Latvia - Latvian Television (LTV) is producing this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, which will take place in Riga on the 24 May, with an estimated worldwide television audience of 200 million. Swedish specialist company Spectra+ will be achieving its Eurovision hat-trick this year, with its third Eurovision project, and will be working alongside Latvia’s leading lighting company, Riga-based Company NA Ltd, a supplier of technical equipment and knowledge with a strong reputation throughout the Baltic.

Spectra+ and Company NA’s mission includes supplying lighting, video and rigging equipment for the event, including technical co-ordination and technical crew. Spectra+ and Company NA crew members will be working on site for approximately one month prior to the event.

Swedish television, SVT chose Spectra+ as the official lighting supplier and technical co-ordina

Sweden / Denmark - On 11 June in Stockholm, and 12 June in Copenhagen, Master of Light seminars is hosting a seminar with lighting and production designer Marc Brickman. Brickman's credits over his 25 year career include Pink Floyd, Paul McCartney, Bruce Springsteen, the Barcelona and Nagano Olympic Games Ceremonies, Steven Spielberg's ‘AI’ and the new ‘Cat in the Hat’ movie. Current projects include the new touring production of the Blue Man Group and Matchbox 20.

Each day’s programme will consist of two half-day seminars: in Stockholm, these will take place at the premises of VLSC, and in Copenhagen at Seelite. Admission to each seminar costs 1950SEK in Stockholm and 1950Dkr in Copenhagen. A 5% discount is available for bookings of five or more people from the same organization, and a 10% discount for bookings of 10 or more people from the same or

USA - Creative Studio Solutions Inc (CSS) of Denver, Colorado, has been chosen to design, build and install Entercom’s new suite of broadcast studios at its new facility at The Denver Technology Center. Entercom currently operates four broadcast radio stations in the Denver area. CSS will design and install a total of 12 new studios for Entercom - four on-air studios, four production studios, three news studios, and a live room.

CSS’s CEO and chief engineer Andrew Rosenberg says that this project is exciting for him and his staff. "There is nothing better than getting involved in the studio design process from the ground up. We are honored that an organization with Entercom’s reputation for excellence has chosen CSS to do this project."

CSS is primarily utilizing Wheatstone technology and its related products for this project. CSS will also be using

UK - Scream Studios, the rehearsal and recording facility group, is taking an all-EV approach for its prime showcase studios in south-east England. Scream, which began in 1991, expanded from its original site in Carshalton to a second operation in Croydon, and its latest location is in Brighton.

The recently-opened Brighton complex, which houses seven rehearsal rooms, also has a 100-capacity showcase room, linked to a recording studio and video editing suite. This has been equipped with an Electro-Voice RX sound reinforcement system "that can take the loudest of the loud" according to owner Aide Aires.

The new room has already been used by a wide variety of artists, from the 40-piece Carnival Collective, to Status Quo and Gary Moore. Apart from a highly individual design scheme, which features an 8ft tank with floating droids and cyborgs, the room uses two EV RX112/7

Spain - LA Audio has appointed a new distributor in Spain, Lexon SA, taking over the responsibilities of sales and marketing the LA Audio brand in this territory. Lexon was established in 1977 with offices in Sarriá, Barcelona, and Santibáñez de Béjar, Madrid. Its primary business is the import and distribution of professional audio and video products for fixed installations, rental companies, contractors, consultants and engineering companies. Lexon also supplies specific products to the broadcast sector, as well recording and post-production in studios. It operates in the whole of the Spanish territory, including the Canary and Balearic Islands, with over 1,300 regular customers. Other than LA Audio, Lexon distribute BSS, Cedar, Schoeps and many other recognized brand names.

Eva Thullen, assistant manager of Lexon, says: "We are very happy about taking the LA Audio li

UK - Reading-based Blinding Light supplied Studio Due Mini City colour changing luminaires to TV lighting director Bernie Davis for a special edition of the BBC’s ‘Songs of Praise’ called ‘The Big Sing’, staged at London’s prestigious Royal Albert Hall.

Their seminal role in the show was to light the acoustic ‘mushrooms’ in the Albert Hall’s roof, in a series of beguiling, rich saturated colours. The mushrooms - normally a dull off-white - are a vital ingredient of the Hall’s sound, but a constant source of aesthetic distraction to anyone working on visuals. By transforming them into a feature, the mushrooms become an integral part of the live experience of being ‘on location’ in one of the world’s most architecturally spectacular venues.

16 Mini City fixtures, complete with their optional wide-angle

Ireland - The selective heats for this year's competition to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest were held in the style of 'Pop Idol' and 'Fame Academy' with contestants being gradually voted out of the competition by TV viewers across the country.

Mickey Joe Harte, who performed with an AKG WMS40 handheld radio microphone won the overall competition with a landslide victory of 1.3 million votes - and that from a population of just over 3 million! The WMS40 was provided by Declan Reynolds of Reynolds of Raphoe in County Donegal who said: "We used the WMS40, even though we had many other far more expensive radio mic systems available to us. The WMS40 was not only the simplest system to set up, but also the performance totally belies the low price tag. This performs as well as most radio mic systems costing three times as much money, and was immaculate on the nig

UK - The eighth annual HMV Football Extravaganza kicked off this year at the Marriott Grosvenor House Hotel, raising £339,000 for the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy charity. Canegreen Commercial was the sound consultant for the event, providing expertise and PA equipment for production company Zafer Associates.

The assembled 1,400-strong audience were there to raise money for the music industry’s favourite charity, the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy charity. In the process they honoured the career of Tony Adams MBE, and bid for a host of football memorabilia, hospitality and media packages. Canegreen Commercial’s Andrew Frengley designed the sound system and controlled proceedings as the stage manager for the event: "This is the fourth successive year we have worked with Zafer on this event. It is a relatively straightforward system for us to put in place now as

USA - In rock and roll, there is no substitute for reliability. After years of searching for dependable digital cable for its oceanic research, the US Government found the solution in TMB’s ProPlex, a unique product with its roots in concert touring.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) studies marine mammals worldwide using a custom towed hydrophone array spanning over three miles. Previously, expedition scientists could not find good data cable that was also rugged enough to withstand the constant use in rough seas and extreme temperatures. Chief scientist Jay Barlow explains: "We are using a new hydrophone array this year, made in our own lab using modified ProPlex CAT5 cable from TMB (thanks to TMB’s OEM sales department). We've towed this one for over 1,000 miles now, and results are excellent: flow noise is less than with arrays we

The Netherlands - ESS project manager Rob Smalldon and his team were presented with a unique challenge when they were asked to build a marque for telecommunications giant Orange, aboard a Dutch canal barge.

The unusual request came from Park Avenue Productions, who were organizing a launch event for the Orange brand in The Netherlands. Fortunately, ESS had developed technology for the ‘Orange Experience’ in Bucharest the previous year, and was able to reapply some of the equipment used then. "We modified the original system with new 200sq.m front and back sheets and designed a brand new base unit of steel beams," said Smalldon. "The base unit interacted between the barge and the other components ensuring stability of the tall, sail-like marque (which measured 15 x 15 x 3m), even in adverse wind conditions." The entire structure was built in Amste

UK - For the second year running, evoke productions were approached to creatively brand the BBC Radio 3 Awards for World Music. Using a combination of custom lighting, projection and effects, evoke transformed the exterior and front of house areas of the Ocean venue in Hackney for this high profile event.

evoke used a mixture of moving and generic fixtures, fitted with custom multi-colour and high definition glass gobos manufactured by Rosco, to create an ever-changing environment. Control was provided by a Rosco Horizon system - a Windows-based PC lighting console.

According to Jon Stones, director of evoke, the Horizon was ideal for the project: "With the challenge of having fixtures spread over six levels, three rooms, and the also the exterior of the building, we required a system that would allow us the flexibility to move around the space easily while programming,

UK - Phil Anderson at Wave AV has put Wharfedale Force 1LT loudspeakers at the heart of a sound system blueprint for newly restored, authentic country-style pubs which are part of an expanding investment programme undertaken by Hall & Woodhouse.

These sites are located all along the South Coast/M4 corridor, from Somerset to Dorset and across to Sussex. All the pubs share the design concept, the same food and drink menus, and are equipped with identical entertainment systems, which only change in respect of the quantity of equipment used.

Wave AV's template for the sound uses typically a dozen Wharfedale Force 1LT wall-mounted cabinets in 100V line mode, controlled by a Cloud 46/50 integrated zone mixer/amplifer. Remote level control is accessible from the bar via Cloud RSL-6 plates. A Rolec PHD1 hard-disk music system is at the heart of the system as the musical source.

Wave

South Africa - South Africa’s Standard Bank Stars event on 29 March was an incentive awards evening held to honour employees throughout the country who are part of Standard Bank’s retail arm. Gearhouse South Africa was contracted by Jenny Lenahan Productions to provide the technical equipment and skills for the event, which took its theme from three decades of television and featured music, celebrities and television personalities from each of those eras.

Heading up the Gearhouse SA team was Ian Watts, who is operation’s manager of the Johannesburg branch’s audio-visual department. Ian was project manager of the Standard Bank Stars and comes with 15 years’ experience in the broadcast industry - at the SABC, and M-Net as well as Gearhouse Broadcast on an international basis. What made the Standard Bank Stars so unique was that the event took place si

Japan - The 1,300-capacity Anzu Hall Cultural Centre in Koshoku City has undergone a dynamic sound system refurbishment based around a QSC network and monitoring system. The multi-purpose Anzu Hall - situated inside the City Hall complex - hosts a wide variety of cultural events. Ueda JRC carried out the installation, supported by ComodoMattina Inc, QSC’s Japanese distributor. The company’s Takafumi Asahina says: "Originally, the client didn’t have a clear idea of what they wanted, and so we recommended QSC’s QSControl (pronounced Q’s Control) network audio control solution as being the most progressive way forward."

The QSControl remote management system, a RAVE Ethernet-based signal transport design, and CX Series amplifiers form the hub of the project. With four of QSC’s new ISIS 102W loudspeakers also commissioned for the task of

UK - Blink TV launched a new theatre-sized visual package on the recent six-week Liberty X UK tour, along with the supply of video project management, specification and hardware. The package is a new, highly flexible Blink format designed to bring high production values to tours playing theatres, town halls and other smaller-sized venues.

Blink’s project manager for the Liberty X tour, Adam Walton, worked in close consultation with lighting designer Jvan Morandi. Morandi is extremely specific about the look and style of all the shows on which he works and used a High End Catalyst video system as an integral part of the show’s visual aspect. Morandi and Walton chose an innovative format for Blink TV, with two Fast-fold video screens onstage for the opening and support band slots, onto which the Blink programmes could also be projected. Aesthetically, this has resulted

Germany - Leading German PA rental company, Crystal Sound, has invested in a 40-channel ML4000 from Allen & Heath for their hire stock. Crystal Sound purchased the console through ProAudio Marketing, Allen & Heath's German distributor.

"Our agenda was simple - we were looking for a console with a lot to offer. The ML4000 has many auxes and is flexible enough for our clients to use either FOH or as a monitor console," said Hanns Hommen, Crystal Sound's MD. He added: "We were convinced by the ML4000's technical data, variety of features, EQs and of course, the price! Comparatively, there is no serious alternative to the ML Series on the mixer market."

(Lee Baldock)

Russia - St Petersburg’s council chamber, situated within the city’s monumental Marrinsky Palace, has undergone a two-year renovation, including newly installed sound and video equipment. The ‘Grand Hall’, as the chamber is known, has the most problematic acoustics - a case in point being a reverberation time of around 3.5 seconds.

Ruton S, the Russian Electro-Voice distributor, was the firm entrusted with the responsibility of bringing the venerable 19th century hall into line with the high standards of modern communication, and one of the first tasks was to install a conference and voting system - of which the sound reinforcement system was a major part. After conducting simulations (using EV’s EAMS software), Ruton S decided on a set-up which not only offered excellent sound quality as well as compact dimensions and an elegant appearance. The sys

UK - Robe UK Ltd - a direct sales operation of Czech Republic-based moving light manufacturer Robe Show Lighting - has been launched. The new company is set up to exclusively supply and market the rapidly expanding Robe brand in the UK and Republic of Ireland.

Robe UK is a joint venture between Robe Show Lighting and Ian Brown, formerly MD of Coe-tech, which went into administration last week. Coe-Tech appointed a liquidator after suffering a number of financial set-backs.

The new Robe venture will be based in Northampton and run by a management, sales and technical team assembled by Brown, and is the latest Robe Show Lighting subsidiary to be established, following Robe Italia Srl and Robe America.

Robe UK’s Ian Brown says: "It was a logical step forward to form the new company. The new business will allow us to focus tightly on our long-term business objectives

UK - Director Bob Carlton’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream completed its highly successful four-week run at the Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch earlier this week. As the creator of the Olivier Award-winning show Return to the Forbidden Planet (based on The Tempest), Bob Carlton is no stranger to hit Shakespeare-inspired musicals, but this Queen's Theatre production has been hailed as a fresh new interpretation. The production featured a large cast from the theatre's resident company of actor-musicians which included the string quartet Bebeto as the fairies.

Stage Technologies provided the production with a single-axis performer flying system, using a BigTow winch for counter weight assist and a Juggler control console. In a play where nymphs, fairies, royalty and common folk all clash on stage in their frantic search for love, the pr

USA - p-wave, the new decorative version of the award-winning ‘new wave’ truss series from Total Structures, has appeared on stage with Luther Vandross at Radio City Music Hall in New York. p-wave was chosen by lighting designer Warwick Price for their striking effects under various lighting conditions, as the edges of the plexi webs capture the light and the truss glows to form part of the light show itself. Large acrylic panels were set between the vertical array of trusses and water passed over the etched surfaces to reflect the light, with stunning results. The show also featured a number of aluminum ‘hexi-pods’ which were fabricated by Total Structures some time ago for Light & Sound Design. These house lighting fixtures and are supported from the main grid above the stage.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Cheltenham Ladies College has had its presentation infrastructure boosted with the installation of a new state-of-the-art projection system. Designed and installed by AVPS - who have serviced the college’s requirements in the past - the larger contract to fit out the multi-purpose assembly hall was put out to three companies. AVPS tendered successfully and their Christie-based proposal was accepted on the strength of the product specification, obviating the need for an on-site demonstration.

AVPS’ Jules Deakin believes that it was his preference for the Christie Roadrunner L6 LCD projector which won them the contract. He recommended the L6, offering 1024 x 768 true XGA resolution, as the best solution in view of its superior brightness and its dual lamp facility. "It allows the college to run both lamps to achieve 5200 ANSI lumens during the day when the am

Australia - The Australian Entertainment Industry Association has announced the nominees for the 2003 Helpmann Awards. Named in honour of dancer and actor Sir Robert Helpmann and first presented in 2001, these annual awards honour productions new to Australia.

The 2003 nominations cover a wide range of productions, including those created in Australia and those previously seen elsewhere in the world but visiting Australia for the first time. The awards include categories for both productions and technical work on productions - and, unusually for theatrical awards, even feature a category for sound design.

This year’s technical nominees are: Best Costume Design: Dale Ferguson - Great Expectations; Kristian Fredrikson - Man of La Mancha; Julie Lynch - The Way of the World; Bob Crowley - The Witches of Eastwick.

Best Scenic Design: Stephen Curt

UK - Following our news yesterday that LouMarc a new, pan-European pro audio marketing company had been established, we also have further details on Sonic8 Ltd - a new UK pro audio distribution company which will take on products from the installation, live, broadcast and recording sectors, and which was the first to sign a distribution agreement with LouMarc.

Centrally-based in Leeds, Sonic8 has a team of product specialists travelling up and down the UK ready to help in sales and support. The company has initially taken on the full range of products from German microphone manufacturer Brauner and CLM Dynamics, the innovative Scottish signal processing company. Sonic8 expects to announce the addition of three more companies to its portfolio within the coming weeks.

Sonic's managing director is Stephen Helm, an audio specialist with 12 years' experience in product distribution

Norway - D-PAC Audio of Denmark has appointed Micmo Lyd & Lys of Mo in Norway as sole A-dealer for the D-PAC range of products. A sales and rental company, Micmo has purchased 12 AS-2 subwoofers, six MP-152 multi-purpose 15" + 1.4" loudspeakers andfour MP-81 8"+1" multi-purpose speakers for their rental operation, with an option for six AM-2 mid/high cabinets and a number of AM-1/AS-1+ systems. A further two AS-2s and two AM-2s have been purchased for an installation.

Michael Christiansen, owner of Micmo, states: "I am very pleased to become sole A-dealer in Norway of D-PAC Audio. I know that long-term business relationships are crucial when dealing with top professional sound reinforcement products, and D-PAC Audio provides both, in terms of dedication to provide tomorrow’s technology and in a build quality that surpasses even other key suppliers

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