008.

Presented exclusively by Clay Paky, the Alpha Beam is not a spot or even a wash, some call it a "sposh", say the company.

The Alpha Beam produces a super-concentrated parallel light beam for a similar use to that of a PAR64 ACL, always present at all the great rock shows, but with decidedly "superior and innovative characteristics".

The Alpha Beam 1500 is ultra bright and "eco-friendly" thanks to the new special Clay Paky optical group, it produces a much greater brightness than other lights of the same power, achieving projection distances reached only by lights of thousands of watts, but with the energy consumption of a 1500W light bulb. This enables it to be used instead of considerably

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UK - Telex/RTS' intercom technology is playing an important role in the refurbished master control room (MCR) at MTV's European headquarters in Camden, North London, which provides switching for three onsite studios and over 50 television channels across the UK, Ireland and mainland Europe.

Based on a 112-port ADAM (Advanced Digital Audio Matrix) frame, with integral RVON (RTS Voice Over Network) VoIP cards, the system is able to connect to desktop panels using Ethernet links, plus three Virtual Key Panels, around the MTV studios complex.

Computer technology is having an increasing influence on broadcast communications and the Virtual Key Panel is a PC interface that replicates the familiar intercom switch panel on a desktop or laptop screen and offers the same functions as the traditional hardware version, with audio reproduced through the onboard soundcard.

Being able to c

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UK - Stage Electrics provided staging, lighting, power distribution, sound and crew in support of the annual Trafalgar Square Festival over a three week period from 7 - 23 August. Trafalgar Square Festival is London's annual programme of street arts and performance, set in the heart of the capital.

Part of the festival included a giant screen installed at the foot of Nelson's Column, which played scenes from the Beijing Olympics. The screen showed everything from the opening ceremony in Beijing to the closing ceremony, and the handover to London and captured all of Team GB's successes. The festival had plenty of Chinese inspired performances to accompany the Olympic theme with acts and performances from the Flying Dragon Circus and the Yellow Earth Theatre. Many of the artists taking part in the festival used digital imagery and art as part of their act.

Stage Electrics worked

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UK - Featuring internationally renowned surf and skate competitions, the week-long Rip Curl Boardmasters festival held in Newquay Cornwall, also features top line music events at various locations around the beach side town. Three iLive digital systems were used by two PA companies managing the two main music sites.

The main music event is the weekend-long Unleashed which takes place above the beautiful Watergate Bay. This year's event hosted BBC Radio 1's Chris Moyles for a special one-off afternoon show. Local PA company, Impact Sound & Light, managed the sound requirements, selecting an Allen & Heath iLive-112 digital system for the live show and broadcast feed. The Zutons were special guests on the live show, performing an acoustic set to the assembled crowd, in addition to the usual Moyles show elements, such as the mash up sessions, involving a live DJ conte

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Italy - The key feature of SGM's Giotto Digital 1500 is the revolutionary introduction of the Digital Module which - using a clever application of DLP technology from Texas Instruments - enables the Giotto to project graphic effects with the brightness and speed of professional moving head fixtures, says the company.

Giotto Digital 1500 is the first and only moving head fixture on the market able to create all-digital, completely customizable graphic effects, finally overcoming the typical limits of effects generated by traditional gobo patterns, iris, beam shapers and zoom components.

The Giotto 1500 series is a whole new range of 'super bright' moving heads for production, stage and touring. Designed as a versatile and modular range which includes Spot, Wash and Profile variants, with the pinnacle version centring on a unit fitted with the High Tech 'Digital' module.

Using

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China - After 17 days of competition, Olympics 2008 ended with another stunning show in the Beijing National Stadium. Similar to the Opening Ceremony, more than 2,300 DMX controlled fixtures were used to create a worthy finish for the Games. Three grandMA full-size plus three grandMA full-size as backup, two grandMA light as well as 46 MA NSPs controlled the lighting rig.

Paul Collison, who was responsible for the control system and broadcast lighting, reported, "It always amazes me that the first time people really focus on the Closing Ceremony is two days after the opening. Beijing was no different. What made things very hard was we only had three nights with the stadium lights off. In total this amounts to only 18 hours of programming.

"Compare this to the six months of programming and thought that goes in to an opening and you start to see my point. For that reas

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USA - Barix reports that the Fountain of Life Center, a multi-building 'Spiritual Oasis' spread over 106 acres in Florence, New Jersey, is using a suite of Barix products for a variety of control, automation, security, and audio transport applications.

Barix products are now live in the campus' Life Center, a sports, recreational and fitness centre that opened this spring; Life Center Academy, a private, non-denominational K-12 school; WIFI-AM, a 500-watt Christian radio station; and the worship sanctuary, chapel and 2200-seat auditorium in the main Fountain of Life Center building.

According to Thomas Spadaro, director of technical ministries for Fountain of Life Center, the majority of the technology on campus is funded through donations, and the low cost of the Barix devices are ideal for his budget. Spadaro added that open-standards technology from companies like Barix al

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UK - PixelRange will launch PixelMax at PLASA. A high powered six-cell wash light will introduce this new family of luminaires. 16 of these bright fixtures will feature on the rig designed by lighting designer Vince Foster. Other new products include the high resolution PixelMax Pro and a new addition to the PixelArt range - a compact 36 by 6 pixels half-length PixelArt.

PixelMax Pro is a combined wash and pixellation luminaire, featuring 288 RGBA high intensity Luxeon Rebel LEDs. Built around the same housing as the PixelMax Wash, the PixelMax Pro offers the added flexibility of 18 individually controlled cells in a 3x6 matrix. This cellular configuration gives the user the ability to produce low resolution visual effects, in addition to using the fixture as a high power wash light with a vast colour palette.

PLASA will also see the launch of a major new software upgrade for

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Norway - The new Clarion Hotel Bergen Airport, on the outskirts of Bergen - Norway's second city - is one of the first hotels of its type to be built in Norway. Just 50 yards away from the terminal of Bergen Airport, the hotel is a "music hotel" - with live musicians performing most nights and a distinct musical theme on each of the hotel's floors.

The Clarion also boasts some of the most impressive conference facilities in the country with over 1600sq.m of dedicated floor space across several meeting rooms, handling up to 1200 conference visitors each day. A crucial part of its technical specification was the audio installation, which would be required to facilitate effective multimedia presentations and deliver loudness and clarity in both speech and music. To meet these needs, the specifiers opted for Tannoy's range of premium in-ceiling and surface-mount loudspeake

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UK - Lighting Partners, operators of usedlighting.co.uk, will be returning for the second year at PLASA 2008 next week. Featuring a range of products drawn from their comprehensive stock of used lighting equipment the stand will also feature SeaChanger colour engines and the range of Smoke Factory fog machines and hazers.

David Morgan of Lighting Partners says: "It's been a fantastic year for Lighting Partners with sales growth surpassing all expectations, doubling our warehouse space and consolidating our position as the number one supplier of used lighting equipment in the UK. The PLASA show enables us to meet customers old and new and push our international presence still further whilst also showcasing our new offerings like cable manufacture, equipment servicing and our demonstration facility which will be online shortly after the show."

Lighting Partners - stand

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UK - Allen & Heath is releasing v1.3 software for the iLive digital console range, adding a host of new features for monitor engineering, as well as providing a platform for iLive Editor control software.

New features in v1.3 include engineers' fader strips for wedge and in-ears, which allow separate fader control and dedicated outputs to the operator's listen wedge and IEM personal system. Optional processing and aux monitor mixes can be assigned to wedge or IEM strips, automatically appearing in the desired monitor when auditioned.

Another key feature is the addition of Real Time Analyser (RTA) to enable the engineer to quickly identify feedback, tune room acoustics, and tailor the onstage monitor wedges. Accessed via the PAFL system, the frequency content of any input or mix, and the spectrum of the main mix, can be viewed on screen and on meters in the Graphic EQ flip-to-f

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France / UK - Robert Juliat will launch two new products at the PLASA08. One of these, the Le Cin'k Fresnel spotlight, has been nominated for the 2008 PLASA Innovation Awards.

Designed to fill the need for a powerful Fresnel specifically designed for theatre, Le Cin'k is a new range of 250mm Fresnel lens spotlights that can be configured to accept 2500W tungsten, 5000W tungsten or 1200W discharge (MSR/MSD) lamps, with a further option for a 2.5kW MSR hot-restrike module to follow by the end of 2008. The mirror, lamp base and metal lamp-house casing is designed as a single component that can be quickly and easily interchanged to suit the requirements of a particular show.

As well as its adaptability, Le Cin'k has been designed to overcome many of the problems theatre users face when trying to adapt studio Fresnels to theatre use. Le Cin'k has a double slot front cassette slot,

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UAE - United Broadcast & Media Solutions (UBMS), the system house and distributor based in Dubai, is Telex/RTS's new partner in the United Arab Emirates for the broadcasting market.Comments Kamil Swobodzinski, director sales ACT & CCS EMEA, "In order to fulfil our growth path, Telex/RTS relies on strong partners in the Middle East region. I am sure this new partnership with UBMS will push the Telex/RTS portfolio to the next level."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart's Phantom of the Opera, one of the West End's most successful productions, celebrated 21 years at Her Majesty's Theatre in London. The occasion was marked with the installation of a Meyer Sound system featuring the new UPQ-1P wide coverage loudspeaker.

Sound designer Mick Potter handled the audio system, provided by Blitz Audio who purchased the equipment through Meyer Sound dealer Autograph Sales. Using Meyer Sound's Matrix3 audio show control, Potter created a sound design to immerse the audience in a range of ambiences. A Galileo loudspeaker management system with eight Galileo 616 processors provides multiple zones and system DSP.

"The Matrix3 affords a level of control that simply wouldn't be achievable with more conventional components," Potter observes. "For me as a sound designer, it gives me an entirely n

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UK - Robe is using PLASA08 to launch its Robe Digital campaign, taking the opportunity of showcasing the new products in its Digital ranges of moving lights.

This will also be linked to the launch of Robe's international roadshow, a major product awareness tour and workshop, currently scheduled to run until Christmas 2008.

This reflects the growing importance of digital technology in the quest for creative innovation, and Robe's commitment to offer lighting, visual and scenic designers the best and most flexible tools on the market, says the company. It also indicates the need to develop greener technologies to help contribute to a more environmentally sustainable industry.

The DigitalSpot 7000 DT Is a powerful digital moving light based on LCD and LED technology and is a combination of digital projector and two RGBW LED modules, offering digital gobo effects and the project

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