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Belgium / China - Following last month's contract win for the LED display installation at Nanjing Olympic Centre, Barco Media & Entertainment has been awarded two more major contracts in Chongqing, China. Barco will install outdoor LED displays for the city's International Convention & Exhibition Centre and also for the Chongqing Dahe Advertising Co.

Barco says the total value of the two Chongqing contracts is approximately € 1.5 Million. "I think the signing of these two contracts is a timely reflection of the rapid economic development of the western region in China, which has demonstrated an increased need for high-end facilities associated with the construction of social infrastructure, including large LED displays," says Marco Bruines, vice president Barco Media China.

At the Exhibition Centre, Barco will install an outdoor SLite 14 LED screen, with a total are

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UK - A CyberHoist / InMotion 3D motion control system has been specified for Coldplay's forthcoming 'Twisted Logic' world tour, which opens on 9 June with a sold-out show at the Olympia, Paris. Two months of European stadium and arena shows in June and July are followed from August onwards by a North American tour. The shows will come hard on the heels of the imminent release of the band's acclaimed album, 'X & Y'.

The tour's visual design is by Bryan Leitch and Nick Whitehouse. Siyan, co-owned by Bryan and Nick Valdez, will provide lighting production for the European shows in association with Flashlight Rental of Holland, while lighting for the North America dates will be a co-production between Siyan and PRG. Flashlight, part of the Ampco / Flashlight Group, will also provide the CyberHoist / InMotion 3D motion control system for the complete tour.

(Lee Baldock)

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Denmark - Nordic Rentals A/S has purchased 36 Crown I-Tech I-T4000 amplifiers, primarily for use in a fully digital monitor setup with a Yamaha PM5. Nordic Rentals A/S is one of Denmark's leading rental and production companies.

Technical Director of Nordic Rentals, Jens Elsborg, comments on choosing the the I-T4000: "The I-Tech Series from Crown is an ideal choice for us as monitor amp for several reasons. Most important is of course the sonic superiority of the Crown Class-I switchmode and PFC technology that makes I-Tech sound better than any other amplifier on the market. The on-board DSP-pack has a lot of nice features, is very easy to use, eliminates the need for external controllers and simplifies the wiring considerably. And the reduced weight makes handling easier for everybody! Furthermore, with digital inputs and TCP/IP networking capabilities, the I-Tech amps ar

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South Korea - Cadac reports the first installation in Asia for the M16 Remote Controlled Microphone Amplifier - at the Yonsei Central Baptist Church which boasts a 13,000-strong congregation. The M16 package was supplied by local Cadac distributor Dreamsound.

The Church's sound engineer, Mr Park, commented, said: "It was vital that we used high performance microphone preamplifiers on all primary sources in order to provide the clear and intelligible reproduction required within a house of worship. We auditioned a variety of microphone preamps and were very impressed by the Cadac M16. The other immediate benefit of using the M16 is that it has integrated seamlessly with our Harrison console."

The M16 integrates 16 of Cadac's classic mic pre-amps into a 19" rack unit, providing three active splits per channel plus a MADI interface. Up to 16 M16 units can be contro

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UK - Allen & Heath has licensed EtherSound and plans to incorporate the protocol in digital audio products. "EtherSound's responsiveness to user requests, and the consequent rapid evolution of this technology have been impressive," says A&H managing director Glenn Rogers.

EtherSound business development manager Jimmy Kawalek comments, "Allen & Heath could have chosen any technology to network its digital audio products. We're very pleased to have them as a member of the growing community of EtherSound licensees, which includes manufacturers of consoles, amplifiers, loudspeakers and safety systems as well as general-purpose and manufacturer-specific network interfaces."

In related news, Bittner Audio has licensed the open EtherSound standard in order to provide digital audio connectivity for its professional power amplifier line. "As live sound moves in

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UK - When Belinda King Presents approached LD Tim Routledge looking for new, flexible lighting products for new production shows onboard the world famous Queen Elizabeth II ocean liner - the new SoftLED video driven LED drape sprang to his mind. The custom SoftLED drapes were manufactured in 22oz cloth with 1,900 Color Kinetics tri-colour LED nodes and fibre optics sewn into them, and were fed by four Broadway Box power/data supplies hung behind the drape. For control, the Color Kinetics Video System Manager maps the video image across the drape, fed by the Hippotizer Media Server.

"I had worked on Belinda's shows onboard the QM2 and at that time we had a starcloth manufactured that had various images sewn into it. Having seen a brief video clip of the SoftLED I thought that this would be ideal for the QE2 projects, and this was proven in a full-scale mock up provided by Ar

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Canada - Toronto entertainment complex The Docks has expanded its attractions and audio networking capabilities. System designer PA Plus and contractor Sound Dymax paired new rooms with a facility-wide audio system retrofit. "The Docks is the poster child for audio transport and external control for DSPs," says Peter Lima of PA Plus. "This is a facility where size really does matter. Because of its size and technical demands, the limits of external control and distance of audio transport truly test the Cat 5's infrastructure."

With twelve external and sixteen internal zones, the Docks project was a complex operation for PA Plus. Ease of control, flexibility and future expandability were the priorities for Lima, who also executed the original DSP programming and system design. "The number of remotes that were required for installation in the facility was

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USA - Massachusetts-based Scorpio Sound recently purchased seven Lake Contour digital speaker processors, configured as two complete systems, to provide multi-zone speaker optimization of its touring audio systems. Lake Contour's high-resolution DSP-based speaker processing features, which include equalization, crossovers, and limiting, are controlled by Scorpio Sound's engineers using wireless touch screen tablets supplied with each of the two systems. MO

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Europe - Meyer Sound reports that European sound hire companies are "working overtime to keep up with an increasing demand for Meyer Sound systems at festival sites from the Baltic to the Mediterranean".

For Sweden's annual Hultsfred Festival, Starlight AB is powering the four main stages. M3D line arrays anchor the Hawaii and Pampas stages (25,000 and 12,000 capacity respectively), while MILO curvilinear arrays cover 5,000 at the Atlantis stage and M2D compact curvilinear arrays service the indoor theatre.

In Spain, major festivals that are scheduled to use Meyer systems include Metro Rock in Madrid, Festimad Sur between Madrid and Toledo, and the Festival International Benicassim (FIB) on the Mediterranean Coast near Valencia.

Meanwhile, on the shore of Lake Geneva, Switzerland, Meyer is about to notch up its 19th consecutive year as a sponsor of and official sou

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USA - City Theatrical, the Bronx, New York-based manufacturer of entertainment lighting accessories, has purchased the assets of A.C.T. Enterprises Inc, the Seattle, Washington based manufacturer of lighting hardware. Included in the purchase are all of A.C.T.'s lighting related product lines including the award winning Moving Light Hangers, Track Tamers, Safer Sidearms, and Vertical Extension Tubes, as well as their related patents, trademarks, production machinery and inventory, and an agreement for future product development. All equipment and manufacturing will be consolidated into CTI's New York production facilities.

CTI's president Gary Fails said: "I have admired Alan Crawshaw and his products ever since I met him. He's an inventor and innovator as well as being a well-known stagehand who knows the professional lighting world and its electricians and designers. This

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USA - The newly-opened Club Pure in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas features wall-to-wall Turbosound loudspeakers. The 36,000sq.ft club boasts four distinctly different nightlife areas, each with its own audio system, installed by Scott Fisher, owner of The Wave Sound in Las Vegas.

The main dance floor at Pure is a rectangular room flanked on two sides by raised VIP platforms. There are eight Turbosound TQ-315 loudspeakers, four TQ-425 dual 15" subwoofers, and two TSW-718 dual 18" subwoofers covering the dance floor. In addition, Turbosound manufactured six custom horn clusters with four drivers each that hang over the dance floor. An additional four TQ-308 loudspeakers cover the VIP platforms. Surrounding the main dance floor are two more TQ-308s, eight TCS-59s and three TQ-115 subwoofers.

The VIP facility, the Red Room, has a system comprising eight TQ-308s, three TCS

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UK - To celebrate the launch of its new range of versatile access tower products, Instant Planet is hosting a series of free 'best practice' Working at Height seminars across the UK, specifically for users of access towers. Estate management and Collection maintenance are central to the smooth running of heritage sites and museums, and with a number of tasks carried out at height it's essential that staff are provided with appropriate safety training. To help, Access Tower Specialist Instant Planet is offering a series of free seminars addressing the implications of the new HSE Working at Height Regulations.

Falls from height and particularly from ladders, are responsible for the majority of accidents and serious injuries within the work place, with as many as 50 deaths and 4,000 injuries sustained across all industry sectors in a single year. Looking in detail at how to conduct

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UK - Lighting company Siyan has purchased two new Avolites Diamond 4 consoles for the imminent Coldplay Twisted Logic world tour. Show designer Bryan Leitch has worked closely with lighting designer Nick Whitehouse to create a reportedly stunning show which promises to be "one of the most visually exciting and technically innovative of the year".

Of the Diamond 4, Whitehouse observes, "Apart from the fact it's one of the few consoles with the ability to run this many DMX Universes, It's also great for hands on work, and allows you to grab the elements you want and improvise immediately if you wish."

The D4 is fully loaded with 8 universes of DMX, including large quantities of moving and generic lights plus assorted video sources. Avolites made some specific software customisations for the console at the request of Whitehouse & Leitch, and Whitehouse

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Italy - Continuing a busy year of overseas work for the projects team at Hawthorns, the team recently worked on a five-venue global dealer conference in Venice. A logistical challenge in itself due to the lack of roads! Having off-loaded the artic' at the docks, all the kit was loaded by crane onto a specialist barge then onto one of each of the remote venues and the same in reverse. "Not quite the romantic images that one normally conjures up sailing down the Grand Canal, but still great fun," said Hawthorn's Simon Wood. "We always like a challenge and something a little bit different and this certainly was!"

Hawthorns supplied lighting, sound and rigging and power distribution for the events with in-house personnel on site throughout.

(Lee Baldock)

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Worldwide - Kylie's Showgirl tour may have come to a premature close for reasons we are all well aware of, but those that experienced the show will be eagerly awaiting her return. DiGiCo's D5 Live digital mixing consoles sat at both front-of-house and monitors throughout the tour, alongside a Martin W8L line array loudspeaker system controlled by XTA processing.

Kylie's front-of-house engineer Chris Pyne and system technician Tony Szabo have been with the singer for some considerable time. They have used a variety of equipment along the way, but Chris says he would opt for DiGiCo consoles any time. "I've been mixing Kylie for nine years now and she's one of the best live pop acts you could ever see," says Pyne. "I like mixing her on the D5. My personal opinion is, as an engineer, that you want as much information in front of you at any one time as you can possibly

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UK - Kave Theatre Services is returning to the ABTT Theatre Show, this year (15-16 June, Royal Horticultural Halls, London). Building on the considerable success of last year's show, the company says that this year's stand will be larger with many products on show. On the stand will be the renowned SFX sound playback software; RentalPoint, the leading asset management software for rental companies; and examples of Kave Theatre Services' wide range of flat kits. ABTT 2005 will also see the launch of KAVE's new webshop, the latest feature of the company's website.

(Lee Baldock)

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China - ETC has provided much of the entertainment and architectural lighting for the 50,000m2 Grand Theatre in Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang province in eastern China. The system includes the largest ETCNet2 networked system in Asia. Internationally-known architect Carlos A. Ott and Petroff Partnership Architects (PPA) earned first prize in the International Design Competition for their vision of the Grand, which has been said to resemble a sculpture more than a building.

The 1,600-seat Opera Hall, the largest of the Grand's four theatre halls, premiered in August 2004. ETC Asia equipped the hall with a 4,600-channel Obsession II full tracking console system, which controls more than 300 ETC Source Fours lighting the massive stage. The 600-seat Concert Hall opened in early 2005 and has an ETC Express console for lighting control.

Later this year the Grand will open a mult

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Switzerland - Following the global launch of the Mercedes Benz M-Class, TLD Planungsgruppe GmbH was again called upon to provide the overall lighting for the debut of the B-Class at the Geneva International Motor Show, which also served as the platform for the European première of the company's M-class, the world debut of its redesigned CLK-Class and the unveiling of the Manufaktur Maybach 57S.

Tasked with making the lighting of an overall area of 2,200sq.m look stunning, TLD pulled out all the stops to ensure that the show was a success for Mercedes Benz' and Manufaktur Maybach's parent company DaimlerChrysler AG. TLD began work four months prior to the show's opening, when chief LD Richard Profe analyzed how the vehicles would look under the different colour temperatures of various fixtures. Profe then moved on to specify the lighting for the service areas, offices and confer

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UK - Architectural lighting specialist LTP has commissioned and programmed 130 Color Kinetics iColor Cove EC fixtures for the Twilight Zone at The Deep in Hull - the world's only submarium. The Twilight Zone is a newly opened £6.8m exhibition within The Deep, exploring the life forms found beneath the sunlit zone of the ocean. Highlights include giant Japanese Spider crabs, Pacific octopus, wolf eels and the other-worldly Nautilus.

Lighting for The Twilight zone was designed by DHA's Peter Fordham. He also created the original lighting design for the popular attraction when it opened in 2002, in which LTP was also involved in the supply. Once again, he approached LTP's Terry Reeves to commission and programme the Color Kinetics fixtures once they had been specified and installed.

Dark blues, purples and rich UV hues are the predominant colours in the Twilight Zone. It was imp

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Portugal - PRG Europe supplied lighting and a G-LEC large scale LED system with video capabilities for the sixth annual Laureus World Sports Awards in Estoril. The event attracted an estimated worldwide TV audience of 460 million. Award winners included athlete Kelly Holmes, yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur and racing driver Alessandro Zanardi,

Designed by Peter Bingemann, the Awards set used video screens and lighting for all the visual elements, with the video content provided by specialists Hello Charlie.

PRG Europe supplied 56 G-LEC ClassicFrames covering some 112m2 with five linked graphics computers. Configured as eight columns of seven panels each, four columns of G-LEC were used as static elements, while the other four were mounted on tab tracks, moving the lightweight screens across the stage as required.

Lighting designer Al Gurdon used a large lighting rig provided by

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UK - London's QEII Conference Centre, situated directly opposite Westminster Abbey, has undergone a striking application of Colour to its building exterior. To achieve this, the QEII management have embraced the latest developments in LED fixture technology by the integration of Pulsar ChromaFlood200 fixtures into their exterior lighting scheme.

A total of fourteen high-power RGB (Red-Green-Blue) CFLD200 fixtures provide stunning changing colour to the building facade with a maximum power requirement of only 2,500 watts, a figure that is reduced to about 1,250 watts for most of the programmed scenes.

Control is provided by a Pulsar Masterpiece Replay Unit that performs the pre-programmed scenes that are then transmitted by DMX to the fixtures in real time.

QEII production manager, Derek Chalmers who conceived and implemented the project commented, "This is an amazing st

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UK - London based events agency GSP was chosen by Red Bull to design its Star Wars party, which celebrated Red Bull's and Star Wars' brand partnership at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix. Staged in Monaco's Grimaldi Forum, the star-studded event involved an exclusive screening of Revenge of the Sith and an AfterShow party. GSP used two auditoriums in the Grimaldi Forum. While one was deployed for the screening in a 400 capacity cinema, the second was used for the party.

GSP's Director, Emma Gold comments, "This was undoubtedly a challenging event, but one we so enjoyed perfecting. We drew from our experience to create a movie set with a twist that offered the Wow factor that we feel is essential to stand out and leave a lasting impression."

(Jim Evans)

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Spain - Barcelona-based Lexon has won the HHB 2004/5 European Distributor Of The Year Award. Presented to José Bosch, general manager, by HHB Communications managing director Ian Jones at the Barcelona AES Show, the award recognises the Spanish distributor's status as HHB's leading European export customer in the period.

"It gives us great pleasure to make this award to our friends at Lexon in their home town, particularly at a time when the market for pro audio products in Spain is so vibrant," said Jones. "José and his staff have worked very hard as our distribution partners in Spain for more than eight years, and we are sure that Lexon will achieve continued success with future HHB products including the new CDP-88 Professional CD Player launched here at the AES Show."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - A.C. Lighting will be showing extensions to the Jands Vista and Chroma-Q Color Block product ranges plus a selection of products from its stockholding of leading technical theatre brands at ABTT.

The Color Block accessories range now features new Color Block pixel cap and 30-way power supply products, making the multi-purpose LED fixture suitable for a wider range of effects lighting applications.

The pixel cap is designed for applications under studio lighting conditions, where lens flare can appear on the TV camera image as a result of shooting into a bright light source. Designed to fit over individual RGB LED cells on the front of units, the cap blends together the RGB to show only the resulting colour, and because the light output is diffused, eliminates camera lens flare. Pixel caps can be used on all or any of the Color Block's 4 separate cells.

The 30-way PSU is

  1. Soundcraft adds dual purpose desk
  2. Sony to sponsor ISE 2006
  3. Royal Opera House switches to ProTrac
  4. ConferenceONE for Magistrates Courts
  5. Difuzion design for new club Sanuk
  6. JTE Pixels for UVA at onedotzero
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