Business

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Electrosonic has opened a new office serving the New York, Philadelphia and Washington area of the USA. Over the past few years, Electrosonic Systems Inc has achieved significant growth in the US audio-visual market, and the new office provides engineering design and support services to the company's corporate, design and consultant customers in the area. Although the unit is self-sufficient, it is able to draw on the resources of Electrosonic's existing USA offices (Minneapolis MN, Burbank CA, and Orlando FL). Conveniently located near Princeton, NJ, the office is managed by Andrew Kidd. Apart from a two year sabbatical, during which he acquired an MBA degree, Andrew has worked for Electrosonic for 22 years in engineering and project management positions around the world. The team at the New York Area office includes expert staff recruited locally, and experienced Electrosonic hands re-

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ESTA, the US-based Entertainment Services and Technology Association, has announced the formation of a new Floors Working Group, which has been set up in order to address about the slipperiness and rigidity of stage floors and platforms - attributes which affect the safety of performing on these surfaces. The first meeting will take place prior to LDI 2000 on Wednesday 18 October at Harrah's, Las Vegas. Tim Hansen of Oasis Stage Werks is the working group chairman, and all interested parties are urged to attend.ESTA has also announced the start of work by its Electrical Power Working Group on a new American National Standard - BSR E1.16, Configuration Standard for Metal-Halide Ballast Power Cables, to help ensure compatibility between the detachable power cords used on various brands of discharge ballasts for studio luminaires. Interested parties are invited to join the Electrical Power

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South Africa's Carnival City Casino, Johannesburg, is a multi-entertainment venue on a grand scale. The complex includes a casino with 1,750 slot machines, six cinemas, three bars, five restaurants, two coffee shops, six boutiques, a children's entertainments area, several business suites, two hotels and an arena with a capacity of 5,000 people for major events. As well as all this, the casino boasts one of the most impressive AV display solutions ever installed in this type of venue. Throughout the casino, large rear-projection screens show sports events, betting information plus output from a video jukebox. In the Salon Prive, guests can relax while watching video or a major sports event on the large rear projection screens. In the SuperSport Action Bar, four of dnp's new 120" wide angle screens above the bar are capable of showing multiple sporting events simultaneously. A fifth

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When Kvaerner Masa-Yards, builders of the Costa Atlantica for Costa Cruises, were specifying equipment for both the ship's 1,170-seat main theatre and the 320-seat show lounge, they sourced the entire requirement of colour-changers from Wybron, supplied by Foki Oy of Helsinki. The main Caruso Theatre has Wybron Coloram IIs fitted on to 74 ETC Source Fours and 43 Source Four Par and Wildfire UV fixtures, while the Salone delle Feste Corallo, the smaller show lounge, has another 16 Coloram IIs. The Coloram II offers lighting designers up to 32 colours, which on the 7.5" model will scroll end to end in 2.5 seconds. The Costa Atlantica, which is now the flagship of the Costa line, will initially cruise the Mediterranean, operating weekly cruises from Venice to Greece and Turkey. In November she will transfer to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to begin seven-day cruises in the Caribbean.

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As one of the more bizarre applications for a conference system, it could be argued that the Kuwait SAS hotel has got to feature centre stage! The SAS hotel wanted to provide conference facilities with a difference and decided that a traditional Dow boat would be in keeping with both the Kuwait shoreline and the sailing traditions of the local Marafie family to whom the boat is dedicated. It is the largest Dow boat that has ever been built and has been entered into the Guinness book of records to mark the achievement. Distributor AVC won the competitive tender which was valued in excess of £100,000 to supply the AV and conference facilities with the major part of the contract being the new MCW Wireless Conference System from beyerdynamic.

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The New Technology Group of the Music Industry Forum has released a new report (backed by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport), which examines the impact of new technologies on the music industry. Entitled 'Consumers Call the Tune', the report makes a number of key recommendations namely that the Government creates an open competitive environment for on-line delivery by creating a common regulatory framework as well as a secure legislative framework for trading copyright on-line in the UK, Europe and beyond. It also highlights the need for ongoing research into consumer behaviour on-line and market statistics about e-commerce.

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Leading UK stadia architects Arup Associates have been appointed to create a world-class design for Hull's £36m Community Super Stadium complex. The London-based architectural practice has already started work on the project and will unveil its vision for the stadium early in September. The company has an impressive track record in stadia design and is the winner of numerous architecture awards, including one for the 38,000 seat Johannesburg athletics stadium, completed in 1995.

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High End Systems fixtures have been chosen to illuminate the opening and closing ceremonies of the 2000 Olympic Games on September 15 and October 1, respectively. Designed by LD John Rayment, the ceremonies at Olympic Stadium in Sydney's Olympic Park will be seen live by about 120,000 spectators and on television by an estimated three billion people worldwide. Rayment and lighting director Rohan Thornton are using 300 Cyberlight Turbo and 40 Cyberlight fixtures, as well as 136 Studio Beam luminaires, and 132 Studio Color 575 luminaires. To control the multi-layered system, the designers are using 14 Flying Pig Systems Wholehog II consoles. Bytecraft, the exclusive Australian distributor for High End Systems, is the event's general lighting contractor, and is working with two German companies, Procon and Sound and Light, to pull the massive lighting system together.

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A new nightclub - Möndo - has opened in the town of Oban. This is the first purpose-built club in the Strathclyde town and the technical specification and installation contract for lighting and sound was won by Jools Hodgkinson and his new company Fairway Entertainments Ltd. Hodgkinson is a technical director and resident VJ at The Liquid Rooms in Edinburgh and also one of a new generation of club installers. He compiled the specification in conjunction with Lightfactor's team of Bill Jones, Dave Hartley and Peter Loosemore. This featured High End lighting fixtures for the core of the rig - six Studio Spot 250s and six Technobeams. Control for all dancefloor lighting fixtures is via a LightProcessor QCommander. Lightfactor also supplied the audio rig, consisting of Electro-Voice speakers - MTH mid tops, MTL1 subs, plus SX 300s for infills and the DJ booth; QSC PLX 1602 and 3402 amplifie

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A new on-line company has been launched which offers for sale the latest range of DMX and audio control equipment. Chamtech, the company behind the site, will offer complete e-commerce facilities on line and will feature over 20 new products, with more being added in the near future. One of the most popular products featured on the site is the X-Buster, a fully specified hand-held DMX tester.

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In a major expansion of its global projection rental fleet, the Avesco Group has placed a substantial order with Christie Digital Systems which will further extend Avesco's foothold as a leader in the rental staging marketplace. In a deal that will be worth more than US $5 million in total, Avesco will invest in a quantity of Christie Digital's projectors - specifically, the award-winning Roadie X10, Roadster X6 and Roadster X4. With initial delivery of 40 projectors, the new stock will be distributed between Creative Technology's expanding North American interests, while in the UK, holding company Avesco plc will place the equipment with its subsidiaries, including Creative Technology and Media Control Ltd.

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The first two of NXT's many patent applications in the USA have now been granted. The original Defence Evaluation & Research Agency (DERA) patent (Panel-Form Loudspeaker), which was exclusively licensed to NXT in 1996, has now also been granted in the USA. A total of 376 granted patents out of a total of 1,316 patents and pending applications in 66 countries worldwide have now been confirmed. NXT has a very substantial portfolio of Intellectual Property including its own patent rights, together with those licensed to it by NCT Inc, of Maryland, USA, Sound Advance Systems of California and other technology partners. To achieve this degree of patent protection NXT spends nearly $5m per annum on patent and legal fees.

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GB Audio provided the sound system for the Millennium Festival of Flight at the Museum of Flight in East Lothian, which included a display by the Red Arrows aerobatics display team. The full weekend event culminated in a 3½ hour display, which also featured the Battle of Britain Memorial. GB provided commentary and safety notice (voice only) coverage for the main viewing sites carried out by a flown cluster of Shermann HD115s over the main arena, a tower with four Shermann Commando series 3 and various smaller speakers inside the three main display hangars. Chameleon and Crest amplification was used throughout. The main viewing runway was covered by 16 Shermann Cubs. Control of all zones came from a Yamaha mixing desk with Yamaha system EQ and time delays. Around three kilometres of cable was needed and two Audio-Technica VHF wireless links to get sound to where it needed to be.

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Total Audio Solutions (TAS) has commissioned a new all-digital mobile sound recording unit, designed to provide a no-compromise audio service in a compact and affordable format for broadcast, film and music production. The mobile, known as the TArdiS, is based on a 'go-anywhere' Volkswagen LT46, is designed around the new Sony DMX-R100 compact digital console. The DMX-R100 is the first in the UK to be installed in a mobile facility and is equipped with 24 T-DIF I/Os and eight AES/EBU connections as well as analogue ins and outs. Other features include 24-bit/96kHz converters and the on-board dynamics. The TArdiS is equipped with 24 tracks of Tascam DA78 multitrack and the Sony MX-2424 HD recorder, as well as a pair of Sony 4-head PCM-700 DAT recorders. Monitoring is by PMC, while effects are courtesy of a Sony DRE-S777 sampling reverb processor and DPS-V77 effects unit (both of which fea

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Two famous Soho venues have been supplied with new Soundcraft mixing desks, by Marquee Audio - including one to the site of the former Marquee Club, where the Marquee Audio story began. Top Conran restaurant Mezzo, which now occupies the famous Marquee Club site at 90 Wardour Street, has replaced its 24/4/2 Delta DLX desk in the basement, where in-house sound engineer Jay Garrett will use it with the growing number of soul/funk tribute bands now being staged. From there, Marquee Audio ventured into famous erotic cabaret club, Raymond's Revuebar in Brewer Street, where their stalwart Delta 200 desk has been replaced by a 16-channel K1.

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LG Corporation's new performing arts centre in South Korea is one Asia's most technically-advanced performance facilities, and features a state-of-the-art ETC dimming and control system supplied by ETC Asia, through Samhwa Yang Heng Co, ETC's Korean distributor. Much of the remaining performance lighting equipment was supplied by TMB Associates. This included a load distribution system, using over 2,000 metres of ProCable PC1214 six-circuit, 20A cable, plus 76 breakouts and break-ins, as well as various ProPlex control cables, including 1,000m of PCCCT colour-changer cable. TMB also supplied 400 ETC Source Four luminaires, 68 Wybron Coloram II colour-changers, 500 assorted City Theatrical Source Four accessories and an Aquafog 3300 CO2 fogger, two Altman 703 Blacklight fixtures, 70 ProCan Par 64 fixtures and various atmospheric effects from Le Maitre.

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Australian-based lighting control systems manufacturer, LSC Lighting Systems, has appointed Fairlight BV as the official LSC Distributor for the Netherlands. LSC's marketing director Alan Graham told us: "Holland has traditionally been one of the more significant countries in Europe in terms of sales, in which LSC products can be found in some of the most prestigious venues. With Fairlight on board, we are confident that our representation will increase. This, coupled with our newly-introduced and soon-to-be-released products will make LSC one of the major lighting control brands recognised for quality and reliability in Holland."Fairlight has already taken delivery of their first stocking order, which includes the new ePAK and ePRO dimmers.

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Apogee Sound International has reinforced its current European distribution channels by the addition of two new partners, Lightfactor Sales (LFS) in the UK and KEM Electronics in Greece. Lightfactor Sales is a long established UK- based distributor, servicing all areas of the pro entertainment and leisure industry, whilst KEM Pro Sound & Vision Systems is a distributor of pro-audio products.

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Leading systems integrator Integrated Circles has installed an outdoor rear projection display screen for Railtrack. Situated on the main square at London's Euston Station, the screen forms the focal point for the information window display seen by tens of thousands of commuters every day. Simon Beer, MD of Integrated Circles, was concerned about the ambient light levels in the station, and after carrying out tests, opted for a combination of the dnp 84" Black Stripe screen with Sanyo XF 10N LCD projector, offering 3000 ANSI Lumens. Beer told us: "It's all about delivering contrast, because a washed-out image is often quite bright enough - it's just that the ambient light is overpowering the dark parts of the picture. So the combination of contrast enhancement filter systems from dnp and good contrast from the Sanyo has made this very successful." The system was provided b

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Two of the leading companies in the lighting industry have announced an alliance that will make them an even more powerful force in the lighting industry worldwide. CAST Lighting of Toronto, Canada, and Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) of Middleton, Wisconsin, are co-operating in an OEM deal that will see CAST's pioneering lighting visualisation software closely integrated into the range of ETC's advanced lighting control systems. Fred Foster, founder and CEO of ETC, told us: "This relationship is the opportunity to combine the best of both worlds, and it opens the door to exciting new possibilities in the future."

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One of the highlights of the German heavy-metal calendar, the recent 'Bang Your Head' festival in Balingen attracted over 10,000 head-bangers for two days of high culture with bands such as Scorpions, Saxon and Running Wild. Sound was once again supplied by event regulars Prolite and Media Systems, who used 30 horn-loaded HK Audio R-Series RT 112 12" / 2" mid/high enclosures along with 74 horn-loaded RL 118 (1 x 18") subs. Fifteen pairs of each were flown on each side of stage, with the remaining 44 subs were split into groups of four along the stage front. The system was controlled via a notebook computer and a network of HK Audio Digital Field Controllers, operated by engineers Alex Baron and Rob Hodgkinson. Each of the front-of-house engineers, Ernst Seider and Tom Pätsch, had his own Yamaha PM3500 mixing console, enabling them to alternate mixing duties to provide smo

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English Heritage has recently employed the services of audio-visual specialist DJ Willrich to recreate the atmosphere of a 17th Century riding school at Bolsover Castle in Derbyshire, through the use of sound. By using a 10-channel sound system and a Maris Stinger to synchronise all the events, including lighting, DJ Willrich has risen to the task, so that visitors to the Castle can now close their eyes and imagine themselves standing in the middle of the riding school as it was more than 300 years ago. A host of sounds, including the horses moving about the school, the voice of the riding instructor, the tack and the onlookers, including Lord and Lady Cavendish themselves, combine to recreate the highly-realistic atmosphere which, according to the Chairman of English Heritage, is "a triumph".

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Sennheiser UK is supplying alarge and on-going number of DAS Audio sound systems for installation by Eclipse Lighting & Sound in the rapidly-growing chain of Revolution Vodka Bars openign across the country, operated by Manchester-based Inventive Leisure. Eclipse's John Fearon said that the DAS speakers fitted the bill perfectly: "We essentially use white DAS DS8 and DS12 full-range speakers, with SUB18 bass reflex enclosures and the CT-1 system controller. DAS is perfect for this type of install. The build quality is very good and the sound is exceptional."

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The BBC is to close its studios at Pebble Mill, Birmingham, with the loss of 90 staff. According to reports, modern technology is now allowing programme makers to operate outside of a studio setting, so some facilities are no longer needed. Pebble Mill will continue with 600 people and will make location-based lifestyle programmes.
  1. Het MuziekTheater - Final Phase Completed
  2. MAVCO Installs Audio Equipment for Costa Atlantica
  3. Cardiff's Visual Arts Centre Closes
  4. L-Acoustics in Center Parcs
  5. Avolites ART at the Movies
  6. Showman's Show Expanding
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