UK - Thousands of loyal folk fans gathered in August for one of the most eagerly anticipated folk festivals of the season, Cropredy. The long-running festival, which has been a regular fixture since the late 70s, was headlined again by Fairport Convention - the original founders of Cropredy. The festival also featured the Oysterband, Jethro Tull and Nick Harper. SSE Hire was once again the chosen audio contractor for the event. The PA system was the Nexo Geo T with a Midas Heritage 3000 console out front and a Midas XL348 onmonitors.

Huw Richards, FOH engineer for SSE commented: "Every engineer had something positive to say about the system this weekend - all were really happy. It's the first time I've used a line array at a folk festival and I was really impressed at the quality of the output, especially with such a wide range of acoustic instruments in use. Overall it was

USA - Utah's Salt Lake City Olympic Legacy Theatre uses a pair of Jem Glaciator heavy foggers to create a special cloud effect during the opening and closing scenes of a feature movie that is presented several times each day.

Supplied by Las Vegas-based atmospheric and effects specialists Water FX, the Glaciators are used to create a three-dimensional cloud at the beginning of the film, a curved 37ft (11.3m) fog barrier that covers the projection screen. The fog creates a curtain onto which three projectors cast images of blue clouds. The fog curtain is controlled via fans and manifolds, and at one point a hole is blown through the cloud to create for the audience the effect of flying through the clouds.

At the end of the movie, viewers journey back through the clouds. Some 150ft (45.7m) of ducting, plus 120ft (36.6m) of manifold and 100ft (30.5m) of tubing with a large diver

USA - Loud Technologies Inc has announced a cross-licensing agreement with Echo Digital Audio, which will see Loud Technologies license FireWire audio technology from Echo, while Echo licenses Mackie-branded application and plug-in products from Loud. "This partnership leverages each company's strengths," commented Tony Rodrigues, business development manger at Loud. "Echo is a recognized leader in the development of high-quality audio devices for computer-based audio workstations. Combining their expertise with Mackie's exceptional analogue and digital audio technologies will result in a new generation of high-performance audio I/O products that will bring a host of innovative features and capabilities to the desktop and professional recording markets."

As part of this agreement, Echo will begin bundling Mackie-branded software products with their PCI and F

UK - A high-profile vodka bar in Bedford has become a showcase for the latest fashions in LED lighting. Purchased recently by Mark Walker for his girlfriend Deborah, Bar Soviet is equipped with the latest Mood panel and high-power Solar MR16 RGB downlighter technology - supplied by Ian Kirby's Lighting Effects Distribution.

Having finally taken over the premises which he had tried for four years to acquire, the new owner - who also runs the company Laser Light International - wasted no time. First he applied for a PEL (which he hopes will give him a 3am license) and then he contacted his friend, Glasgow-based Nadar Shahzad of Blue Audio. Shahzad reports, "Mark wanted the venue to constantly change colour. Although he hadn't seen the Mood panels, we had been sent a demo unit last year - and I knew this would be the perfect solution for him."

Offering a split screen di

UK - The Product Excellence Awards at the PLASA Show has been a popular feature of the event for many years, highlighting the significance of the show as a focus for new developments for the industry. To reinforce this role, the PLASA Awards have undergone an important change for the 2004 event (12-15 September), in order to focus on genuine innovation.

For the re-branded PLASA Awards for Innovation, the judges will be looking for products which advance the industry, demonstrate a new style of thinking, represent a key step forward in safety terms, or improve technical practices. There will be eight Awards for Innovation at the judges' disposal and currently over 60 nominations have been received, with just three weeks before the deadline of Friday 3 September. Exhibitors who still wish to nominate a product are urged to submit their applications as soon as possible. Nominees w

UK - James Thomas will show its comprehensive ranges of trussing, tower and ground support systems - including the new Mini Tower trussing system - and theatrical lanterns. The latter include the legendary aluminium PAR can, cyc lights, spot banks and light battens.

The Mini Tower system is a small ground support tower designed to lift loads of up to 1000 kg to a maximum height of 7.5 metres in a three or four tower configuration; 7.5 metres in a goal post (two tower) configuration. JTE is also showing examples of its large range of standard aluminium trussing, ground support and roofing structures. JTE trussing and aluminium products are in clubs and destination venues of all types, large scale festivals, theatres, concert tours, theme parks, visitor attractions and retail environments. The most popular aluminium products include GP (General purpose) trussing, SuperTruss, Super

USA - Color Kinetics and Spectrum Manufacturing Inc, a subsidiary of UK-based A.C. Lighting, have announced a patent licensing agreement through which Spectrum will expand the Chroma-Q line of products with a new LED-based offering. The first new product, called Color Block, will be unveiled by A.C. Lighting at the PLASA show in London (12-15 September).

"Color Kinetics works proactively to help OEM and Licensing customers enter and find success in the intelligent solid-state lighting space, and we're very pleased to extend the advantages of our intellectual property to Spectrum, whose Chroma-Q line will now feature the proven benefits of LED technology," said Bill Sims, President and COO, Color Kinetics. "This agreement represents the latest achievement in maximizing the value of our technology know-how and supporting industry-wide adoption of intelligent solid-

UK - One of the world's leading cruise ships, the QE2, has undergone an extensive technical refurbishment of its Grand Lounge, the largest entertainment venue on the ship. A new Martin Audio sound system has been installed to handle the Lounge's diverse programme of events.

The Grand Lounge stretches over two decks of the ship, accommodating 450 people in cabaret-style seating on two levels. Twice a night, the ship's on-board cast present theatrical production shows, and occasionally guest cabaret artists perform, as well as dance bands. Cunard's entertainment technical manager Andy Pygott had to search for a sound reinforcement system that was flexible enough to handle these shows, as well as all the other events that are hosted by the Grand Lounge throughout the day.

"We were looking for a system that would deliver even sound coverage across the whole room, with a part

Greece - The 2004 Olympics are being broadcast to thousands of fans and spectators at the event at numerous locations in and around the historic city of Athens, using state-of-the-art Barco equipment, the company reports. Other regions, such as ancient Olympia, Thessalonica, Volos, Heraklion and Patras, as well as municipalities around Greece, are also involved in the franchised Olympic Celebration sites program. With expected ticketed visitor numbers reaching well over 5.3 million, the Barco LED display and projection solutions used in the various sporting venues and entertainment locations around the country have their work cut out.

Over the last months of the preparation for the games, Telmaco, the main system designer and integrator, in cooperation with Barco, has installed two SLite 22 LED displays at the Karaiskaki Stadium in Faliro Piraeus and the Kaftatzoglio Stadium in

UK - Outline's patented Butterfly line array had its UK debut this summer, at the only live gig performed in Europe by The Isley Brotheres. Kool and the Gang and the sensational Amy Winehouse supported the Isley's, while the Sunday featured Michael Ball. Capacity audiences on both days enjoyed the summer sun at Penshurst Place in Tonbridge, Kent.

The show moved on to Harewood House near Leeds for 7-8 August and the Saturday night saw Will Young play to a capacity audience of over 16,000 eager fans. The show used Outline's Butterfly Line Array and a full 20-way stage mix which used Outline's H.A.R.D 212 monitors.

The front-of-house system consisted of 16 Outline CDH483 mid/high packs per side and 16 Outline 'Victor' live sub-basses (eight per side), the whole system powered by Outline TP 6.5 PWM digital amplifiers and controlled by Lake Contour system processors. Sigma AV Ltd,

Russia - Exactly 53,212 spectators were in attendance on the 31 July, 2004, beneath the huge new canopy held aloft by 16 supports, as Berlin's Olympic Stadium - four years out of commission for rebuilding - re-opened with a magnificently staged spectacle.

Charged with the installation of a brand-new sound reinforcement system and supported by EVI Audio, the Berlin-based sound and events specialists TSE AG opted for a large Electro-Voice sound reinforcement system and a Dynacord PA. In addition to outstanding sound quality, the new equipment offers reliable and convenient system control and monitoring. In this, Electro-Voice's IRIS software and remote-controlled amplifiers play key roles. Explains Oliver Sahm, project and sales manager permanent installation Europe: "Having to install the loudspeaker enclosures in the roof is hardly conducive to easy maintenance. Thanks to E

UK / USA - Artistic Licence has announced the re-launch of its LED based digital lighting range in the United States. The ET-LDI show in Las Vegas will provide the venue from 22 to 24 October. Artistic Licence offers a wide range of LED based colour-mixing products. The range includes 'off-the-shelf' products along with a projects department focussed on bespoke design. Artistic Licence has recently completed two major projects in London, totaling over 100,000 LEDs. The Projects department continues to expand with 'in-progress' sites in Melbourne, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.Artistic's managing director, Wayne Howell comments: "We are very excited about the US re-launch of our LED range. We have a diverse product range and a committed projects team that has a lot to offer the US market. Many of our competitors take an 'if it's not in the catalogue, we don't do it' a

Ireland - For about a year now, film equipment rental company Arri has been using a Telex BTR-700 intercom system - most recently on the set of the Touchstone/Bruckheimer production King Arthur. Most of the shooting for the film was done during a six-month period in Ireland, and the BTR-700 played a vital role.

Hans Lehner, one of the Arri technicians responsible for camera and stage equipment, said: "The system was used by key members of the crew - the director, the camera operators, the director of photography and the crane operator. At times, up to five of them were hooked up at the same time during a take, exchanging information and correcting or fine-tuning settings they had tried out earlier - such is the clarity of the system that they were able to communicate in whispers so as not to bleed into the production audio during passages of dialogue. The BTR-700 was

USA - Elation Professional has been appointed the exclusive North American distributor for Antari products. Based in Taiwan, Antari has been designing and manufacturing fog machines for 20 years, as well as other atmospheric effects such as snow and bubble machines.

"We are extremely proud to represent such a world-renowned supplier as Antari," said John Lopez, national sales manager for Elation Professional. "Not only do they make some of the highest quality fog machines, but for the past two decades they've been a leader in research and development and have introduced countless innovations to the category."

Elation Professional will exhibit the Antari line at the 2004 LDI Show (Booth #2000) in Las Vegas, October 22-24, and a range of the Taiwanese manufacturer's newest foggers and other atmospheric effects will be on display. "We are very excited t

UK - tsg, the national media programming and systems design company, has recently relocated to purpose-built premises including offices, promedia production facility and media duplication suite in Chesterfield, Derbyshire. The move is a controlled expansion, say the company, following recent gains across all market sectors, and provides the company with an opportunity to bring its four Sheffield offices under one roof, just 10 miles from the company's 'spiritual' home in Sheffield.

Commenting on the move, Paul Stead, tsg's managing director, said: "As an enlightened SME, we recognized the gains to be had from moving to a new location. The move will allow us to offer a far speedier response to our customers' needs through improved internal linkages, and also provides for a far stronger team dynamic. The staff love our new home and we look forward to welcoming our many custom

Canada - Toronto's Olympic Island was the site of the city's 'edgiest' day of live music this summer as Adamson loudspeakers helped create some all-Canadian sonic boom. Toronto-based sound specialists Towers Productions took charge of providing the system for the day-long festival, which attracted over 8,000 to Olympic Island.

A Y-Axis line array system was employed for the event stage, comprising: 32 Y10s and 16 Y10 Subs. Four Adamson LX10s provided centre lip-fill; and for side-fill, three Adamson SpekTrix and one SpekTrix Sub per side were used. Adamson's compact, versatile SpekTrix and its new companion SpekTrix Sub were also ground stacked 'two and two' to handle drum-fill duty. A dozen low-profile Adamson 12MX were used for on-stage monitors.

Headliners Sam Roberts and veteran alt-rockers Sloan capped off a day of musical acts that included Broken Social Scene, Buck 65 a

UK - Sovico Corporation (previously Daiyoung) has recently become the exclusive distributor of Soundtracs/DiGiCo products in Korea. With 30 years' experience of the pro audio industry, the company has distributed many high profile brands - mainly analogue but also several digital processing products - within that territory. "The market trend is going towards the digital domain," says Sovico's Yun Choi. "We have realized the importance of digital equipments and to keep up with this world trend, especially in high-end consoles, we've been tying to find the brand we want to be associated with and finally met DiGiCo.

"Recently, overseas companies have produced many large-scale concerts and events held in Korea. These kinds of events require powerful, large-scale high-end systems and we are now confident that we have a complete system capable of running such perf

UK - Allen & Heath's New Zealand distributor, Jansen Sound & Lighting, has recently installed iDR systems in two venues in the Auckland area. The Cock & Bull public house in Lynfield, Auckland, is the latest in a chain of Old English themed taverns, with full restaurant facilities and live bands performing three times a week. An iDR-8 digital mixing processor has been installed to distribute audio to various zones around the venue, programmed to automatically change the volume and lighting levels at predetermined times of the day. Eight PL-4 wall panels were also installed around the tavern to allow remote control of multiple sources, including a CD player, computer music system, various TV channels and a wireless mic used for Quiz nights.

The IDR-8 provides EQ and routing to the main Proel TFL speaker system - which consists of six Proel TFL10P and two Proel TFL115 subs - and a

USA - Color Kinetics Inc has been issued with a US patent relating to a miniaturized, integrated, intelligent solid-state string light, in which individual LED nodes in a string configuration can be independently controlled. US patent number 6,777,891 relates in part to technology that is implemented in Chromasic, the company's proprietary integrated circuit that allows a reduction in the cost, size, weight, and complexity of systems requiring many small light sources. One commercial application of this technology is the iColor Flex SL product, introduced by Color Kinetics in September 2003 - a flexible, multi-purpose, intelligent solid-state string light comprised of individually controllable tri-color LED nodes. By refining control down to the singular LED level, this technology enables complex and intricately designed effects that may span many thousands of nodes - making previ

UK - This year has seen a sharp rise in new investments by Terry Jones of Cambridge Disco Hire and Sales. After completing his long-planned move to new premises, over the last 24 months he has built an enviable showroom of the latest lighting effects and audio products, as well as a hire and production department which includes everything from staging to dressing rooms.

As part of the investment for the production and hire department, Jones had been looking for a compact but high output and scaleable audio system for some time. He relates: "I had the opportunity to see and hear several systems, but when Andy Austin-Brown presented the KV2 Audio ES system to me last year, I knew that I had found what I had been waiting to hear. Compact, but incredibly potent, I was astonished to hear such vivid resolution and integrity. Just to make sure that I wasn't kidding myself, I call

Germany - DPA Microphones recently announced it has promoted one of its German dealers, Mega Audio, to the status of sole importer and exclusive distributor for the country. Based in Bingen just outside Frankfurt, Mega Audio had previously represented DPA as a dealer for the past four years, along with Analog Audio (Munich), Hamburg Pro Audio (Hamburg) and HL Audio (Berlin). The decision to appoint Mega Audio as its sole distributor was viewed as an amicable one all round, with the three other companies remaining as dealers for DPA products in their respective territories.

Mega Audio was originally set up as a recording studio specialist and a wholesale company for recording equipment. When the studio market started to decline, Mega Audio made the move into high-end pro audio distribution. Today, as well as DPA, its product portfolio includes Fostex, InnovaSON, Apogee Electronic

UK - ETS Sales & Hire is based just outside Norwich, where it provides a comprehensive repair service to the sound and light industry as well undertaking full electro/mechanical installations.

Run by partners Les Bell and Paul Saunders and ably assisted by Jenny Wright, over the past six years, the company has developed a simple, methodical approach to acquiring clients and building business relationships. Naturally included are many of the holiday and leisure groups who operate along the East coast from Lincolnshire via Norfolk to Hampshire in the South.

ETS has just completed its first audio system installation for its new clients Haven, part of the Bourne Leisure Group a portfolio that includes Butlins, British Holidays and Warners holidays.

Bell explains: "We had provided repair facilities for a number of the Haven sites, but had never had the opportunity to present

UK - The PRG Europe sales team (formerly VLPS Lighting Services) has announced it is to sell the new product Bak Pak from Entertainment Technology, a Division of the Genlyte Thomas Company.

The new groundbreaking Bak Pak IGBT dimming module is the ideal complementary device for conventional fixtures that require more advanced control. The Bak Pak is an individual dimmer that mounts wherever a need exists for a "single" dimmer, thus eliminating the need for additional rack space. Entertainment Technology introduced the Bak Pak at LDI 2003.

The Bak Pak dimmer is a powerful, silent, compact, affordable, IGBT DMX controlled lightweight dimmer that lives right where its needed. Complex technology - simple solutions.

The module, available in 750W, 1200W or 2400W versions, operates using standard USITT DMX512 protocol. It is also completely functional using on board contr

UK - Corporate and event lighting specialist Colourhouse is enjoying a summer of close collaboration with designers Bluey Design, working with them on projects for General Motors at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and for British Telecom's Exact Ball in Suffolk. At Goodwood, Bluey Design was continuing an association with General Motors stretching back to 2002, working for Jack Morton in Detroit. The General Motors Orangery is a space used by the executive officers of General Motors worldwide to relax and entertain their guests away from the bustle of the motor-racing outside. By day, the space contains a set creating an elegant and contemporary space; by night, the venue is transformed into a gala dining space.

Bluey Design was responsible for lighting both the exterior and the interior of the Orangery. The interior day set was enhanced with custom-made low-voltage stick lights

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