Business

Details
UK - 3M Digital Signage has opened a UK office with a mission to bring its portfolio of software and display hardware solutions to a European customer base in retail, entertainment, leisure, corporate, education and other key markets. The business will bebased at 3M UK's head offices in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Simon Birkenhead has been appointed UK sales and marketing manager for 3M Digital Signage, and a team of technical and sales specialists is currently being trained, say the company, adding that it will use this UK office to support a rapid expansion across Europe using 3M's existing offices in most European and Middle East countries.

Although new to Europe, 3M Digital Signage has a 15-year history in the US. In August 2005, 3M acquired Mercury Online Solutions and its FRED content management software. A pioneer in the digital signage market since 1996, Mercury Online acqui

Details
UK - Stage Technologies have been awarded the contract for stage automation equipment onboard the latest cruise ship to be ordered by Cunard. The Queen Victoria is being built by Fincantieri in Marghera, Venice, for delivery in 2007. Whilst the ship is not on the same scale as the Queen Mary 2, the last ship to be delivered to Cunard, the 800 seat Royal Court Theatre, styled after a London West End theatre will be well equipped. The design has been developed jointly by architects GEM, and consultants NED.

Stage Technologies will supply and install the complete stage automation system. This will be the first non Princess ship to be fitted with Stage Technologies second generation BigTow 2 winches and TanJent guidance system, which guides a fly bar through its travel from the upper to lower limit, not just the top half of the travel as often seen on board ships.

The stage will b

Details
USA - Eat to the Beat was delighted to work alongside AEG on the inaugural AMGEN Tour of California in February. 16 teams comprising of 127 riders from around the world competed over an eight-day, 700-mile race on a route that passed through the California redwoods, wine country and the Pacific Coast.

Eat to the Beat provided corporate hospitality for the sponsors, press and VIP guests at the start and finish of the race each day. During this period, two teams, one for the 'start' locations and one for the 'finish' locations, the 56 staff prepared and served over 70,000 items of food to more than 9,300 guests in 10 cities at 13 separate events.

Logistically this was a challenging project which involved liaising with different suppliers in each city from San Francisco on day one to Redondo Beach in Los Angeles at the end of the race on day eight. Everything had to be packed up

Details
Azerbaijan - Dynamic play of light, color and shadow for prominent World Heritage site Gyz-Galasy Tower, or Maiden Tower, in Baku, Azerbaijan is a significant medieval monument from the 12th century. Its historical function uncertain, the Tower may have been part of an ancient castle wall or even served as a temple for fire worship. Today, Maiden Tower houses a historical museum and serves as a meeting place and pilgrimage site for tourists.

"As an architectural monument, Maiden Tower plays a great role for all of mankind as proven by its presence on the UNESCO list of World Heritage sites," says Kirill Pavlov, director of A&T Trade Distribution Company. "Culturally and socially its significance is on par with some of the world's great treasures. Any lighting solution for Maiden Tower would therefore need to take into consideration its cultural, political and soci

Details
Australia - BSS Audio, a Harman International Company (NYSE-HAR) has played a pivotal role in the new upgrade at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). Preparing for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, the Melbourne Cricket Club undertook a substantial renovation of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), which included building a new Northern Stand and the installation of a new property-wide public address system featuring Harman HiQnet protocol technology.

The previous public address system consisted of a single speaker cluster positioned at one end of the facility, providing limited speech intelligibility. Answering the call for complete and intelligible speaker coverage for every seat in the stands, Rutledge Engineering and Acoustic Directions, in conjunction with audio consultants Marshall Day Acoustics, designed a new fully distributed sound system featuring Harman HiQnet protocol techn

Details
USA - XL Touring Video was chosen as video contractor for the Queen & Paul Rodgers North American Tour 2006, which is promoting their recent live DVD and CD release, Return of the Champions.

XL worked closely with video consultant, Aubrey "Po" Powell, one of the founding members of the influential 1960's album cover design groups, Hipgnosis, which is responsible for many of the famous Pink Floyd album sleeves, as well as Led Zeppelin and Bad Company.

President of XL Touring Video, John Wiseman says: "It was exciting to hear from Robbie Williams, who I had the pleasure of working with on Pink Floyd years ago. Then to find out that Po was also involved immediately made me realize that this was going to be a first class project and I was honoured to be a part of it. From the design, all the way down to the video handoff from Freddie Mercury to Paul Ro

Details
New Zealand - Allen & Heath's New Zealand distributor, Jansen Professional Audio & Lighting, recently installed an Allen & Heath iDR DSP system in Auckland's Epsom Girls Grammar School.

Opened in 1917, Epsom is recognised as one of New Zealand's most prestigious private schools, and boasts an alumni, which includes New Zealand Prime Minister, Helen Clark; TV personality, Petra Baghurst; news presenter, Kate Hawkesby; and New Zealand's first female District Council judge, Dame Augusta Wallace.

Jansen were tasked with replacing the sound system in the School's main hall. Equipment includes Proel speakers, powered by Phonic amplifiers, all controlled by an Allen & Heath iDR-4 16x16 matrix mixer. There is also an accompanying PL-6 remote 8-fader panel controller, to simplify standard functions.

"The new sound system is very easy to use and I have been able to let the studen

Details
UK - Leading names in UK theatre architecture and consultancy will be providing facts, figures and ideas at the Theatre Engineering & Architecture Conference 2006. Speakers will include Mark Foley, Susie Bridges and Jonathan Adams, along with consultants, Anne Minors, Neil Morton, Iain Mackintosh, Andy Hayles, Michael Holden and Richard Brett.

These speakers will be complemented by a number of international players - including Himanshu Burte from India, Sergio Pascolo from Italy, Martien van Goor, Louis Janssen and Gerbrand Borgdorff from the Netherlands, Gerry van Hezewyk from Canada and Duncan Webb, John Coyne and Peter Rosenbaum from the US. Representatives from many other countries will be involved in the debates and discussions about the form of auditoria, backstage facilities, uncomplicated spaces for drama, and theatre building on a budget. Present booking from overseas r

Details
Germany - A golden CA 106 was presented to Michael Mandel, member of the executive board of Neumann&Müller (N&M), on 29 March at the ProLight&Sound exhibition in Frankfurt, to mark the sale of the 10,000th CA 106 to N&M in December 2005.

In 1997, N&M (one of the largest event technology suppliers in Europe) challenged Kling & Freitag to develop a small, lightweight and economical speaker for speech applications. In the spring of 1998, say K&F, the CA 106 took part in a comparative test with products from other manufacturers and emerged as the winner. Since then, N&M have added around 350 of the speakers to its hire stock. "The CA 106 is incredibly reliable. Most of the damage to them results from negligent use," says Michael Mande, technical director of N&M.

To date, the CA 106 has seen success in more than 30 countries around the world, say K&F.

(Lee Baldock)

Details
Germany - City Scene is a newly created high-end multi purpose venue that combines the needs of the performing arts, theatre, musical concert and club worlds. The sound system was designed by Terje Engedahl from Lyd-Systememer AS together with house engineer Jon Karstensen and features 24 channels of Lab.gruppen C Series amplification supplied by AVAB/CAC, Oslo, Norway.

The facility was built around a former nightclub in the Hotel City at Fredrikstad, Norway. To facilitate live performances a stage was added in an earlier atrium. City Scene's capacity (in theatre mode) is 448 persons; 330 on the main floor and 118 on the mezzanine developed around the old dance floor.

City Scene has already played host to a diverse range of performances including, Cityfjolls til Fjells (a comedy theatre production), Olsenbanden Jr. på Cirkus (musical theatre with a circus theme)

Details
UK - Stylised and sleek British four piece Kubb have just recently played a sold out show at London's Shepherds Bush Empire to support their 'Mother' album. It was a taster to a Spring UK tour of universities, clubs and small theatres and the summer festival circuit. The show was designed and operated by Neil Trenell who has previously designed shows for Lucie Silvas and Daniel Bedingfield. Neil has worked with Kubb on various showcases over the past year gradually building the show into what it is today.

The lighting rig features 24 James Thomas Engineering's PixelLine 1044s, 10 moving fixtures, bars of pars, bars of ACLs and floor pars. Neil discussed various lighting ideas with the band. With these taken into consideration and the practical implications of a smallish rig he set about the design. He explains: "I wanted to create a very high impact show with a lot of shado

Details
Canada / USA - CAST Software has formed an alliance with BOXX Technologies Inc of Austin, Texas, which increases the usability of CAST's Vivien - Virtual Event Designer and WYSIWYG Production Design Suite - the popular pre-visualization tools for the entertainment industry. Testing completed by CAST revealed that running WYSIWYG on a BOXX 7400 Series Workstation increased overall functionality by producing Shaded Views and Renderings up to four times faster, opened large files quicker, and general application performance proved to be much more responsive, say CAST.

"Partnerships such as this continue to make our users happy because we deliver what they desire - the opportunity to use tools that constantly improve their design experience," says Gilray Densham, president of CAST Software. "As innovators in this field, we offer solutions that increase productivity, p

Details
UK - XL Video UK is supplying Westlife's 2006 Face To Face arena tour - which follows hot on the heels of their number one album of the same name and chart-topping single, "You Raise Me Up".

The tour is up-tempo and innovative to match the massive energy of the new stage show, which is being artistically directed by Alan MacDonald and Will Baker (renowned for their work with Kylie).

XL has supplied Westlife's video requirements since their first Coast To Coast tour in 2001, and video has always been an integral element of their live work.

This year, with the musician's positions located offstage either side; video once again takes centre stage along with the boys (Nicky Byrne, Shane Filan, Kian Egan Mark Feehily). Some truly spectacular screen interactives include "Uptown Girl" when the boys - choreographed by Priscilla Samuels - dance in un

Details
Germany - In an expanding market in Europe, PROEL has announced at Frankfurt, the establishment of a representation office in Holland.

Managed by René Poelman, the structure will begin to operate in April, and will be distributing and selling all products from PROEL Universal division: lighting and sound reinforcement systems, die hard cables and stage boxes, microphones and wireless systems, stage accessories, stinger amplifiers and the famous tamburo drums.

The complete installation line (ceiling speakers, horn speakers and 100V line transformers to name just a few), will also belong to this wide portfolio as well as the ultimate home division created by the Italian company. This features home entertainment furnishings for large screens, Plasmas, LCDs, realized by the American design trend leader Bell'o, and distributed by PROEL in many European countries including th

Details
UK - Lisburn-based Zest Audio has completed the installation of a PA system for the Corpus Christi Church in West Belfast, built as part of an inner-city regeneration programme. The church is a new-build, designed for congregations of up to 400.

Commissioned to provide the PA by the M&E Consultants, Zest installed the system using Clock Audio MR66 automatic mixers, QSC ISA amplifiers, Phonic EQ and crossover processing, AKG hard-wired microphones, Shure radio microphones and Community loudspeakers throughout.

Commenting on the choice of Community loudspeakers, Zest MD David Honeyford said: "For intelligibility and vocal quality, the Community loudspeakers and excellent with very high output from such compact, discreet boxes. As with all modern church installations, aesthetics were an important consideration. Well controlled dispersion from the distributed CPL27 and CPL42

Details
Belgium - When d&b audiotechnik's Belgian partner Amptec learnt that the country's national French speaking broadcast company RTBF was looking for a new sound system, they took the opportunity to introduce them to a d&b PA system. "It all started about two years ago," said Amptec's David Liebens. "We did demos for them at the 'Festival de Jazz à Liège' in 2004 and in 2005 using a Q-Series loudspeaker system."

Amptec knew that RTBF would be releasing a specification for a PA system for the Eurovision for Kids 2005 competition and would be inviting interested companies to tender. "We invited a number of key RTBF technicians to one of d&b's user seminars run by John Taylor and there is no doubt that they learned a lot about their approach to quality sound," said Liebens.

Shortly afterwards, RTBF invited a number of companies to propose a suitable s

Details
Australia / Sweden - LSC Lighting Systems has been appointed as the sole Australian and New Zealand distributor for Wireless Solutions - the wireless DMX solutions company from Sweden, after previewing the W-DMX products at the Entech trade show in Sydney in February.

One company that decided to trial a system was renowned Sydney-based hire company Lots of Watts, who trialled the system at Hillsong Church's recent album recording at the Sydney Entertainment Centre. Daniel Monro from Lots of Watts says that the SEC is a venue in which they had tried other wireless DMX systems before, with disappointing results. "It would result in us having to run a lead up to the roof to make the system work," he said. "This time around, with the W-DMX units, we installed the receiver in the roof of the main arena to supply data for all the moving lights covering the audience, wit

Details
UK - System integrator Tiger AV has found a unqiue application for Marantz's PMD570 solid state digital recorder - to encourage storytelling in the new 'Seven Stories, the Centre for Children's Books' development in Newcastle.

A national home dedicated to children's literature had long been the dream of Elizabeth Hamill and Mary Briggs, whose vision was to place children, young people and their books at the core of the UK's national literary culture. Their wish was realised late last year when the multi-galleried Seven Stories opened in a Grade II listed Victorian flour mill in the riverside Regeneration and Conservation area of the Ouseburn Valley in Newcastle. The building was restored throughout 2005 at a cost of £6.5 million.

Tony Crossley, technical director at Tiger AV, said: "The Centre thrives on being able to offer exhibitions and visuals that make the orig

Details
Italy - Watched by a combined worldwide TV audience of over four billion, the opening and closing ceremonies of this year's Winter Olympics featured legendary Italian tenor Luciano Pavarotti, a stunning lighting design, and enough pyrotechnic effects to keep the Italian fireworks industry in business for years.

What that TV audience could not have seen, however, was the complex work needed to distribute audio to the 35,000 artists, athletes, VIPs and other guests inside Turin's Stadio Olimpico - or how that work was made all the more difficult by the demands of television.

The audio show designer for the opening and closing ceremonies, Gary Hardesty of Sound Media Fusion, originally conceived a conventional FOH system which would have seen line-array clusters hung either side of the stage, with additional arrays being flown at various points further down the area, each one bei

Details
Hong Kong - Keeping its trading partners informed and involved is an integral part of Lighthouse Technologies way of doing business. A key part of that strategy is its annual partners meeting, where a range of European clients gather for a weekend of information exchange, presentations and networking.

For the second year running the event was held at the ski resort of Bormio, in the Italian Alps. and included a demonstration of the new R6 screen and the launch of Lighthouse's new used panel brokerage business.

Lighthouse's newly appointed chief technical officer (CTO) Grant Elliott, also hosted two clinics and a brainstorming session, during which feedback from the partners was welcomed with a view to incorporating the ideas in future Lighthouse technical updates and products.

A special presentation was also made by Marko Leppik of Beneway Oy, a Finnish company whose HUDLE s

Details
UK - Automation specialists Kinesys have designed a customised control system for the large moving band platform used on Movin' Out, the Twyla Tharp dance production set to the music of Billy Joel. The show has just opened at London's Apollo Victoria Theatre.

Kinesys were asked onboard by Total Fabrications' Chris Cronin, who designed and built the 14m wide by 8m deep structure that moves several times during the performance and is in full view of the audience throughout.

The platform needed to move up and down as well as tracking upstage and downstage, so Kinesys supplied five of their Velocity drives and a laptop running their proprietary Vector software.

The four two tonne winches - one in each corner of the structure - were supplied by TFL and travel at up to a quarter metre a second, the platform is tracked by a single motor and line shaft system and is controlle

Details
UK - Lighting technicians from across the industry are invited to attend a unique training and social event to be held on the 6th of May at the EDGE venue in Solihull, near Birmingham.

The hosts (Solihull Society of Arts) and organisers (UKSLC.ORG - UK Sound and Lighting Community) have assembled a top team of leading UK console manufacturers to deliver training on the latest lighting desks and entertainment technology throughout the day.

Compulite, MA, Chamsys, ETC, Zero 88 and Robe are providing a wide variety of lighting control equipment for attendees to use, and their staff will be on hand to answer questions from console operators at all levels of experience.

The training sessions are designed to cater for everyone from drama pupils wishing to learn about 'real world' performance technology, to freelancers who want to practice on new consoles, and seasoned LX operator

Details
Australia - Following on from a recent series of installations overseas, most notably in Hong Kong, Coemar De Sisti Australia has completed another high profile architectural illumination project in conjunction with Australian company Laservision - this time in their hometown of Melbourne.

120 Collins Street, a landmark office tower, is one of the most significant buildings on the Melbourne Skyline. Comprising 50 levels of office space, with a total building height of approximately 264m, the building is topped with a 50m communications tower. Following a collaborative approach from Laservision, Coemar De Sisti Australia's MD Peter Kemp began initial consultations and planning for a project which involved illuminating the communications tower. Initial designs for the lighting incorporated discharge-lamped colour changers spread throughout the tower with the outer uprights highlig

Details
Saudi Arabia - A sound system from Italian pro audio manufacturer Outline has been used for the opening ceremony of the 21st Janadriya Festival in Saudi Arabia. The Janadriya Festival is held with the patronage of Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdullaziz Al Saud, who became King of Saudi Arabia following the death of his brother, King Fahd. Since then, the festival's opening ceremony has been attended by the Saudi Arabian King. The festival's main contractor was Saudi Arabian company Rhythm Media Production, whose owner, Futtais Bughna, was in charge of the direction and production of the entire event.

The art director and writer was Moneer Al Quatani, while the scenography was by the International Theatre of Dubai. Other major suppliers included Tony Shembish's Avolites Middle East, supplying lighting consultancy, Avolites lighting desks and High End moving head fixtures; Sound & L

  1. Bandit Lites Gets Face To Face With Westlife
  2. Theatre Training at Barnet Artsdepot
  3. L-Acoustics presents Rep Awards
  4. Strong Finish for De Palmas with Meyer's Milo
  5. A multitude of innovations from EVI Audio
  6. Hilfiger selects Alcons Audio
Page 788 of 1813

Latest Issue. . .