Business

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UK - Distribution for Schoeps microphones in the UK and Republic of Ireland is now being handled by ioCo Limited - a company formed by Neal McCormack, who has over 15 years experience of distributing Schoeps products. The intention of the new venture, says McCormack, is "to bring this prestigious microphone range, much beloved of the recording cognoscente, to a much broader user base, especially in education, theatre and live sound."

(Lee Baldock)

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Australia / USA - The International Communications Industries Association Inc (ICIA/InfoComm), the premier trade association for the audiovisual industry worldwide, is pleased to announce its participation at Entech 2006 (Sydney Convention & Exhibition Centre February 13 - 15 2006).

ICIA/InfoComm will offer a one-day program consisting of four 90-minute seminars featuring AV design, display, signal management and presentation support for end users. The seminars are being presented by InfoComm Academy's instructors at Entech. A breakfast meeting of the newly created ICIA Australia and New Zealand Member Council will precede the seminars. In addition, ICIA will host a booth on the exhibition floor.

"ICIA is delighted to participate at Entech next year," said Terry Friesenborg, CTS, senior vice-president for international development of ICIA. "Demand has dramatical

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UK - Arena Structures provided a selection of temporary structures for the Chelmsford site of V Festival 2005, where Oasis, The Streets, KT Tunstall, Franz Ferdinand and Scissor Sisters all entertained huge crowds throughout the weekend. The structures, which ranged from 20m x 30m to 5m x 5m in size, were used all over the site, most notably for the NME signing tent, where a number of performers including Magic Numbers and Good Charlotte met and signed autographs for fans.

The backstage artist's bar was also housed in an Arena structure, which was busy throughout the weekend with artists and production crew alike watching the action on stage through plasmas which displayed a live feed from the main stage, and catching the action from the weekend's football matches. Commercial manager Rory O'Neil explained: "This event gave us the chance to show that Arena Structures is abou

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UK - Avesco plc's Creative Technology fulfilled the screen requirements for the recent stadium section of a tour by Oasis. The company positioned four Barco D-Lite 7 LED screens at the rear of the stage, controlled by a Kinesys tracking system with slow start/slow finish actuators that allowed them to move in the vertical plane, to fly in and out of the set during the show. Two further 8.1m x 5.4m D-Lite 7 screens, were positioned left and right on the stage wings to provide straightforward IMAG footage.

SDI feeds from a front of house PPU were routed into a central matrix, allowing any of the feeds to be switched into any of the screens at any time. This meant that if an input feed dropped out, there was the means to send a good feed to another screen without a break in video footage. The combination of stage and IMAG screens allowed video director Dick Carruthers and his compa

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UK - PRG Europe provided extensive lighting facilities for this year's Henley Festival, which takes place on the banks of the River Thames immediately following the famed Regatta. "It's been described as a cross between Glyndebourne and Glastonbury," said festival director Stewart Collins. "And each year the site looks better and better, because of the way it is lit after dark by PRG. This year, it looked fantastic. Dusk was at 10.15pm, at which point the entire site was illuminated - as opposed to floodlit - using cutting edge lighting to stunning effect."

PRG Europe has been working with the festival for the past five years, says project manager Peter Marshall, lighting the whole site, providing all the crew and organising the lighting for the main performance venues. The site lighting was designed and theatrically lit by lighting designer Theo Cox to creat

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UK - CAST's renowned WYSIWYG workshops have now been confirmed as part of the overall seminar and training programme at this year's PLASA Show (11-14 September, Earls Court 1, London). The workshops will offer an introduction to this industry-standard lighting visualisation software, which is used by lighting professionals the world over on productions ranging from major concerts to West End musicals, and from blockbuster movies to cutting-edge architectural installations.

Created by Cast Software, WYSIWYG has won many awards, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Achievement in Engineering Development. Lighting designers, programmers and operators can join Josh Koffman, WYSIWYG's product manager, for an overview of the system, before focusing on essentials such as basic CAD techniques, fixture selection and placement, rendering and plotting. Josh will also introduce attendees

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USA - The Rolling Stones' world tour kicked off in the US on Sunday, 21 August with a Flying Pig Systems Wholehog 3 console specified for lighting control. The lighting team includes lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe, lighting director Ethan Weber and programmer Dave Hill. Lighting contractor is PRG, which also supplied a Wholehog 3 backup. The veteran rockers' A Bigger Bang world tour spans the globe through 2006.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Cheshire-based VME Ltd used a selection of Allen & Heath mixers for the sixth annual Wakestock festival, which took place this month in North Wales. With an increased capacity of 20,000 visitors and four arenas of top DJs and bands, Wakestock has become Europe's largest wakeboard music event. VME managed all of the festival's technical requirements, supplying Kling & Freitag speakers, Lab Gruppen amplifiers, Martin Professional Mac lighting fixtures, and a cross-section of Allen & Heath's live sound consoles and DJ mixers.

The Main Arena included live performances from the Ordinary Boys, the Undertones, Million Dead, the Bodyrockers and Thirteen Senses, whilst the Second Arena and Brouhaha Beach stages hosted DJ sets throughout the weekend from Tall Paul, Norman Jay, the Scratch Perverts, John '00' Fleming, and The Libertines's Carl Barat. Allen & Heath's compact multi-purp

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UK -Large format projection specialist E//T//C UK is supplying spectacular projections for the 2005 Edinburgh Military Tattoo. It's the first time this visual medium has successfully been incorporated into this world famous event. E//T//C UK's Ross Ashton states, "It was an honour to be asked to design for the Edinburgh tattoo. It's a world class event with a global reputation, and I hope that I have added a new element to the already existing excellent mix."

This year, the special theme of the Tattoo is the bicentennial commemoration of the Battle of Trafalgar, and Jameson thought all the elements were in place to integrate projection into his show.

Ashton was asked to storyboard a 10 minute projection show narrative and design artwork to be beamed onto the Castle battlements and Gatehouse for the Battle of Trafalgar sequence. The 60 metre wide by 30 metre tall pict

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UK - Leeds-based Zig Zag Lighting has unveiled a new business venture and website, www.lightingsales-direct.co.uk, which aims to provide quality lighting and associated products at competitive prices to the entertainment industry. The site is a full e-commerce facility that allows anyone from amateur theatre groups to professional DJs and club owners to source the latest lighting products.

Zig Zag managing director Neil Hunt says, "The idea is to provide a site that any user can go to and purchase professional quality lighting equipment. We source our products from well respected suppliers and pass on that quality and good service to the end-user."

Hadyn Thomas, the site's developer, adds, "There is a gap in the market for such a service and when I was approached by Zig Zag to create the site, I was confident that it would prove to be a successful venture."

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UK - Since its inauguration in 1990, King Tut's Wah Wah Hut has grown to become one of Glasgow's leading concert venues, renowned in Scotland as an exciting showcase for new and emerging bands. Owned and managed by Scotland's foremost music promoters DF Concerts, King Tut's has played host to bands including Radiohead, Blur, Travis, Pulp and The Verve before they reached the heights of music superstardom. It also hosted the first Scottish gigs for Beck, Crowded House and The Strokes, and created a piece of rock and roll history as the venue where Oasis were first spotted and signed in 1993.

To maintain its position, the venue has needed to keep its performance infrastructure at the cutting edge. As their head technician Jerry Radford puts it: "We're always upgrading equipment; it's an ongoing thing . . . like the Forth Road Bridge."

Recently they were forced to upgra

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UK - Bandit Lites supplied lighting production and crew for LD Jonny Gaskell's spectacular visual design at the Top Shop Fashion Show and Awards. The two-day event was staged at Syon House in West London, and each day saw 1500 of the popular retailer's design teams and store managers as guests.

The project was managed for Bandit by Lester Cobrin who has worked with Gaskell several times in the past. Gaskell and his partner Nick Gray of Renegade Lighting were asked onboard by event producers 9PR, who are regular clients.

Lester Cobrin comments, "Jonny is one of the most talented and enthusiastic LD's I've had the pleasure of working with. He has tremendous vision and the end product is always refreshing and innovative."

Gaskell had to light the show and catwalk area in a 150ft long marquee, featuring a central stage area with four runways coming off it at right angl

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France - The biggest fireworks display in Europe was held on the first Saturday in August, as it is every year, at the Fete du Lac in Annecy. Set against the stunning backdrop of the French Alps, it is a truly spectacular event that attracts tens of thousand of visitors every year.

This year's theme was Chansons d'Amour with a prelude courtesy of Les Choeurs de France (the choirs of France), an ensemble of 700 choristers whose music also accompanied the pyrotechnic display. Production was handled by Annecy Evenements who turned to Austrian pyrotechnician, Armin Lukasser for the second year running to create the fireworks spectacular. Also for the second year running, audio was handled by Starlight Evenementiel a full service production company from Alsace.

Starlight worked in conjunction with German rental company, Omega, and between them they fielded a powerful 130-box

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UK - Club operator Mark Sansom who made his name at London dance temple, Bagleys in King's Cross, came out of his self-enforced retirement to open the 350-capacity Vanilla Bar in Windsor. He has spent around £1m fitting out an empty building on the town's leisure strip, with a sunken fish tank in the entrance and separate Main Bar, Club Bar and luxurious LED-lit Lounge/Cocktail bar. "Although we are no longer DJ-led I still get a lot of top people wanting to play here because of past connections," says Mark. "I know the calibre of DJs we will get and what they will want to play on."

For the sound system, he passed up the rackmount twin CD option in favour of two of the individual Denon DN-S1000 tabletops, which also support MP3. Denon were able to design this as an affordable, entry-level product after first adapting the template of the award-winning DN-S500

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UK - With little more than two weeks to go until PLASA 2005 opens its doors, here are 10 reasons why you can't afford to miss out on this year's Show - taking place between Sunday 11 and Wednesday 14 September at Earls Court, London:

1. You'll see lots of new ideas - over 1,000 new products will be launched, and the best of these will be featured in the Innovation Gallery.
2. You'll see all the major international brands and manufacturers from around the globe.
3. You'll find more new companies exhibiting this year than ever before.
4. You'll hear about numerous new industry initiatives.
5. You'll find out what others are spending their money on and why.
6. You'll get to talk to lots of different people, many of them potential customers.
7. You'll take back knowledge to your workplace.
8. All the major industry trade associations will be there to offe

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UK - Lightfactor Sales has sold SGM Palco colour changing LED luminaires to Bristol-based lighting rental company, Fineline. Fineline's Darren Wring first trialled the Palcos on a corporate job at the NEC in Birmingham for Spandex, after which he was so impressed he decided to invest in the units. These went straight out again on another show for Spandex in Amsterdam.

The new Spandex exhibition stand's design and lighting design is by Wring and was built by James Thomas Engineering. It's an impressive 12 metres wide by 16 metres long, and the whole stand spins round in a circle, and is animated by both movement and changing colours.

Lightfactor's Peter Coles completed the deal with Fineline, "It's great to see companies like Fineline investing in LED technology, and we're really pleased that Darren chose the Palco as his first LED wash fixtures. It's generally been an exc

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UK - Shure Distribution UK will be showing products from Shure, QSC Audio, Phonic and Sound Devices at PLASA 2005. Shure will present the UHF-R Wireless Systems which features networked automatic set-up to minimize set-up time and effort, 75MHz bandwidth for reliable, trouble-free operation, integrated Wireless Workbench Software for advanced, real-time network control and Audio Reference Companding technology for exceptional audio quality.

Shure's new premium KSM9 vocal condenser wireless capsule will also make its official UK debut. Available exclusively with the UHF-R systems, the KSM9 capsule will be offered in champagne and black finishes by the end of the year. Shure UHF-R/KSM9 seminars will take place during the show from Monday to Tuesday at midday and 3pm.

From Phonic the show visitor will witness the latest and most powerful additions to the XP Series of amplifiers,

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UK - DJs keen to see all the latest DJ technologies should head to this year's PLASA Show, which runs for four full-on days at Earls Court 1 in London, from 11-14 September. Both show floors will be packed with the hottest DJ gear - everything from the smartest decks to top-of-the-range mixers.

Denon, Numark, Pioneer, Stanton and Vestax will be just some of the big-name brands at the Show, and a key part of the 300-strong line up of exhibitors showcasing current trends in lighting, sound, AV and multimedia technologies.

DJ Sunday, sponsored by iDJ magazine, will get the show off to a flying start with numerous events, giveaways and on-stand demos by leading DJs. In the DJ Lounge (at the back of the hall), visitors can watch the winners of iDJ Magazine's monthly Raw Talent competition and there will also be an opportunity to take the first steps into music production with a Tal

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Australia - Australian manufacturer LSC Lighting Systems was contracted to design and supply a cabinet dimming system for the Australian Government's pavilion at World Expo 2005. Held in Aichi, Japan, World Expo commenced on 25 March and will wind up in late September. It provides a significant opportunity to promote Australia to the world and averages 20,000 people through the pavilion every day, with the grand total of visitors nearing the two million mark.

The Australian pavilion reflects the theme of the Expo - Nature's Wisdom - from an Australian perspective. Visitors to the Australian pavilion gain an understanding that through learning the lessons of the past and using modern-day technology, we are better able to provide for the sustainable future - environmentally, economically and socially. The pavilion showcases Australia's unique lifestyle - a lifestyle that ha

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USA - In October 2004, Jeep found a spectacular way to drive home the point that the 2005 Grand Cherokee literally could "go anywhere": they sent the vehicle up the outside of the 27-storey high-rise at 2 Penn Center in midtown Manhattan. On the ground, a half-million unflappable New Yorkers stopped to stare, while TV and webcams sent images to millions of viewers worldwide. The amazement was real, but the feat was an elaborate theatrical illusion, made possible by the meticulous planning, engineering and fabrication that PRG puts into every production.

In just three weeks, PRG designed, installed and tested the mechanism that would make the vehicle appear to climb the 414-foot structure under its own power. To reduce weight, they removed the engine and transmission from the Grand Cherokee, installed a motor that made the wheels turn, and fixed the assembly to a sled t

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Sweden - On the evening of 18 August, Ericsson Racing Team's Volvo Ocean 70 was baptised by her godmother - HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, at a spectacular christening ceremony in Gothenburg, Sweden. The Swedish company Spectra Stage & Event Technologies used W-DMX BlackBox products to control four units of Syncrolite SX B/52 and six units of Studio Due City Color over the harbour of Gothenburg. The distance was about 200m open water between console and fixtures. W-DMX BlackBox with standard antenna was used and chief technical officer of Spectra, Abbe Westerlundh who used the products was very happy with the simplicity and power of the W-DMX equipment from Wireless Solution Sweden AB.

Spectra Stage & Event Technologies have invested in several W-DMX BlackBox Systems for the indoor and outdoor events and completed several events in the last month, including Doobidoo

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UK - Glasgow is to host its first Festival of Light this November, bringing together celebrated lighting and visual artists and emerging talent to create a three-day spectacle placing light at the centre of urban culture. Radiance, Glasgow Festival of Light will be staged in the city's vibrant Merchant City from November 25 - 27.

Commissioned and funded by Glasgow City Council, and organised in partnership by nva and DF Concerts, the festival will "introduce light as an art form, creating an engaging and visually striking artistic experience at the festival site - whilst illuminating the beautiful, significant and often hidden architecture of the Merchant City".

The festival will coincide with Glasgow's hosting of the 2005 AGM of LUCI, the Lighting Urban Community International Association which promotes creative lighting strategies within urban contexts, of w

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Denmark - TC Group has announced the complete acquisition of TC-Helicon, the leading manufacturer of vocal technology products. TC Group previously owned 50% of TC-Helicon, which is headquartered in Canada. By purchasing the remaining 50 % of the shares from IVL Technologies Ltd, TC Group now welcomes TC-Helicon as a full-fledged member of the group, which includes Tannoy, Lab.gruppen, TC Electronic, TC Applied Technologies, and TC-Helicon.

Kevin Alexander will continue to serve as CEO of TC-Helicon, which was founded in 2000 as a joint venture between IVL Technologies Ltd and TC Group A/S. The aim of TC-Helicon, which today enjoys a strong position in the MI and professional audio markets, is to provide dedicated tools and solutions for the human voice. With this year's release of the flagship vocal processor, VoicePro, TC-Helicon further establishes itself as the world-leading

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UK - The Lighting Design Awards represent the UK's most prestigious opportunity to achieve recognition for excellence and innovation in lighting design and technology. Rigorously judged by leading industry professionals, finalists and winners earn the plaudits of their peers, industry respect and publicity across a wide range of media, including national press and TV.

New this year, sponsored by PLASA and the PLASA Show, is the Entertainment Lighting category. Open to theatrical productions, concerts, music festivals, corporate events, exhibitions, temporary and one-off lighting installations, this new award will see lighting designers in the event sector recognised for excellence.

The event or events must have taken place in the UK, Ireland and Channel Islands between 10 December 2004 and 9 December 2005 (the deadline for entries). Judges will require full technical informati

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