Business

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UK - Kent-based David Fitch Services is celebrating 25 years in business this year. David Fitch took the usual route to stage lighting i.e. as an amateur, starting at the tender age of five working with his father on the school show. Later, at the age of 16, lit his first show called Asses Ears.

After leaving school he spent six years in the family engineering business with four years at college studying engineering and management, and took over the running of the business just as the 1980 recession took hold, and the company closed. Fitch was faced with the choice of unemployment or seeing if the hobby could become a business . . .

Starting with six lights and a dimmer board (laughably described as 'portable', Fitch recalls), and working from the garden shed, Fitch made inroads into the local school and amateur market. Aquiring second-hand lanterns, he build up a stock

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Sweden - Wireless Solution Sweden AB has announced that the City of Stoke's innovative Living Lights project, of which W-DMX played a major role, has been awarded first place in the lighting category of The Street Design Awards 2006, a national contest in the UK to reward innovation by local authorities.

Recognized as one of the most advanced art lighting systems in Europe, the $900,000 installation, done by Thorn Outdoor Lighting, turns Stoke's Civic Centre into a giant 300ft by 75ft canvas for colourful light shows each night, designed by students, as featured in January's issue of L&SI.To facilitate the demanding requirements of the installation, Thorn chose W-DMX IP65 units for wireless control of the entire system.

The building is illuminated by 57 groups of DMX-controlled, Thorn RGB LED strips (more than 100 fixtures in total) fixed to the building. These c

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USA - Eagle Communication Inc. recently installed two Allen & Heath GL2800 live sound mixing consoles in Second Ebenezer Baptist Church in Detroit. The mixers were selected to manage a large number of inputs, as well as multiple mixes feeding different speaker clusters and locations in the church.

"We chose the Allen & Heath GL2800 because of the great sounding, very quiet mic-preamps, simple mute groups, and easy mixing of live performances. Most importantly, the mixer is user-friendly for church volunteers," says Eagle's technical specialist, Rob Wisnieski. "It is a big improvement over the previous mixer's performance and reliability."

A 56-channel GL2800 is used for the main sound, and a 40-channel GL2800 is used for monitor mixing. Input sources include a live band with keyboards, drums, bass, 10 vocal soloists, eight choir mics, a lapel mic, podium mi

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UK - This August, the longest-running hire contract ever for entertainment lighting supplier White Light will come to an end. White Light supplied the lighting rig for The Woman In Black at the Fortune Theatre in 1989; the show has been running ever since.

However, even though the hired rig will be coming back to White Light, the show is not ending. Instead, the producers and original lighting designer Kevin Sleep have decided to update the rig to give the show a fresher look; anticipating a long continuing life for the show, they have decided to purchase rather than hire the new lighting. White Light's hire team will no longer be involved with the show, but the sales team are working to provide an updated version of the rig, based largely around ETC's Source Four profile. The changeover will happen at the end of August.

"This also means that we'll be getting back

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USA - The new JET Nightclub at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas includes a sound reinforcement system featuring EAW Avalon Series loudspeakers, which were specifically designed to meet the high demands of premium nightclub sound.

Within a 15,000sq.ft space, JET is outfitted with high-end entertainment technology in each of its three distinct rooms, which are discretely fed hip-hop, rock and house music. As he's done with numerous cutting-edge club sound designs, John Lyons, president of design/build firm John Lyons Systems, chose to head the JET system with EAW Avalon Series loudspeakers, which he originally co-designed with the EAW engineering team.

In light of unique sonic challenges presented at JET, the two entities again teamed up on a hybrid custom loudspeaker design called the Avalon DCX. Specifically, the DCX marries elements of standard Avalon DC1 and DC2 models with EAW

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UK - Perhaps because he lives in San Francisco, sound sculptor Bill Fontana has come to regard suspension bridges as living structures that should be heard as well as seen. Fontana creates works in which he puts microphones and sensors in interesting locations and transmits the sounds they pick up to equally interesting locations some distance away, where they are reproduced in real time by carefully placed loudspeakers.

Fontana's recent work Speeds of Time involved positioning microphones and accelerometers (vibration sensors) in the clockworks of London's Big Ben, and playing the sound back from loudspeakers in a corridor of the Palace of Westminster below. Sound Island used hydrophones (underwater microphones) to gather sounds at the beach in Normandy, France, which were reproduced from speakers hung on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

As well as clocks and beach

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UK - For over four decades, Neil Sedaka's timeless standards have helped change the face of popular music. With countless hit singles, and platinum and gold records, he is recognized as one of rock and pop music's legendary pioneers. On Friday, 7 April, 2006, Neil performed at London's Royal Albert Hall (RAH), which was filmed for a worldwide DVD release.

Ollie Jeffery, technical show manager at the Albert Hall explained the production, "We were originally asked by Neil Sedaka production team to provide a three colour wash and a special for the Piano. We developed from a three colour wash to a comprehensive lighting rig using a mixture of generic and moving lights."

They felt that the best light to give good images on the backdrop would be the new Mac 700 Profiles which were supplied to them by White Light. Its variety of gobos and animation wheel was a big advantage

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UK - L-Acoustics UK has supplied its first Powered cabinets for an installation at the Winchester Family Church. Will Bradshaw the group technical director comments: "Due to the internal shape of our Stanmore Lane Church we had always struggled to achieve a clear sound from the live worship band and any singer or Minister on stage. We just couldn't reach all parts of the auditorium clearly with the original PA system. We were already in dialogue with L-Acoustics as they are working on a much bigger project for our main building in the centre of Winchester, so we asked them to solve this particular problem. After viewing the building and with careful consideration, the Solution was to provide a pair of the new L-Acoustics 112P powered speakers mounted high up left and right of the stage. The result was staggering - crystal clear sound in any part of the auditorium, even in the

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UK - Hawthorns have released a unique new facility on their website to assist hire customers quickly build a specification and get an idea of budget costs. "The new online Hire shop is a fully automated system which allows customers to view each item from the thumbnail picture gallery, select individual products from our extensive hire stock, check the pricing and build up a quote," said Simon Wood, general manager of Hawthorn's. "It will make getting a budgetary quote so much easier for customers as they can do it at anytime, 24/7, 365 days a year and the system even remembers to add in the essential auxiliary components."

The system produced quotes may be saved and sent to the Hire team experts at Hawthorn's for confirmation of specification, formalisation of pricing and confirmation of equipment availability. "We are already receiving excellent feedba

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UK - Creative sound specialists CP Sound were called in by Mike Filpi, owner of Clapham Old Town's newest Italian gastronomy - Mooli - to design and install a sound system for the new establishment.

CP Sound has delivered sound solutions for a variety of top class restaurants up over the last five years, including several flagship venues for the Conran Group and a number of leading independents.

CP's Colin Pattenden previously worked with Filpi on several high profile projects whilst he was a project manager at the Ignite Group (Eclipse Bars, Bouji's, etc). "We stated with a challenging situation" says Pattenden "The restaurant was already built when they decided a proper sound system was vital to the ambience". The CP team therefore undertook the task of installing the system and leaving the venue pristine behind them.

Mooli's is a small main room with a

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USA - Four new projects were started at ESTA's Technical Standards Program's working group meetings held by ESTA recently in Fort Worth, Texas. Anyone interested in joining a working group to work on these projects is invited to join. Information about joining a working group can be found at http://www.esta.org/tsp/working_groups/index.html. Anyone objecting to one of these projects because it is unnecessary or conflicts with an existing standard is invited to send his or her objections to the e-mail address given below.

BSR E1.33-200x, Extensions to E1.31 (DMX512 Streaming Protocol) for Transport of ANSI E1.20 (RDM) is a project to develop a set of extensions to E1.31 to support ANSI E1.20 functionality. The basic E1.31 protocol can be described as 'DMX512 over Ethernet'. It is intended to be suitable for implementation in hardware with very limited resources. The E1.33

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Hong Kong / Thailand - Artistic Licence Hong Kong has announced its latest dealer appointment: Vichai Trading has been appointed as main dealer for Thailand. Vichai Trading is one of the leading AV and lighting integrators in Thailand. With 23 years' experience, they are well placed to launch the Artistic Licence product range into Thailand, say Artistic.

Vichai's project credits speak for themselves, including such prestigious installations as Bangkok University and the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel. The extensive range of control and data distribution products available from Artistic Licence is a perfect match with the range and complexity of projects regularly undertaken by Vichai Trading.

Patiyuth Gludnim, Vichai Trading sales manager comments: "It is an honour to be appointed as an Artistic Licence dealer for Thailand. We look forward to offering the extensive range of Ar

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Austria - On 29 July, Vienna welcomed one of the world's leading trance DJs, DJ Tiësto, to the Heineken Green Room. Debuting at the event was Martin Professional's new laser, the RGB Laser 1.6. The Martin RGB Laser 1.6 is a Class 4 cool white light laser capable of generating deep saturated colours. It features simple plug-and-play operation, hundreds of pre-installed effects, and a cooling system that eliminates the need for expensive and bulky water cooling, say Martin Pro.

Supplying the laser effects for the show was Solaris Media. "The Martin RGB Laser 1.6 is a very positive surprise," commented Heimo Hanserl, owner of Solaris Media. "Besides the RGB Laser 1.6 we used two green 5W and one 10W lasers which were controlled by an external DSP, therefore we had to take data lines which was very time-consuming. The Martin RGB Laser in contrast was ready to play wi

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Belgium - Conveniently based in Ranst near Antwerp in the north of Belgium, the ASP Group has just been nominated as a new L-Acoustics V-Dosc Partner and dV- Dosc Provider for Belgium. ASP Audiologic, the pro-audio department of the ASP Group, focuses on the professional audio market demands and has an extensive stock of specialised audio equipment.

Yves Quireyns, managing director of ASP Audiologic says: "During the 22 years that we have been in the business, we have extensively tested many systems, this one being by far the best we have ever heard. It sounds fantastic in every location and leaves it's competitors far behind."ASP has already invested in 18 dV- Dosc, 16 V- Dosc, 6 dV-Sub, 16 SB218 subs and L-Acoustics amplifiers.

When ASP is asked why they made the choice to go with L-Acoustics, they say that "the superior quality of the L-Acoustics systems, com

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UK - XL Video UK is supplying Barco O-Lite tiles, Element Labs control, Chroma-Q ColorBlocks and two V4 Catalyst digital media servers for dance act Daft Punk's headline shows on their current European and Japanese festival tour. It's the band's first tour since 1997, and their distinctive pyramid shaped set was designed to maximise impact.

The set was originally conceived for a one-off at the Coachella Valley Music Festival, where it was such a success that they decided to tour the design involving four separate but linked layers of video.

The pyramid is the show's main visual device, and is reliant on all the video technologies working in unison with the lighting cues. LD Martin Phillips is looking after the general visual aesthetics, and he suggested that the tour needed a dedicated video partner, hence XL Video UK's involvement in the project. Project manager Phil Mercer s

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The Netherlands - For the tour by the popular Dutch singer Jan Smit, the rental company Triple Showtechniek invested in an extensive audio package that included systems from Electro-Voice, Klark Teknik and Midas.

Jan Smit first achieved stardom in his native Holland nine years ago. Since then, the vocalist has matured into an internationally acclaimed performer whose tours are among the most successful and lavish productions in the pop business.

The rental company responsible for Smit's upcoming tour of the Netherlands and Germany is Triple Showtechniek based in Purmerend. With a view to achieving perfect results acoustically, the Dutch touring company's audio specialists launched an investment offensive ordering an extensive package of Electro-Voice, Klark Teknik and Midas pro audio systems from the Dutch EV distributor, Electric Audio B.V and Midas Consoles Holland.

The sh

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USA - HME announces the appointment of Technology K.A.R. of Egypt; Audiopro SRO of the Czech Republic; Venuetech LLC. of the United Arab Emirates; Lydrommet AS of Norway; Audigys of Greece; and Gotham AG of Switzerland as the latest international distributors to join HME's Pro Audio network.

Founded in 1996, Technology K.A.R. has provided communications solutions for over 10 years, featuring wireless systems for the professional and broadcasting markets throughout Egypt. Audiopro SRO is the leader in communications solutions for the Czech Republic, featuring specialised audio systems for professional and broadcasting markets. Venuetech offers full support and services for professional audio and broadcasting markets for the United Arab Emirates.

Lydrommet is Norway's leading distributor for sound systems. Audigys offers audio-light and vision integrated turnkey solutions. Gotha

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UK - "Reliability is one of the things that sets us apart from the competition," said Simon Wood, sales and marketing director at Stage One. This was demonstrated recently when, for the 13th year running, Stage One's set building expertise was called into play for one of the most high profile AGM's in the business calendar, that of Marks & Spencer. Held at the ICC, Birmingham, Stage One was asked by Jack Morton Worldwide to build extensive sets for a registration area, main auditorium and an exhibition area.

"Repeat business is vital in our industry and the fact that we've been working with many of the same clients for a number of years is testament to the quality of our work," said Simon. He added, "Our clients know that we can consistently produce a top quality service on time and on budget."

Stage One's work in the main auditorium included: bui

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UK - For the second year running, large format projection specialists E//T//C UK are projecting giant images onto the castle walls for the 2006 Edinburgh Military Tattoo.

E//T//C's Ross Ashton was asked back after last year's show that introduced projection into the visual mix for the first time in the event's 57 year history. The dramatic 60 metre wide by 30 metre tall moving pictures are covering the Castle battlements and Gatehouse.

This year the theme for a specially produced six minute projection show was a tribute to 370 years of Scottish soldiery, performed by the Bands of the Coldstream and Scots Guards. It was also marked the end of a 12-year reign by the Tattoo's chief executive and producer, Brigadier Melville Jameson CBE DL.

In conjunction with Jameson, 2006 Tattoo director of music, Lt. Col. Robert Owen and Major Graham Jones, director of music for the Co

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Worldwide - Bruce Springsteen's long-time FOH engineer John Cooper is one of the newest converts to the Digidesign Venue live sound environment. Springsteen is on a worldwide tour until 2007 promoting his latest recording, The Seeger Sessions. Some of the tour highlights to date have been The New Orleans Jazz Festival, and television appearances on The Tonight Show and Late Night with Conan O'Brian. Cooper is using Venue to mix all of Springsteen's live shows, along with Pro Tools to record and later remix the songs for a subsequent live release and for use on the Internet.

Cooper chose a 96-input/16-output Venue system when searching for a higher quality FOH mixing platform for Springsteen. The system's plug-in architecture was a big selling point (some of Cooper's favorite plug-ins include the Bomb Factory BF76 compressor, BF-3A compressor, and Fairchild 660 limi

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UK - Harman UK has supplied indie-pop band Franz Ferdinand with a dbx IEM (in-ear monitor) processor unit for use during the band's 2006 Festival Tour. The charismatic four-piece from Scotland burst onto the chart scene in 2004 with their best-selling, eponymous debut album, which won the much coveted Mercury Music Prize. The band's current tour takes in numerous venues around Europe and includes appearances at the Carling Weekend Reading and Leeds Festivals later this summer.

Franz Ferdinand's live sound engineer Tilde Bruynooghe ordered the IEM unit initially for use at the NEC in Birmingham. The IEM processor was designed with the simple aim of enhancing the sonic quality of all in-ear monitor applications, while providing the necessary audio level protection that both artists and engineers require. Ideally suited as a tool for fine-tuning mix monitoring for in-ear monitoring

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Denmark - DPA Microphones continued its sponsorship of the annual Copenhagen Jazz Festival this summer, working as acoustic consultants and providing technical support throughout the festival. DPA also provided a large quantity of microphones including 3521 compact stereo mic'ing kits, 4011 cardioids, 4021 compact cardioids, 4015 wide cardioids, 4007 high SPL mics and a selection of mounting accessories. The jazz festival was also an excellent opportunity to showcase the new DPA 4091 omnidirectional microphone, designed as an instrument mic.

The primary sites that DPA worked on were the new Copenhagen Opera House which opened last year, and the Glassalen, a beautiful 1,000 seat glass concert hall in the Tivoli Gardens. A similar selection of mics were used across both venues, including 4091s for guitar and bass amps. The 144 dB SPL handling of this recently-introduced mic means

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UK - Rosco has launched a new custom gobo manufacturing facility for the European market. Rosco has a long history of producing custom metal and glass gobos. The addition of DHA Lighting, one of the UK's leading custom gobo supplier, to the company last year, has achieved a level of knowledge that is unique.

"Both Rosco and DHA's colour custom gobos have traditionally been produced overseas," says Steve Connolly who has been brought in as head of gobo business development for the new venture. "The service is already excellent, but actually being able to manufacture such gobos on site at our facility in London means that much of the margin for error that is inevitable when you employ the services of outside contractors, such as shipping services, is more or less eliminated."

Connolly's involvement to the industry dates back to 1975 when he started working fo

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UK - Industry innovators Global Design Solutions (GDS), whose Blues System will be on show at PLASA 06 next month (10-13 September, Earls Court, London), have been recognised for their inspirational business ideas and approach, having been selected as winners of the South West Angel and Investor Network (SWAIN) unique business investor opportunity competition.

GDS provides forward-thinking new technical product design and business consultancy services to the entertainment, leisure and associated industries. The company also specialises in bespoke design and installation of high-end integrated control systems, ranging from residential to marine, offering both third party development and working for end clients.

Having impressed the judges and been crowned winners of the competition, GDS were given the opportunity to discuss their business plan over a private lunch to SWAIN dire

  1. Midas & KT support Deep Blue Sound
  2. KV2 expands: new staff, premises & company
  3. Blackout work on the Peugeot launch
  4. Orbital Provides a total comms solution
  5. Harman provides for Hybrid
  6. Interim arrangements for Strand customers
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