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UK - At the start of the new millennium universities were starting to realise that in order to compete with the town centre nightclubs they had to radically improve their own campus facilities. The Union at Leeds University was quick out of the blocks, establishing the then quite radical Stylus nightclub, with technology company Green-I providing a powerful Martin Audio Blackline dance surround system.

Meanwhile, the adjacent Harvey Milk Bar (named after San Francisco's first openly gay city supervisor) was slowly falling into dilapidation, and closed entirely back in 2001.

Five years on, the derelict building has reopened as the 450-capacity Mine, offering an all-day restaurant within a brand new infrastructure, which has seen the old staircase removed and replaced with a DJ booth - thanks to interior designers Studio BAAD and Green-I.

Assistant events manager Tom Salmon sa

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Iceland - QSC signal transport system has been specified in the regenerated multi-room Eldborg Conference Centre, on the site of a famous geothermal spa in Iceland.

Situated just outside Reykjavik, The Blue Lagoon, one of Iceland's most popular choices for international visitors, is in the midst of a major redesign and expansion programme, set to complete by the spring of 2007. This will include the bathing, shower and lagoon facilities, but also a greater choice of restaurants - including a 250-cover diner built into a lava cliff - and the sophisticated Conference Centre. With three separate rooms and an entrance hall, it can accommodate up to 400 people (220 theatre style) in the largest of its reconfigurable facilities.

The new system is part of a turnkey AV upgrade of an existing system in which the ceiling speakers, amplifiers and video projectors have been retained.

Th

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UK - Just Oriental boasts one of the most glamorous locations in London in the heart of Piccadilly. Offering clients a beautifully furnished club-like lounge bar and brasserie with comfortable booth seating and mellow music, diners can choose from an extensive cocktail list and authentic oriental cuisine. A magnificent sweeping staircase connects Just Oriental to sister restaurant Just St James at ground level and a contrasting, quintessentially English atmosphere. When the time came to update the background sound system for Just Oriental, the company turned to installation experts Sound Division.

According to Sound Division's, David Graham, Just Oriental's needs were straightforward. "The whole system needed refreshing and updating. Some equipment was completely replaced, some was refurbished, and we also added several new elements to the system in order to give Just Orien

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UK - 5 Star Cases will celebrate its 25th anniversary at PLASA 06, where it will show its diverse range of cases - and also have some fun. Marking the quarter century, 5 Star is holding the 'Speed Challenge' - where visitors can experience an exciting flight-cased racing simulation game - with prizes to be won.

The simulation includes high quality graphics and sound and the entire system is housed in a custom built 'Super Tour' flight case with racing seat, steering wheel and pedals. The 'Speed Challenge' will take the lap times from each hour of the show, and the visitor with the quickest time walks away with a 5 Star 25th anniversary, limited edition briefcase. More than that, the overall quickest time over the four days will receive a £2,500 voucher to spend at 5 Star Cases.

5 Star will also show a selection of cases from its various ranges, including the recently upd

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UK - Salisbury-based Stagecraft Theatre Services (STS) is celebrating the completion of new sound installations worth in excess of £120,000 at two schools and a live events venue. STS, which is a leading staging, lighting and sound company has been responsible for the complete design and installation of the new systems, which include new QSC modular loudspeakers and Yamaha digital mixing desks.

"It has been exceptionally busy for the sound department this year and so far we have completed over 30 installations," explains Stagecraft's Martin Palmer. "Each project has varied dramatically, from the installation of simple microphone and speaker systems in a school hall, to complex mixing desks and modular loudspeakers at a live events venue."

The main installations for the company this year have included work at Sherborne Boys School, Guildford School for

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USA - Buford Jones, Meyer Sound's tour liaison manager, has added his illustrious credentials to the company's education program with a new seminar offering that focuses exclusively on all aspects - artistic, technological and psychological - of FOH mixing. Entitled The Mixing Workshop, the full-day presentation draws extensively on Jones' three decades of top-level FOH touring experience with the elite of rock and country acts: Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, James Taylor, Faith Hill, Counting Crows and Clint Black, among many others. The most recent workshop was held on June 7 at Full Sail, a private media and entertainment school in Winter Park, Florida, following the seminar's debut on April 6 in Studio C of the Soundcheck rehearsal facility in Nashville. Meyer Sound maintains an office at Soundcheck and has installed loudspeaker systems in the facility's fou

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UK - Hawthorn Theatrical recently provided major sound reinforcement for two high-profile events which took place simultaneously - requiring the collective use of around 130 Martin Audio Mini line array enclosures.

The larger of these was the Playtex Moonwalk 2006 event in London's Hyde Park, in which an audience of 15,000 packed into a 60m (wide) by 150m (long) marquee.

Hawthorn fielded eight hangs of W8LM Mini Line Array, ten deep in the front, supported by two hangs of eight enclosures at the rear.

Bands playing through this system included The Fabulous Dough Boys and Marcus Malone's Motown Party Band - in addition to aerobics instructors who warmed up the participants before their sponsored walk for breast cancer research.

According to Hawthorn's head of sound, Iain Reinhold, the brief from the organisers was for an even level of sound to be distributed througho

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USA - Dating back to the beginning of Lynyrd Skynyrd, Bandit had often attempted to become the legendary bands lighting company, each time coming close but never actually sealing the deal. This year Bandit has finally completed the task. Ross Shilling at Vector Management, designer Steve Owens and tour manager Steve Voudouris chose Bandit Lites as the official lighting supplier for Lynyrd Skynyrd. Bandit C.E.O. Michael T. Strickland Says: "It is really a dream long overdue. I know all the guys in the band personally and haveworked in and around them since 1972. Bandit was almost Skynrds lighting company on manyoccasions through the years, but it never quite worked out. It is great to finally have these two starcrossed entities together."

Long time Skynyrd designer Steve Owens has designed and programmed a show that isperfectly suited to a band that is globally revered.

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Italy - Outline's Butterfly line-array was used on 10 July at Rome's Circus Maximus at the celebrations which welcomed back the members of the Italian soccer team, after their victory in the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

During the long night of celebrations, an estimated crowd of one million supporters arrived from all over Italy to pay tribute to their sports heroes. The sound system included 28 Butterfly Hi-Pack CDH 483 and 12 Victor Live subwoofers, powered by Outline's Series T power amplifiers and controlled by Genius 26 processors, also manufactured by Outline.

Mounted on four strategically-positioned scaffold towers, the Italian company's compact systems seemed almost 'invisible' amid such a huge crowd, but reinforced the speech with their usual high level of naturalness and intelligibility, say the company.

The audio rental firm responsible for the operation (commissio

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UK - Finsbury Park in London became a wash with colour and sound for The Rise Festival, brainchild of London's Mayor Ken Livingston. The free music festival was designed to celebrate London's multi cultural diversity and opposing racism.

The event featuring four live music stages with acts including, The Wailers, Buzzcocks, Graham Coxon (former guitarist with Blur) and a host of other musicians, who provided music for all walks of life from jazz to hip-hop, indie to reggae and everything in between

The audio side was under the control of Willpower who sub-hired systems in from various other rental companies. Reading based Sabre International was one of these and they supplied equipment for two stages, the Big Cuba Fiesta and Mela stage. David Hawkes of Sabre decided to give the powerful RCF 4Pro 7001-A system the job of the Big Cuba Fiesta stage. Hawk's explained: "

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Singapore - IIR and Unusual Productions have announce a merger of their respective international professional sound and lighting exhibitions for the South East Asian region. Under the agreement, Unusual Productions becomes an Associate Partner of PALA Asia and will no longer stage its annual IPALS exhibition. Instead, IIR and Unusual Productions will be jointly associated with PALA Asia, which will be held in Singapore in 2007 at Sing Expo.

Commenting for IIR, group exhibition director Darren Brechin states: "The merger of IPALS and PALA Asia is great news for the region and for the industry, providing for one definitive professional audio, lighting and entertainment technology exhibition. This is something that will greatly benefit the regional market and overseas exhibitors, providing a bigger, better show in a bigger, better location.

"The move to Singapore's Sing

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Benelux - In a pan-European collaboration, sister companies Flashlight Rental of Holland and Flashlight-APR of Belgium provided the complete audio, lighting, rigging and trucking production for the recent European tour by Frank Zappa's son Dweezil.

The arrangement was a development of the relationship between LD Bryan Hartley and Flashlight that began on last year's successful tour with Lenny Kravitz. "I was delighted with Flashlight's service," says Hartley, "so I recommended them for the Zappa gig."

The tour - entitled Zappa Plays Zappa, Tour de Frank - included a sold-out night at London's Royal Albert Hall on 2 June in which the venue's refurbished organ was pressed into service for one number, Louie Louie, just as it had been when Zappa Snr. played the venerable hall.

Tour manager Maryjo Spillane and production manager Glynn Wood headed the crew. Woo

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UK - The Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA) was one of the main bodies representing the architectural, creative and live events sectors at the recent Olympics Business Summit, held in Leeds on Wednesday 19 July.

During the course of the Summit, the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA) - the body responsible for delivering the new venues and infrastructure for the Games, launched a draft version of its Procurement Policy - which outlines how it will manage the whole procurement process, including its selection and award criteria.

With the UK Government spending £3bn on the physical infrastructure for the Games, PLASA is keen to profile the creative and technical expertise of its membership and is preparing a guidance note for members to help them maximise their chances of winning key contracts. It will also be working with them to ensure they are fully aware

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Australia - LSC Lighting Systems has been appointed the exclusive Australasian distributor for the Pharos Architectural Controls range of products. The award-winning Pharos Lighting Playback Controller (LPC) is ideal for architectural, retail and themed entertainment environments that require sophisticated control of colour mixing, dimming, moving light and LED sources. Its advanced timeline-based lighting control, versatile triggering options and rugged solid-state construction make it the ideal all-in-one control solution for fixed installations.

These qualities make the Pharos LPC the ideal partner for the LSC range of EKO architectural dimmers and ePlate wall station remote controllers, say LSC. All devices integrate together seamlessly, say the company, allowing the LSC ePlate wall stations to activate memories in the EKO dimmers and control the playback of LED fixtures, mo

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Indonesia - The grand opening of new 304-seat theatre at the Jaya Ancol Resort in Jakarta, marks the largest installation to date of the innovative "4D" entertainment systems designed and installed by Kraftwerk Living Technologies (Wels, Austria). Housed in a structure resembling a pre-Columbian Peruvian pyramid, the theatre's cutting-edge networked digital systems create a synchronised, multisensory experience that bridges the gap between cinema and a full-blown theme park ride.

On screen, dual Christie HD video projectors create superimposed, colour-encoded screen images that, when viewed through the provided special glasses, result in three-dimensional visuals of startling depth and detail. At appropriate moments in the film's story line, the seats jolt, shake, and emit wafts of cool air or sprays of moisture. Finally, to complete the sensation of total immersion, t

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Thailand - Klark Teknik signal processing equipment was key to ensuring consistent sound quality on what must surely be the biggest dancefloor that Thailand has ever seen - a 1.5km stretch of road in the northern city of Khon Kaen.

Thai PA rental company Benz Sound Systems purchased five of Klark Teknik's new Square One Graphics and two Dynamics units, plus a DN370 graphic equalizer, to control all eight DJ and live performance stages at the Songkran Festival, which celebrates the Thai New Year with rituals that include throwing water and coloured powder at passers by. The KT equipment was purchased from EVI Audio Thailand.

"We converted the 1.5km Kaw-neaw Road into an enormous dancefloor and relayed the live shows from the main stage to another seven stages along the street," explains company owner Benz. "Around 100,000 people took to the street to watch the co

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USA - PRG Video - a division of Production Resource Group (PRG) - has completed a major expansion of its rental inventory, increasing the company's service to key markets, including special events, corporate shows and Broadway productions.

Equipment recently acquired includes Digital Projection Highlite 12000 DSX and Lightning 35 HD projectors. PRG Video also offers an extensive inventory of 10,000 lumen projectors, manufactured by Barco. The new video equipment complements PRG's extensive projection technology resources.

"PRG has pioneered projection and video technology through multiple generations and applications - from the spectacular PANI and PIGI large format projectors to the fully-integrated video solutions based on our proprietary M-Box Extreme media server," says Jere Harris, chairman and founder of PRG. "This most recent investment once again gives u

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Worldwide - ETC has launched a new Source Four 'mini-site' - featuring everything you need to know about the popular lights, in an interactive graphic mode. The mini-site's Home page gives viewers a concise end-to-end tour of the Source Four - all of the unique physical features that make it a leading fixed focus spotlight for entertainment and architecture.

The History page tells the chronological story of the Source Four family - when each light was introduced by ETC and the technical innovations that have made it an award winner.The Photometrics page is an invaluable tool - just click on a lighting-throw distance, choose a Source Four luminaire, pick a lamp, and see both the field diameter and the footcandle / lux readings for that luminaire at that distance. A handy short cut for lighting designers, a learning tool for newcomers.

And finally, people who have had a real-wor

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Taiwan / Middle East - Mipro has appointed a new international distributor in Middle East - Thomsun Group, one of the UAE's premier distributors. Thomsun is a multi-faceted business enterprise, and was established in the UAE in 1976 by founding directors K.V. Thomas, P. Shrinivas, and V.T. John.

The company expects the new appointment to significantly expand distribution of Mipro's wireless systems to all market sectors including live sound reinforcement, houses of worship, clubs, conferences centres, stadiums, schools and professional musicians.

Other leading brands in Thomsun's audio portfolio include Yamaha, Tannoy, Genelec, Beyerdynamic, Apart, Digigram, Laney, RME, LP, K&M, Proel and Tasker.

Thomsuns' area manager, Lazar Kanikaraj, says: "We have been looking for a high quality, specialist wireless microphone and portable wireless PA systems brand to add to our por

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UK - Martin Professional lighting has been used for a new TV pilot show as part of students' final college degree course. The show was called tba* incorporating a new format where the audience text and phone in to decide the content each week. The show was lit by Ed Riley and James Lloyd who are freelance LDs and students at the college. The look of the show was industrial and basic with lots of truss and was filmed in a large warehouse with very little set. Most of the dressing and decoration was done with lights.

Ed Riley ran through the layout: "Due to the warehouse not having a fixed lighting rig, we had to suspend limited amounts of truss from the roof and therefore had little space for lights. This is why we went for the Mac 250 Washes, which were highly versatile and allowed us to cover most areas of the set from one position. We were really impressed with the

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USA / Canada - Canadian Music Hall-of-Famers, The Tragically Hip, showed why they have become Canadian rock legends at four consecutive sold-out dates on their latest North American tour, putting Adamson true line source arrays to use for the gigs. Complete production was provided by Towers Productions based in Toronto, Canada. The shows took place between 17-24 June. Artpark in Lewiston, New York, played host to the first show, GRCA (Grand River Conservation Authority) in Guelph for the second, and the last two were held at Historic Fort York in Toronto.

Steve Towers from Towers Productions, together with Adamson Systems' Technical support Jesse Adamson and Ben Cabot collaborated in designing the system for all for shows using Adamson Shooter. For the first and smallest show held in Artpark, they chose 12 Y-10s flown and six T-21s ground stacked per side. For the GRCA show, the

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Europe - The Concert for Europe, an outdoor musical celebration with an artistic reflection of the values that have made Europe great, created an unforgettable experience to mark the completion of the Austrian European Union Presidency. The President and the Chancellor of the Republic, as well as prime movers of national and international policy, economy, media, arts and science were there without exception.

Staged in front of the glorious Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, this truly spectacular summer event featured the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Plácido Domingo performing a mixed program of classical favourites by Mozart, Shostakovich, and Schumann. Special guest, Juan Diego Flórez's, sonorous tenor delighted the audience with an equally varied selection, culminating with a crowd-pleasing rendition of "La donna è mobile" by Giuseppe Verdi.

Estimates

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Germany - After a two-year hiatus, it was indeed a momentous day for the international electronic dance music community as the Berlin Loveparade finally rolled back into action on 15 July.

Taking place from 2pm until 11pm with a 2006 motto of 'The Love Is Back', it was an epic homecoming for the legendary event: 40 floats rumbled through the streets as 400 DJs from 18 different nations represented the rich diversity of the international electronic music scene. There were also 11 fixed stages to entertain the masses with the final rally taking place from 6pm on the two main stages located to the east and west sides of the Siegessäule where 15 DJs, including Paul van Dyk, Ricardo Villalobos, Tiësto, and Westbam rocked the crowd well into the night. The long-awaited Loveparade was back in Berlin where it was born in 1989. Pioneer provided all trucks and stages with Pro DJ gear -

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UK - Tower Productions' Edinburgh depot recently supplied all power generation (24 sets) ranging from 15kVA to 200kVA, cable, distribution and site lighting to the fast-growing Wickerman Festival near Kirkcubright. Due to the nature of the site and preferences of the organisers tower lights are "not welcome" - so site lighting comprised approx 150 halogen floods as well as 40 x 400W and 150W discharge fittings. This, although much slower, and demanding industrial quantities of cable, resulted in the site looking great at night without the noise, glare and building-site look, normally associated with tower lighting.

The Wickerman was the most recent of a string of high-profile temporary power contracts supplied by Tower including the provision of cable, distribution and lighting (for use by others) to; T-in-the-Park, The Johnny Walker Golf Tournament at Gleneagles, The

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  5. Wybron adds colour to Dinosaur Show
  6. Dynalite at the Everingham Rotating House
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