Business

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September 2002 marked another landmark in Midas's 30-year history as the Heritage 3000 bearing serial number 500 rolled off the production line at the Kidderminster factory.

In just three short years since the launch of the award-winning Heritage 3000 it has become the industry standard for concert touring and the backbone of console stocks for rental companies all over the world. Its status as the premier console of choice for this market, particularly in partnership with the flagship XL4, is further underlined by the fact that eight out of ten of the top-grossing tours to come out of the US used Heritage 3000s or XL4 or both. According to Midas' head of sales, David Cooper, the Heritage 3000 is a perfect example of a manufacturer responding to customer demands and coming up with exactly the right product. "Our customers needed a console that could handle itself both on stage or

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For the eighth year running, Entec supplied the lighting production for LD Mike 'Sooty' Sutcliffe at the National TV Awards, staged at the Royal Albert Hall, presented by Sir Trevor MacDonald, and broadcast live on ITV. Entec's client was production company Indigo Television. They worked closely with production manager Ruth Tester-Brown and Mike Sutcliffe to ensure the lighting fit up went like clockwork.

Sutcliffe chose a large palette of moving lights, including nearly 50 Vari*Lite 2202s and 2402s, 11 Clay Paky Stage Zoom 1200s and 12 Stage Scans as well as Martin MAC 300s, 500s and 33 MAC 600s. Entec also supplied 14 Pulsar ChromaBanks, sited around the bottom of Richard Plumb's stylish set, which was built by Frost Scenery. Sutcliffe ran the show with his colleague Svend Pedersen, the latter using a Wholehog II with added ‘Overdrive’ for the moving lights, while Sutclif

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Audio plus is the first rental operator in the Netherlands to invest in the new GEO Tangent Array system from Nexo. Located in Wijchen, Audio plus is a joint venture between two independent sound equipment companies, PA Geluid, owned by Paul Achterberg and MC Audio, owned by Martijn Ceulemans. With the majority of its business coming from theatre productions and open-air festivals, Audio plus was looking for a system that could maintain steady SPLs and offer excellent coverage through the audience area, while keeping size and weight to a minimum.

After listening to GEO at a demo hosted by Nexo distributor Iemke Roos, Paul Achterberg knew he had found what he was looking for. "The sonic performance of GEO is very, very good, but the coverage throughout the soundfield and the phase coherency of the system is, in my opinion, simply outstanding," said Achterberg, who placed an or

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PLASA member Carlsbro, the UK manufacturer of amplifiers and loudspeakers for live music performance, has alerted PLASA Media to the looming problem of the forthcoming ‘none in a bar’ licensing reform Bill. Under these proposals, the government plans to end the ‘two in a bar’ system, by which two performers can play music in a pub or bar without a Public Entertainment License (PEL). This change will effectively outlaw any unlicensed public performance in the pubs and bars of England and Wales - Scotland is not affected - and will leave licensees liable to fines of up to £20,000 for any ‘entertainment’ which occurs on their premises.

PELs can be very expensive and require venues to meet strict rules regarding access and fire safety, which often means expensive structural alterations, such as the widening of exits, installation of fire doors and redes

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VDC has fulfilled a custom-cable order for one of the world's leading recording studios, Air Lyndhurst of London, providing full portability for its Pro Tools suites. Air's three Pro Tools systems have been racked up as 24-tracks and, using custom-made breakouts to SSL DL specification, can now be rolled into any of the Lyndhurst studios and plugged straight into the main console.

"We buy most, if not all, our custom cable from VDC," explains Tim Vine-Lott, Air's technical manager. "With anyone else, we'd have to specify pin outs for each end of the cable, but we never have to do that with VDC."

VDC provided "a vast amount of cable" to Air earlier in the year, supplying additional cable system for Lyndhurst's famous Great Hall studio and its new Neve 88R mixing console, one of only three to be installed in the UK.

(Lee Baldock)

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For over 18 years, the International Church Music Festival has been uniting musicians from around the world. The annual festival is held alternately in Coventry, England and Bern, Switzerland and 500 - 1000 musicians from over ten countries on five continents gather to sing and enjoy sacred choral music under the leadership of world-renowned musicians such as English conductor Sir David Willcocks.

This year the four-day festival was held at Coventry Cathedral and ran from June 20. The press and marketing manager for the festival, Veronica Meredith, called upon Maltbury dealer Stagepoint Technical Services to supply them with a demountable staging system. Stagepoint supplied 150 units of Maltbury's mid-weight staging system, Metrodeck, which was installed on the evening of 19 June and arranged in a raked formation from 200mm to 3m high. Creating the largest tiered platform ever used in

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ARX Systems, the Australian-based manufacturer of professional audio products, has appointed Electric Audio as its new exclusive distributor for Belgium and Luxembourg. ARX's managing director, Colin Park announced the appointment, saying: "Consolidating ARX distribution for the three Benelux markets with Axel Nagtegaal and his team at Electric Audio ensures strong representation and support for our signal processing and other product ranges utilizing Electric Audio’s comprehensive warehousing and extensive product support network."

Park added: "Electric Audio have appointed well-known Brussels-based company A.Prevost S.A. as the ARX Belgium sub-distributor to service and support our many Belgian users."

Electric Audio B.V can be contacted at the e-mail address below.

(Lee Baldock)

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HSL Productions Ltd, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, has purchased Playlight Hire Ltd of Manchester, which went into administration on 4 October. The sale was completed on 21 October, and included Playlight’s substantial stock of lighting, audio, power distribution and rigging equipment.

This follows the announcement last week by Elstree Light & Power (ELP), that they had purchased the film and television lighting stock of Playlight. All enquiries regarding outstanding or future equipment hire should be addressed to Simon Stuart, managing director of HSL Productions Ltd on the telephone number below.

(Lee Baldock)

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Laser Hire’s ‘Lightning Water Fountains’ entertained over 350,000 people assembled in Walsall Arboretum for the annual illuminations this autumn. The first display to stop crowds in their tracks as they entered the Walsall Arboretum was Laser Hire’s water fountain and laser display.

Lasers and coloured lighting were used to bring the ‘lightning water display’ to life. Set to music, Laser Hire used Pangolin software to carefully synchronize the lasers, moving lights, static lights and projections to produce a dynamic, spectacular show.

More recently, following a successful display at the 2001 Showman’s Directory Dinner, Laser Hire exhibited at this year’s Showman’s Show showcasing their services, from large outdoor spectaculars to corporate events and exhibitions. "This show demonstrates our commitment to bringing different

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Star Hire (Event Services) Limited exhibited two of its mobile StarStages at this year’s Showman’s Show, featuring recently introduced branding scrims and headers. Throughout 2002, Star Hire has worked with the UK’s leading brands, ranging from TV and radio stations through to the Prince’s Trust Party in the Park and The Queens Golden Jubilee Baton Relay, sponsored by Cadbury.

"We have noticed a trend for an increasing number of events wanting to present either their own brand, or that of sponsors, in a highly visible and professional manner," said Jane Russen, Mobile StarStage manager. "The stage, being the focal point of any event, is a key area of branding, which is why we have developed a number of opportunities for branding our stages."

The CiTV 10-08 StarStage highlighted a ‘bespoke’ solution created by Star Hire for one o

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Super Vision International Inc - a world leader in LED and fibre optic lighting technology - has announced that Link Marketing of Bahrain has been awarded the exclusive rights to sell and promote the Super Vision range of fibre optic lighting products in the country by Insight Communications, the Dubai-based international representative of Super Vision International in the Middle East.

"Clients in Bahrain can now take advantage of comprehensive and locally available consultancy, implementation and after-sales services for the full range of low maintenance lighting solutions manufactured by Super Vision International," said Toby Jordan, business development manager of Link Marketing.

Though traditionally reserved for major building projects, technological advancements and increasing production in recent years has reduced the costs of fibre optic lighting considerably, enabli

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The largest Christian Festival in the UK is staged on Shepton Mallet show grounds each summer between mid-July and the end of August. Promoted by New Wine, a Watford-based Christian organization specializing in Christian Conferences, the festival is organized by Ron Fernihough through the offices of the newly-formed Wigwam Event Management Company.

As with all modern festivals, there are a variety of performance and presentation venues, the two largest, the main stage and the tent (a four king-pole circus tent supplied by Albion Woods) both sport large d&b audiotechnik C4/C7 PA systems, while the 25 other smaller venues catering for audiences of between 50 and 1,000 people use a variety of sound systems, generally d&b or Ohm Industries equipment. "We spent a lot of time looking at sound systems for the smaller venues," said Fernihough. "Because of the six week running ti

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AC Lighting has told PLASA Media that it has signed a letter of intent to acquire the entire issued share capital of Spectrum Manufacturing Inc. Based in Toronto Canada, Spectrum is an OEM manufacturer specialising in high volume entertainment technology products. The company has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with AC Lighting as the manufacturer of the exclusively distributed Chroma-Q range of colour scrollers. No significant changes are anticipated for either company, and existing distribution arrangements remain unchanged.

(Lee Baldock)

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Color Kinetics Inc (CKI) has been awarded its 13th patent (including US and international patents) relating to its line of solid-state lighting technologies for the digital control of LEDs. The new patent includes nearly 50 separate technology claims and covers a wide variety of methods and systems for illuminating materials with colour-controlled LED systems, say CKI.

One aspect of the patent relates to a variety of illumination applications where features of a material - such as a design within an object, or a colour in a sign or graphic - are highlighted by a colour or colours of light. This technique may also be applied to distinguish specific elements in amaterial from their surroundings, such as in machine vision or medical applications. Another aspect of the patent involves providing a positioning system to remotely align LED illumination systems to light a material, much like t

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London based tour company, Canegreen, have recently purchased an EAW KF760 Line Array system. Canegreen have been actively involved in the introduction and testing of the KF760 system, mainly within the European tour environment. The Canegreen system consists of 24 KF760 long/medium throw boxes and four KF761 near fill boxes. Sub bass is enhanced by the addition of 16 EAW SB1000 cabinets.

Canegreen's Yan Stile was very focused on what was required from the system: "As opposed to the American arena tour market, touring in Europe often involves venues with differing problems when flying or ground-stacking the sound system." He added: "We used the KF760s in all types of venue, some of them not normally applicable for line arrays. But throughout we were pleasantly surprised with the results, even in venues where there were no fly points and ground space was limited. The cove

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Pearce Hire supplied the lighting for the Association of Online Publishers and Periodical Publishers Association conferences and awards ceremonies this October, following a busy summer supplying festivals and outdoor events with a range of power, sound and lighting services. The company is now gearing up for an active winter as they move inside to service corporate events, conferences and award ceremonies.

The two-day publishing conference was held at the Millennium Mayfair Hotel in Grosvenor Square, London, serving the Periodical Publishers Association (PPA) on the Tuesday and the Association of Online Publishers (AOP) on the Wednesday. Pearce Hire worked alongside Hawk AV, with whom they have a long-standing professional relationship, providing the lighting under the direction of LD John Huson with Graham Festenstein assisting.

The companies built a predominately white set and use

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Stage Electrics is holding a sale of theatrical and disco lighting and ancillary equipment on Saturday 9 November 2002. The Auction will be held at the company’s headquarters in Third Way, Avonmouth, Bristol and will commence at 10am.

Lots will include Strand Prelude and Cantata spotlights, Par cans, Tempus Dimmer racks, flight cases, cables, disco consoles and a wide range of effects equipment. Patrick Behan, who has organized previous successful Stage Electrics Auctions, told us: "This year it has been difficult to keep the lots to 1000 as we have acquired a considerable amount of new and second-hand kit from our Newcastle branch (ex Lighting Technology). There should be loads of bargains and the usual chance to meet up with a few mates from the industry."

Auction catalogues can be requested by emailing the address below or by phoning 0117 982 7282. An electronic v

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Following the news earlier this week that London-based sound specialist Orbital had purchased two new D5 Live consoles from DiGiCo, the company has now given details of the first theatrical use of the D5 Live, at the International Festival of Musical Theatre in Cardiff. Here, the desk is being employed on a number of events, including the European debut of the Broadway musical Ragtime.

Orbital is issuing an invitation for all interested parties to visit them at their London base to find out more about the D5 Live, including the enhancements which have been made to Orbital’s second desk which have increased its capacity to manage even the biggest theatre productions. For more information, contact Chris Headlam at Orbital via the e-mail address given below.

(Lee Baldock)

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Toploader, one of the UK's most successful live bands of the last two years, are currently touring the country with a flexible line array rig from EAW. The three-month tour takes in venues of all shapes and sizes - which meant that the choice of speaker system became even more sensitive than usual. "I loved the sound of the KF760 system when I heard it at Hammersmith Apollo," recalls FOH engineer Andrew Thornton, "but I admit I was concerned about the idea of bringing it into theatres and having to groundstack it for some show. In the end, though, it's proved to be much more flexible than a 'normal' system."

It has proved so flexible, in fact, that the tour's system technician Pete Hughes, who is responsible for the Canegreen-supplied system, opted to fit single wheelboards to the 16 KF760 and KF761 cabinets, in order to be able to split the arrays differently for e

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This year marks the debut of the International Festival of Musical Theatre in Cardiff - and White Light is supporting the event by supplying the lighting for the Festival's centrepiece production, Babes in Arms, at the Cardiff New Theatre. The same rig also performed double duty, lighting the Festival's opening Gala Concert.

Faced with the challenges of minimal rigging time, no changeover time between concert and show, little focusing time and two shows to light, lighting designer Neil Austin opted for a largely automated rig featuring 16 Amptown Washlights with beam shuttering and 10 Strand Pirouette PCs with Rainbow scrollers. Neil selected both units because of his preference for working with tungsten light sources, but complemented them with four Martin MAC 500 moving spotlights. Completing the rig were Strand Alto and Cantata fresnels, Par cans, ETC Source Fours, L&E batten

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Some of Europe’s leading event industry professionals gathered at The Showman’s Show 2002 this October, where the weather and business were brisk, reflecting the vibrant nature of the industry at the moment.

This year’s Showman’s Show continued to widen its appeal as 3,829 visitors from all walks of event management and show organizing visited Newbury Showground to view the products and services that will shape next year’s events. Over 300 companies exhibited to create the largest outdoor event exhibition ever seen in Europe. The organizers altered the site layout to accommodate the show’s growth and made improvements to the site that meant that visitors were oblivious to the fact that exhibitors had built their stands in torrential rain through the previous two days.

The very nature of the Showman’s Show enables outdoor event practitioners t

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One of the highlights of the recent ECTS 2002 interactive entertainment show at London’s Earls Court was the vast PlayStation Experience, hosted by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, which ran in parallel to the main event. To enhance the screen-driven extravaganza with a real world atmosphere, Creative Technology Exhibitions (contracted by Denham Technical Services) used the Dataton Watchout system - a scalable digital media system designed for big shows, generating images which can span several video projectors or monitors. Watchout automatically applies smooth edge blending to overlapping projection areas, resulting in a seamless image.

This was just one of the technological solutions which CT applied to interpret the concept laid down by Rod George at Denham. They also drew on some of the projection techniques which their sister company in the US had implemented at recent E3

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In one of the largest ever conference system installations of its kind, Philips CSI has supplied a high-specification Concentus DCN (Digital Congress Network) system to the German government’s impressive new Bundeskanzleramt international conference centre in Berlin. The Philips Concentus system had to meet much more stringent demands than are normally encountered: up to 15 simultaneous language translations and the ability to display Cyrillic, Arabic and other non-standard character on built-in displays. It also had to cope with large numbers of delegates while being easy to use and to have an attractive aesthetic design for this prestigious new government facility.

To meet the need for simultaneous interpretation and language distribution for the new Berlin conference facility, Philips supplied a 140-position Concentus DCN system. The top of the range Concentus is able to handl

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Some of the biggest names in television gathered at the Royal Albert Hall recently for the 2002 National Television Awards. RG Jones was the principal audio contractor for the event, which was broadcast on ITV on 15 October. Engineer Simon Hodge saw this as a perfect opportunity to put the new compact Nexo GEO system through its paces, which was duly supplied by SSE, along with Camco amplification.

According to Simon, as a complete package GEO was "a joy to work with." He explained that the main issues of the event were to do with sight lines. "As a major televised show for the television industry it was crucial that we have a physically tiny system so that it did not interfere with sight lines either for the audience, or more importantly for the many cameras filming the show. GEO was fantastic in this respect. We had the two hangs positioned quite wide behind the lecter

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