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UK - Compulite's Vector lighting control system is currently being used on the three major Saturday night TV productions in the UK - X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing and the new national lottery show Millionaire Manor.

X-Factor goes out live every Saturday night from Fountain Studios in Wembley. Lighting director Dave Davey, moving light operators Bill Peachment and Russell Grubiak chose Compulite Vector Blue and Vector Green consoles to control not only the moving lights, but also the LED fixtures and video content plus some of the house dimmers (also from Compulite). Peachment says: "X-Factor is a big live show with over 500 cues on my console alone. The Vector has taken everything we have thrown at it and been a joy to use throughout the show."

Strictly Come Dancing, presented by Bruce Forsyth, and co-hosted by Tess Daly, goes out live o

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UK - Digital media solutions specialists Projected Image Digital threw open their gates in West London, for two open days. These were designed to illustrate the range of both digital output and control products offered by the company. Of special interest was a selection of new developments including Element Labs' Versa PIXEL, and the DL2 moving projector head, and Catalyst V4media server from High End Systems.

PID targeted a selection of existing and potential new clients for the strictly invite-only event that attracted a good mix of attendees including concert LDs, theatre designers and architectural lighting designers. In addition to the above mentioned products, PID also had Carallon's Pharos DMX architectural lighting controller on-hand, which was of interest to the installation visitors.

PID ensured that all the assorted technologies had an expert on-hand to demonstrate

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UK - As part of the build up to the Olympic games in 2012, PLM Illumination has been getting involved with developments in alignment with regeneration projects and development initiatives across the country. These include recent developments in Regents Parks' multi-million pound redevelopment project to update sports facilities. The state-of-the-art building, called 'The Hub', includes fully equipped changing facilities, including ones for referees and people with disabilities, spaces for alternative forms of exercise as well as a café with panoramic views of the park. 'The Hub' opened summer 2005 and is set to bring accessible sports facilities for a wide range of people.

The pathway surrounding 'The Hub' contains bespoke LED, in-ground fittings designed and manufactured by PLM Illumination. The low energy, zero maintenance lighting is a proprietary PLM fitting, manufact

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UK - Following Tannoy's 2003 restructuring of its distribution in Germany for both commercial and residential audio sectors, the company has announced its decision to develop this distribution model further to include sales of studio monitors. From January 2006 Tannoy will support and service all dealers in Germany currently supplied by TEAC Europe GmbH, TASCAM Division.

Simon Sinclair, Tannoy's sales director, commented: "The direct relationships we have established within the commercial and residential audio sector in Germany have proved beneficial to our dealers; giving us a better understanding of our dealer's requirements and allowing us to offer them improved levels of service and communication. We are now in a position to offer studio monitor dealers the benefits of dealing directly with the manufacturer. I must add however that Tascam have been a model business part

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Australia - Melbourne's Grand Hyatt, one of the city's most prestigious entertainment and accommodation venues, has recently undergone six months of extensive renovations to the Level 8 Banquet floor.

Lighting designer Mike Huggins, from Light Directions in Hong Kong, previously designed the lighting for Melbourne's Park Hyatt. His concepts for lighting control relied heavily on a total integration of all kinetic light sources and functional lighting, but with a simple front end. This was no easy task when the system was required to perform a range of tasks, including local or global control, complex room joining, plus control over a mixture of incandescent, metal halide, fluorescent and LED light sources.

Lightmoves of Melbourne was invited to offer specification for a control system that could achieve these objectives, within the tight budget constraints. During the developm

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UK - Miraculously, XL Video's Hemel Hempstead HQ sustained only superficial damage, despite being located just 600 metres from the epicentre of the Buncefield oil terminal explosion, that triggered Europe's biggest peacetime fire.

Driver Martin Woolward, was at XL on Sunday at 6 a.m., the time of the first blast, and a number of tour trucks were ready to unload that morning. Within an hour, the area had been evacuated, preventing access to the warehouse or any of the office facilities.

It was 'business as usual', however, for XL's 12 shows due to load in on the Monday morning! XL's project managers were diverted as per the Disaster Recovery Plan, to First Network in Northolt. Directors and project managers were able to carry on with phone calls, planning, re-directing equipment and juggling the logistics to take into account the disruption caused by the blast.

"We accom

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Italy - When Mazda was looking to host a landmark pan-European event for its European dealers to showcase four 'hero' vehicles, it decided to go to the Superstudio Più in Milan. Over three days, Mazda 'Mirai' - which in Japanese means 'Future' - played host to 3,725 delegates from 35 countries. Design and communication company Imagination commissioned PRG Europe to help them make everything look just right.

Project manager for PRG Europe John McEvoy explained: "There were five areas to light: the main auditorium - the Mirai Theatre - where a live show took place each day; the Mirai Gallery; a daylight room; a smoking room with bars and DJ; and the outside area, also with bars which needed to be lit. In the evening, with the help of lighting from PRG, the Mirai Theatre was transformed into a magnificent dining hall for a four-course dinner, followed by a performance by Hea

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China - In 2004 the city of Shenzhen in China's Guangdong province began to implement a strategy they described as "building a culture-based city". The arts industry boomed in that year, accounting for nearly 5% of the city's total GDP, a growth of more than 20% compared over 2003. In further support of this initiative, the LongGang Cultural and Arts Centre, located in the city's LongGang district, has recently undergone a major refurbishment of its audio system to provide world-class sound reinforcement facilities for the Centre's extensive theatrical and music entertainment program.

The main sound contractor, Artco Music Co, worked jointly with Jolly Pro Audio's Andy Leung to specify a system comprised of PAS speakers, Yamaha console and a TiMax ImageMaker16 audio imaging system. The console feeds multiple microphone groups and sound effects components to the eight i

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UK - South London-based film and TV facilities supplier the Picture Canning Company has been using DPA 4060 miniature omnidirectional microphones on Optomen Television's The F-Word, hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey.

The show's requirements and location - a 'real' restaurant with lots of reflective surfaces and no acoustic treatment - created quite a challenge for Picture Canning's audio department."Clients today all need very discreet if not invisible microphones," says Picture Canning's senior sound engineer Mike Horn, who turned to the DPA miniatures after testing various mics on the market. "The white version was perfect as it could easily be hidden on Gordon Ramsey's chef's uniform."

Rob Ashard, the show's sound supervisor was so pleased with the results and sonic quality that he requested all lavalier mics on The F-Word should be ch

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UK - The IOA (Institute of Acoustics) and the ISCE (Institute of Sound and Communications Engineers) have been working more closely together, the organisations report. The closer relationship was demonstrated when the new president of the ISCE, David Hopkins OBE, was present at the recent IOA Conference in Oxford in November 2005. Hopkins, who is an Associate Member of the IOA, took stand space as Audio Design Services Ltd.

At the Conference, Hopkins shared some of his ideas on training issues for the ISCE with Tony Jones, president of the IOA and Bob Walker, the chairman of the IOA Electroacoustics group. It was generally agreed that members from each Institute should be encouraged to attend each other's conferences, participating in lectures and taking stand space where appropriate.

At a time when regulations and standards are an issue over so many disciplines, institutes wo

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Italy - One of four Digidesign Venues purchased by rental firm Agorà of L'Aquila recently played a key role on Rockpolitik, a mini-series of nationwide prime-time TV shows hosted by one of Italy's longest live pop phenomena, Adriano Celentano, and screened on Italian state television's flagship channel, RAI 1.

Venue's D-Show mixing console, manned by sound engineer Enrico Belli, was installed in the broadcast audio control room and used to mix the sound for the show's guest stage. Belli, who mixed broadcast sound for Santana, The Eurythmics and Italian headliners Subsonica and Negrita, received 96 input channels from an active splitter in the studio and, in addition to the on-air sound feed, sent four stereo pre-mixes to the studio's FOH desk, manned by Massimo Mannunzo.

The unique show, on which Celentano and some of his guests were backed by a hard-hitting 22-piece

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Australia - One of the great Australian Christmas traditions is the Myer Christmas Windows and this year they are even more stunning than ever with Myer in Melbourne celebrating its 50th presentation within the Bourke Street window frontage for the 2005 season.

Stage One Promotions has been responsible for the design, fabrication and maintenance of these windows since 1994. Over the past 12 years, a customised system of control for lighting, sound and animatronics has been developed, specifically fulfilling the needs of an event, which operates daily for 18 hours for a gruelling eight-week season.

LSC dimmers drive the lights: 12 LSC Tour Series dimmer racks, racked in lots of four (i.e. 48 circuits), with supporting equipment held within each rack including data splitters, three-phase distribution, DMX addressed relay switching units and 24 low voltage dimmer circuits for dri

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UK - The FX Group has sold a ProTools rig to Yusuf Islam, the singer formerly known as Cat Stevens who converted to the Muslim faith in the '70s. The system is now being used to record his first commercial album in almost three decades, which will be released in 2006 on the Mountain of Light label.

The ProTools HD 2 Accel system - supplied with 192 I/O,192 AD and DA expansion cards, Sync I/O, DigiSnake cables plus a G5 Apple Mac - has been installed into west London-based Studio Y, which Islam co-owns with producer Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall, A-Ha) and who is assisting him on the new album.

Engineer and studio manager Kelly Pribble has a long-established relationship with FX which meant that they were his first choice when it came to purchasing the Pro Tools rig. "I've built up a strong relationship with them over the years, and I know they're very experienced when it com

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UK - The Mojo Barriers team installed a new barrier design for Oasis, the headliners of December's Noise & Confusion concert at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium. Promotors SJM presented a seven-band line-up topped by Oasis, but including The Foo Fighters and Razorlight, for what was the fastest selling concert ever held at the Millennium Stadium.

Between the audience and the production personnel, security and the artists were 240m of Mojo Aluminium Barrier incorporating 120m of back stands. Mojo Barriers director Jim Gaffney has supplied crowd barriers to Oasis for many years and while Oasis fans have always been exuberant audiences, there have never been any problems. So no-one expected the surge that swept through the crowd in Manchester Stadium in July 2nd during the band's summer tour, causing the front of stage barrier to move as the show was about to start.

There were no inj

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UK - Out Board recently supplied Elstree Light & Power (ELP) with a selection of their CM-Series chain-hoist motor control products and a pair of Ibex PHC+ Programmable Hoist Controllers, as part of a fully automated rigging control system for the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank.

The upgrade was essentially a second phase of initial refurbishment carried out by ELP in the summer of 2004, providing two further CM12 motor controllers, eight more Socapex/C-Form splitter boxes, remote control handsets and multi-point linked Emergency Stop system, in addition to automating the whole system.

ELP project manager Toby Dare's brief was to provide a series of rigging presets for the venue's various show modes, so an Ibex automation system was specified to drive the Out Board motor control distros. To ensure absolute repeatability, all 32 CM Lodestar hoists were fitted with O

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USA - As America's first indoor role-playing theme park, Wannado City is equally educational as it is entertaining. It offers children aged between four and 11 role-playing options in strikingly-realistic environments, including: children-sized police and fire stations; television and radio studios; a fully functioning theatre; a newspaper office; and even a dance club.

With nearly 250 professions available in over 60 venues, designing an authentic and fully integrated AV system was critical to 'keeping it real'. Wannado contracted Richard Wagner, principal with Integrated Electronics, to design and install the complete audio / video system.Wagner explained: "This was a gargantuan undertaking from both a strategic and technical perspective. Each venue has a combination of its own music and sound effects. It's highly interactive, and timing is critical between the venues.&

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UK - This year's BBC's Sports Personality of the Year 2005 awards had a new engaging environmental set created for them by design and communication company Imagination. The large-scale set and graphics were created for the programme, which took place at BBC's Television Center on the evening of 11 December 2005.

Working closely with the BBC executive producer Paul Davies, Imagination created the awards environment, which was not only used for the live television programme but also played host to a pre and post transmission party for over 650 VIP guests.

This year's environmental set included a varied colour palette including vivid greens, blues and an eye-catching purple. The set was developed around several live filming requirements including multiple interview staging areas, graphic treatments for the stage and floor as well as lighting and projection design. The inte

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UK - 'Space' - an mbitious function and corporate entertainment venue - is the latest development addition to Newcastle College, and has steadily transformed from a nebulous gas into a fantastic £2m entertainment venue, designed for the College's higher education students and college staff.

Contracted to ensure that sound reinforcement throughout was truly 'out of this world' were Newcastle-based pro audio specialists, Q Music (Northern) Ltd, with Q's Ray 'Scotty' Scott beaming up to take overall control of the Space install as project manager.

The relaxed and trendy cafe-style Reception (ground) Floor is suited to semi-formal meetings, with a mix of sofas and bistro seating. To provide an even level of sound, Scott placed 10 IL42TW transformer-equipped 100V line HK Audio Installation Line cabinets at strategic points around the area.

In the 'Pod' chill-out area, four

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The Netherlands - Over 5,500 fans in the sold-out Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam experienced a convincing performance by the American hip-hop queen Missy Elliot in November. Famous for her larger than life stage presence, the star completed a highly successful European tour last Autumn.

One of the key problems for the sound engineers was how to reproduce live the dry, yet extremely powerful bass lines for which Missy Elliot's CDs are known. The production firm, Pieee Rental, led by Hans van der Wiel solved the problem - assisted by a team from Electric Audio BV - with a diverse Electro-Voice sound system, a Midas Heritage console and Klark-Teknik processors (four DN9848s and eight DN360/370s). The ability to combine EV's XLC and X-Array components allowed Pieee Rental to implement a sound design that fitted the Heineken Music Hall "like a glove".

Axel J.E. Nagtegaa

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UK - UB40 has been carrying a NEXO GEO T tangent-array system on its current European tour. Provided by the SSE Audio Group, the compact array has proved equally versatile in arenas and smaller venues, and the UB40 team of engineers, led by FOH Tom Wiggans, has also been pioneering the use of an Ethersound network for time alignment of system components.

Britain's best-selling homegrown reggae band, UB40 is running a high-technology show for this tour. FOH engineer Tom Wiggans is mixing on a DiGiCo D5, and all musicians using in-ear monitoring. And the PA is a Nexo GEO T system, typically configured in a L/C/R design, with 20+3 box arrays left and right, and a 5-cabinet centre cluster.

System tech Adam Scott completes the description. "The smaller venues might only require 14 of the T4805 cabinets, plus three downfill boxes, but for the arenas, we are using everything in

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UK - Denon DJ has confirmed that Gatecrasher has made the first high-profile acquisition of its new flagship DN-S3500 tabletop CD/MP3 players: three of the new devices have gone straight into the DJ booth at the new 1,400-capacity Discothéque in Leeds, opened by Gatecrasher following a £3m conversion this Autumn.

The Denon DNS3500 direct drive players support both the Denon and Pioneer cueing methods - and it was this, coupled with the advanced featureset, that appealed to the dance brand. David Atkinson, marketing and communications manager of D&M Professional Europe (Denon's parent company) commented: "We are delighted to be associated with such a progressive dance organisation as Gatecrasher. It is gratifying that the unique features of the DN-S3500 are being recognised - as is evidenced by the initial response we have received from the market in general.&qu

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UK - Luminar Leisure have chosen Edinburgh as the location for their second Jamhouse food and live music emporium. Conceived in Birmingham back in 1999 as a joint venture between Jools Holland and designer Neil Tibbatts, the jazz-oriented concept has now evolved into the 24,000 sq ft former BBC Broadcasting House in Edinburgh City's Queen Street. Ivor Green & Associates' solution for both the stage PA and dancefloor surround sound has been found within the Nexo catalogue.

Luminar Leisure had owned the 1000-capacity Grade 1-listed theatre, with its 11-metre proscenium arch, for three years before deciding to develop it into a Jamhouse at a cost of £1.5m. But the conversion provided a major challenge for Ivor Green's sound installation team, led by Martin Tasker. "This is a large space, with a void above the proscenium, an 84-cover restaurant on the balcony and a larg

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UK - ML Executives is providing the sound equipment for Joss Stone's UK tour throughout December. At the heart of the package is a Midas Heritage 3000 mixing desk, at the request of long-time fan of the brand, Davie Kirkwood.

Kirkwood has been the soul sensation's FOH engineer since she shot to fame two years ago. A sound engineer for over three decades, Kirkwood has worked with many top artists including Deep Purple, the Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and Motley Crue. Midas has been his console of choice since he first encountered them in the mid-seventies.

"Midas is always at the top of my list of specifications," he says. "The preamps in the Midas are so superior to anything else. Her band is a traditional r&b outfit of bass, guitars and drums with some keyboards and backing vocals, and with the Heritage I can get great separation between the different element

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UK - Although the Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society turned back the clock to the 15th Century for their summer school in Hertfordshire, the Harlequin Liberty floor they used embodied advanced dance floor technology of the 21st Century.

In what was described as a return to the 15th Century courts of Italy and Burgundy, the DHDS 38th Annual Summer School at the All Saints Pastoral Centre, London Colney, provided classes and workshops led by tutors who had reconstructed the dances from the original manuscripts. The importance of a floor to provide the right degree of spring was recognized by organiser, Chris Saunders: Liberty is a floating floor system composed of sprung floor panels and available for either permanent dance studio installation or as stage panels for touring and events such as summer schools, say Harlequin. Designed for safety and suitable for a range of dance disc

  1. LM provides lasers for shows
  2. Aethra videoconferencing for India
  3. Benefit concert for New Orleans musicians
  4. PVAV kit-out Brunel's Academy
  5. DPA harvests sound for post-production library
  6. Land Rover uses Motion Interactive Media
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