Business

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UK / USA - When L&SI Online revealed in January that six key members of the Flying Pig Systems team had resigned from the company - including FPS co-founder and Wholehog designer Nick Archdale and product manager Richard Mead - it triggered a spate of rumours across the industry about the fate of High End Systems' European HQ, and of its flagship control product, the Wholehog III.

HES has been quick to dispel the rumours and reassure its customers and dealers of its continued commitment to the Hog III, saying: "We have an aggressive schedule for new control products as well as software enhancements for the Wholehog III. We recently released a new Beta version software (version 1.3 Beta 4) for Wholehog III, which brings new functionality . . . Reaction among early users and Beta testers is exciting. We're also working on development of Hog III PC."Debi Moen at HES has a

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UK - Northern Light has announced a number of changes to its operation to allow it to concentrate on its core business, which the company reports is currently expanding. The company says the changes will allow further development of its project installation, engineering and manufacturing divisions, which are currently handling some 30 projects throughout the UK - including the new Gateshead Music Centre, Newcastle College Performance Academy, Perth Concert Hall and the Tally Ho Arts Centre at Finchley in North London.

The Reading office will close at the end of March and all matters relating to overseas sales will now be referred to the head office in Edinburgh. Derek Gilbert will continue to work with the company as a consultant. The Audio Visual arm of Northern Light, based at Reading and known as Immedia, will close and all AV contracts and sales will be handled through Immed

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UK - Boy George's cult musical Taboo has taken to the road this month, choosing Audient's Aztec desk to provide the mix for the entire 26-venue, five-month tour of the UK. Supplied by rental company Stage Electrics, Aztec has proven to be the right choice according to the show's number one sound engineer Graeme Asher: "It's a challenge changing venues every week, as no two venues are the same. Audient's live desk makes things a lot more straight forward being so easy to configure, not to mention a lot lighter than I'm used to."

Asher continues: "I'm really pleased with the sound quality too. In fact it's so good we have been able to hear degradation in other parts of our audio system that we were previously unaware of. This has led to us being able to improve the whole system reaching even higher standards of audio. "We went for a lightweight flightca

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Italy - Renowned for its cheese and ham, the Italian city of Parma also boasts the Farnese - the largest baroque theatre existing inside a building. Built in 1618, this was also the first theatre in the world designed for use with movable scenery and with a proscenium arch.

This historic venue recently hosted an Italian version of Elizabethan dramatist John Ford's 'Tis a pity she's a whore (pictured), directed by Luca Ronconi. The show's lighting designer is Guido Levi, who has worked with directors such as Warner Herzog and Jonathan Miller.

The Farnese's steeply-tiered U-shaped seating influenced later theatre design, but this, combined with the fact that it's built almost entirely in wood and stucco, compelled Levi to run a series of strict tests on moving head fixtures, as the 3,500-seat venue's problematic acoustics amplified any noise from fixture motors. Levi selected S

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UK - Lighting designer and consultant Andrew Dixon and Lightfactor Sales' Paul de Ville worked together to produce a stylish new architectural lighting scheme for St Barnabas Anglican Church in Ealing, London.

Lightfactor supplied all the equipment for the new installation - which was sourced from a variety of British manufactures, including customized Par 64 and AR111 fixtures from James Thomas Engineering, and a custom lighting control panel designed by Mick Hannaford and made by LightProcessor. The result has transformed St Barnabas into a modern, practical and well-lit venue appropriate for a dynamic range of church-based activities.Built in 1915, St Barnabas's spacious 15m high environment has several unique features, including an unusual fresco above the high altar that helps soften the otherwise austere atmosphere. However, the lighting has had very little improvement sin

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Germany - HK Audio's new Cohedra line array system recently met the demanding requirements of Walter Haupt's ambitious touring production of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana.

Haupt presented Carmina Burana on the grand scale, with a large choir, a symphony orchestra and 200 singers and actors performing on a 20m tower with four stages, complex scenery and impressive lighting and sound systems provided by Langeburg-based hire audio rental company, Klangschmiede.

Sound designer/engineer Gerd Drücker (mixing FOH on a Yamaha PM1D) used a Cohedra line array system from HK Audio, comprising 56 CDR 208 S/T mid/high units, along with between eight and 16 CDR 210 subwoofers, depending on the size of the venue. The main clusters consisted of 16 CDR 208 S/T each, with five flown CDR 208 Ts in the centre cluster.

Serving as front-fills were two VT 112 II F (12"/2") cabs from HK'

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UK - Indie combo Aqualung recently supported UK festival favourites, Feeder, for a series of dates on their UK arena tour kicking off at Glasgow NEC and including Wembley Arena. It was also one of the first ever outings for the brand new Verona console from Midas, officially launched at the NAMM show in January 2004. FOH engineer Tony Perretta and monitor man Roberto Pieroni (also house engineer at Fabric) took the opportunity to put the new Verona through its paces.

Perreta said: "I thought Verona was a great desk for many reasons, not the least of which, it's a Midas! It looks and feels like a Midas and, more importantly, it sounds like a Midas. It was a very easy transition from the larger desks, and I was pleased that while Verona is clearly designed to be a far more cost-effective option that its larger brothers and sisters, it retains all the traditional Midas qualiti

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Eire - Leading Irish AV company, CAVS (Corporate Audio Visual Services) has just invested in a new Heritage 3000 console to add to their already considerable Midas inventory. During 2003 alone, CAVS purchased two 40-channel Midas Legend 3000s and 30 Venice consoles of various frame sizes from Midas's distributor in Ireland, Dublin-based Sound Communications.

According to Sound Communications' Alan Murphy, CAVS's acquisition of the Heritage 3000 bears witness to the company's continuing expansion into high-end audio in both the corporate and concert sound markets. "Over the past three years CAVS has invested hugely in updating their audio inventory and is now reaping the benefits both in terms of customer satisfaction and the quality of work coming their way. CAVS is now definitely a major league player in the Irish AV market."

CAVS managing director Fran Quigley sees

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UK / China - James Thomas Engineering UK opened its Asian headquarters in Hong Kong this week. The new HQ will cover Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore, China and Japan and is headed by Philip J Walker. Walker has been based in the region for 10 years, supplying cutting-edge technology for the leisure, entertainment architectural and consumer industries.

JTE's Tony Cameron said: "It's great to have someone of Philip's experience and knowledge onboard. The Asian market has enormous potential for us, and we're confident it'll be a great success."Walker was initially attracted to the large application range of JTE's Pixel range, its energy and power conservation properties are ideal for a number of forthcoming architectural projects. He commented: "The Asian market is picking up, and there's plenty of positive feelings that the next few years wil

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International - Gilbert Briggs produced his first loudspeaker in the Yorkshire valley of the River Wharfe over 70 years ago: now the Wharfedale brand is part of a multinational corporation with a wholly-owned, 500,000sq.ft manufacturing facility in China. In fact, in many ways, the International Audio Group (IAG) could claim to provide a prototype business model for all consumer and professional manufacturing across both lighting and sound - as the 21st century gets into its political and economic stride.

The group comprises Wharfedale, Quad, Topaz and Apogee Lighting, and at his HQ in Huntingdon, UK, MD Steve Woolley is afraid of neither politics nor economics. As Karl Marx would have appreciated, the IAG owns the means of production. The factory it has built - not leased - near Hong Kong features wood and metal shops, tooling and plastic injection plants, and a mineral-free co

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Australia - In 2004 Show Technology, Australia's leading distributor of lighting equipment, is celebrating its 10th anniversary by introducing new ideas and marketing initiatives aimed at developing closer working relationships with industry partners. Increased staffing, personalized service, product training and a new trade show strategy, are all key elements of the initiative.

Show Technology distributes brand names such as; Martin, Studio Due, MA Lighting, Kupo, Geni, ELC and Pulsar. Martin in particular has achieved an increased share of the market in Australia and is again expected to have a successful year in 2004. Last year Martin presented Show Technology the award for Stage, Studio and Event Distributor of the Year.

The company has had a 40% increase in company turnover since 2000 and a record year in 2003. It will place increased focus on customer service in 2004 by

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UK / USA / France - Leading UK manufacturer and RF specialist Trantec has appointed two new international distributors - Group One in the USA and Best Audio in France. Both companies will handle Trantec's entire portfolio of advanced radio products, which offers sophisticated radio solutions for the most challenging contemporary audio applications.

Trantec's legendary radio microphone systems include the award winning S5000 and most recently the acclaimed S6000 with its advanced, user-friendly features, all of which have been specifically designed for the professional user. Other Trantec products, including the S10 Soundfield system and PT1 Personal Trainer, offer solutions for leisure, conferencing, education and ecclesiastical markets.

Farmingdale, NY-based Group One's appointment follows shortly after Trantec's S6000 made its mark in the US, scooping an EDDY Award in the

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USA - DiGiCo and Soundtracs will share the spotlight on booth #2808 at the NSCA Convention in Las Vegas (19-21 March) with a live linkup between a DiGiCo D5 FMX and a Soundtracs DS-00 - showing how efficiently live and recorded sound can be handled on a single, integrated digital system. The two console systems share a common software platform and MADI digital interfaces, and employ identical file formats.

"We intended from day one that the two systems should be able to work seamlessly together," says DiGiCo LLC CEO Eric Wade. "This allows a live and recording production - such as a large TV music show - to be mixed live at both front-of-house and monitors on the D5 FMX system, sharing a common fibre loop, while being recorded through a Soundtracs DS-00 on the same loop. The benefits are a completely stable gain structure, total freedom from ground buzzes or other

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UK - The leafy environs and mock-Tudor mansions of the Surrey stockbroker belt are home to more than a few rock and pop stars and music industry moguls. It's also home to an ambitious fledgling loudspeaker manufacturer which is starting to raise eyebrows in the industry.

Operating out of a converted fire station, Instigate Media and its loudspeaker division EM Acoustics were set up in 2002 by partners Ed Kinsella and Mike Wheeler on their graduation from Cambridge and Imperial College universities respectively.

"While at University, we were both quite extensively involved with sound systems one way and another and it seemed to us that people should be able to get elegant, acoustically excellent loudspeakers without breaking the bank," says Wheeler. "We didn't want to blow the lid off the market either, rather get back to something more simple. Our thinking was t

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USA - This year's Super Bowl halftime show certainly surpassed its predecessors in terms of memorable images - and some of the best had nothing to do with a certain 'wardrobe malfunction'. Incorporated into the staging design by Mark Fisher Studios' production team, 76 Versa TILE units from Element Labs provided visual support for the lighting design by LD Allen Branton. "The Versa TILEs were phenomenal," says lighting director Christian Choi. "They worked out great. Allen and I were really impressed with their performance."

The Versa TILEs lit up eight sections of stage along the perimeter of the stage riser. Half of them were eight panels wide, at 40 pixels wide and five pixels high, and the other half consisted of 11 panels, at 55 pixels wide and five pixels high. Choi used Adobe After Effects software to create custom content, which he matched pixel by p

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UK - Five prime window sites at Harrods used leading-edge audio-visual technology to promote the new cinema production of Peter Pan. The film, directed by PJ Hogan with Harrods owner Mohamed Al Fayed as executive producer, opened to great critical acclaim on 26 December.

Previews of the film were projected onto a series of floating Holo Screens - supplied by Danish company dnp through its UK distributor Paradigm Audio Visual - providing transparent suspended visualization, perfect for the theming of the windows. The whole idea had been the brainchild of WOW Factors' Mark Jones, who had demonstrated the Holo Screen technology to Al Fayed 12 months earlier.

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UK - Following the resurrection of RCF Spa by Arturo Vicari, the company will be exhibiting at the at ISCEx 2004 exhibition, which is being held at the Watford Moat House in Watford on Tuesday, 24 February. RCF's Phil Price explained the reason for such an early move back into the public domain: "ISCE 2004 gives us the opportunity to meet with key people within the commercial audio systems sector. It will give them an opportunity to see that RCF is firmly back in the UK. We will of course be showing the new updates to the Monitor Series, Monitor 33, 44 and 55, which now include a multi-purpose wall bracket. We will also show some examples from the Commercial Audio catalogue such as the PL80A and PL81A high quality, easy-install ceiling speakers, plus some presentations on our RX3000 Digital PA Controlled Zone Paging System."

Price added: "Customers should note tha

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UK - Top country band Brooks & Dunn have purchased a High End Systems Catalyst v3 Media Server to add high-tech visual effects to their Red Dirt Road tour, which kicked off in the US yesterday. The Catalyst v3 Media Server combines lighting with digital media and allows the content to be manipulated in endless ways. "I'm excited about using the Catalyst system," LD Larry Boster says. "I know it will be a major tool for me. It's a whole different avenue of creativity."

High End Systems' Mike Hanson worked with the duo at Ronnie Dunn's high-tech barn, where they played with Catalyst and digital images prior to production rehearsals. Joining in were video director Chris Keating (U2, Rod Stewart, Kylie Minogue) and B&D veteran video engineer Mike Bischof, both of whom are on the tour.

Hanson demonstrated the new features of Catalyst v3 software, such as the abi

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UK - Tyco Integrated Systems (TIS), a division of Tyco Fire & Security, has installed a specially designed PA and emergency messaging system to help Marks & Spencer operate more efficiently and communicate with both its staff and customers in one of its major retail stores. This retail PA system is one of the most advanced of its type and features multiple-zone voice messaging facilities with pre-recorded emergency and general messages, staff call stations and background music in selected areas such as the CD sales area.

The system was especially designed by TIS to meet the needs of the new Castle Point store in Bournemouth and follows TIS's success in providing PA systems to many other large retail stores including some 22 other Marks & Spencer stores throughout the UK. It includes 130 ceiling speakers and 13 wall speakers across six zones on several floors. Each zone is indepe

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Sweden - "Capture is developed by lighting designers for lighting designers," says Lasse Berg, one of the creators of the innovative Swedish lighting software.

If you haven't heard of Capture before, it may be because its two founders, Berg and Lars Wernlund, have largely kept their heads down for the past 11 years, putting their energies into developing Capture to its current level. In that time, the two lighting designers have based their product on three major philosophies, as Berg explains: "We want the program to behave as we as LDs would like to see it; it has to be highly competent and user friendly, and finally, the users are the best developers."

When Berg and Wernlund joined forces in 1993, they had two things in common - lighting design and computers. "We also belonged to the enlightened members of the world who used a computer called Amiga,

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USA - Sound systems featuring Funktion One, MC2 Audio and XTA Electronics products have been installed in two new US night venues, in New York and Las Vegas. Both systems were designed by Dan Agne of Sound Investment.

Cielo, in New York, has been described as a 'techno log cabin'. It's loudspeaker system - Funktion One's AX-88 and F218 speakers along with a pair of its Infrabass subwoofer cabs - is driven by MC2 Audio's T2000 and MC1250 amplifiers, with control from an XTA DP226 digital system controller.

Way out west, meanwhile, Ice is the newest night venue in Las Vegas, and aims to maintain an emphasis on music: with this in mind, the 30ft x 30ft main floor features a four-point Dance Stack Ultra speaker system from Funktion One, with MC2 Audio's T2000 and T1500 amplifiers driving the mids and highs, control by four XTA DP226s.

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UK - For two days in late March the final year students of the Technical and Production Arts Course at the RSAMD will be exhibiting a broad range of their work from their three years of study in the Chandler Studio Theatre.

This year, in tandem with the Graduate Exhibition, the college is also launching its Sponsors' Trade show. During the same two days in March the New Athenaeum Theatre will be turned over to RSAMD's industry sponsors and suppliers enabling them to demonstrate and discuss their most recent equipment and products with prospective clients and visitors to the Academy. Companies such as Autograph Sales, VLPS Lighting Services, Rope Assemblies, Crosby Europe, Rosco, Zero 88 and Lyon Equipment Ltd will be talking part.

This is an opportunity for people to meet the RSAMD's staff, students and industry supporters as well as seeing what is happening at one of the fore

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Spain - We Will Rock You, the hit musical from Queen and Ben Elton, opened its third production at the Teatro Calderon in Madrid last November. Produced and directed by Luis Alvarez and lit by award-winning LD Willie Williams, with a rig supplied by Fourth Phase. Set design is by Mark Fisher and sound design by Bobby Aitken, formerly of Autograph but now freelance.

Williams, best known for his work in the music industry, most notably his close and ongoing collaboration with U2, revised his designs for the London and Melbourne productions after lighting We Will Rock You in Madrid. The rig uses a range of kit from manufacturers including ETC, Martin Professional, High End Systems and DHA Lighting.

Fourth Phase London supplied the lighting, along with full technical support and backup. Martin Chisnall - the production electrician from the London show - oversaw the Madrid installa

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UK - Giant video screen specialist Graham Burgess has launched displayLED, a giant video screen brokerage for all aspects of the business from the sale of previously-owned screens - an as yet untapped section of the market, say the company - to new screens and rental projects. The company's business hub is its website (address below), which went live on 1 February and carries details of screens available for purchase, as well as advice and background information to help potential buyers in their choice.

displayLED is independent of any screen manufacturer and will be able to offer purchasers a choice of many different manufacturers and models, advising impartially on the best model for a particular application, the most appropriate previously-owned screen for price-sensitive ventures, and bring the right people together for rental projects.

"The combined experience within

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