Business

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UK - For around 1,800 BT sales executives at BT UK Global Services annual UK sales conference in July, The NEC in Birmingham called upon Blackout to provide 1,500m of long drop black-wool-serge drape, 2,000m of trussing, install the roof points and rig 200 motors through Halls, 10, 11 and 12. The event was project managed by Blackout's Ken Nock who has many years of experience managing the rigging for events at The NEC.

The whole venue had a 'Game-on' theme, which was designed and produced by marketing agency, George P Johnson. BT sales staff were in a blacked-out and immersive environment whereby each of the halls had the quality of an interactive game.

For the main presentation, a Musion 'Pepper's Ghost' screen was used to allow inter-play between live action, video and graphics and was visible to all areas of the auditorium. Blackout was responsible for rigging the 20 x 10m

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UK - XL Video supplied a portable truck-based 40sq.m LED screen to the World Scout Jamboree's Gilwell Park - 'The home of scouting' and Scout training in Chingford, Essex, as part of the World Scout Jamboree event, and the Scout Association's Centenary celebrations.

The screen was located in The Paddock area of the park, close to the site of the original Scout camp there - the Scout Association has owned the site since 1919 - and near to the famous Gilwell oak tree and White House.

Working closely with Gilwell site technical manager Alex Woods, XL was contracted over a year in advance for this event which was project managed for them by Al Green, a keen Scout in his youth.

Each day of the 12-day Jamboree event, up to 8,000 Scouts and support personnel were bussed in to Gilwell Park from the main Jamboree site at Hylands Park, Chelmsford.

The screen was used interactively t

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UK - Built in London's East End in 1933, the Troxy has been many things - one of the largest cinemas in England, a World War II air-raid shelter, a Mecca bingo hall - but recently it has been restored to full theatrical glory by new owners Lali Enterprises, and is now available for private and corporate receptions, as well as live music events.

The Grade II-listed building has retained its original 1930s art deco features but now also contains a stage, dance floor, four bars and a full kitchen. With a capacity for up to 2,600 people, it provides a venue for large-scale parties, awards ceremonies, conferences and exhibitions. The addition of a high-specification Electro-Voice XLC line array sound system, with full digital control, and an impressive lighting rig from Halo Lighting has expanded the Troxy's potential even further.

London-based audio specialist Systems Etc has comp

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UK - "We set up RealSound Ltd to raise the standards of after sales service throughout the pro audio industry," says industry veteran David Nibbs, who recently created RealSound Ltd. Nibbs, who has 30 years' experience within the music and PA installation sector of the market added: "The primary objective of the company is to introduce our Total 3, Total 5 and Warranty Plus brands of after-sales support services to retail dealers and installation companies across the UK."

RealSound's remit is to enhance the quality of the offered sale or proposal. Nibbs explains: "For dealers and their clients alike, we remove the hassle, wasted time, and resources of having to deal with equipment repairs and replacements for years after the initial sale. Dealers make a profit and their clients benefit from a greatly enhanced level of after sales service."

There a

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UK - Experienced operators City Centre Leisure Group have opened the Club 2020 in Bournemouth - with a programme of appearances by top international DJs (including Erick Morillo and Trevor Nelson) and a technology infrastructure to satisfy the most discerning of practitioners.

The leisure company - run by Josh Simons, Alan Simons and John Tyror - also run the Landmark restaurant in the town. They enlisted Mark Neal's Production Hire to carry out the installation.

The conversion of the 840-capacity, former K-Bar has been inspired. The ground floor dance room (and adjacent tented chill area) lead down to a VIP mezzanine room and further down still to the main room in the basement.

Wherever you look there are snugs and annexe rooms to chill out in - and they are invariably served by one of Martin Audio's architectural AQ series speakers, and illuminated by the Pulsar Chroma ran

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Germany - The renowned Konzerthaus Dortmund has installed a new public address system, specifying a Soundcraft Vi4 digital console as part of an integrated Harman Pro solution over a HiQnet protocol backbone. The design includes JBL VRX loudspeakers and Crown i-Tech amplifiers. The acoustic architecture was carefully considered by system designer, Sebastian Müller-Eckhardfrom Dortmund-based B&B Veranstaltungstechnik.

The Konzerthaus originally opened in 2002 with an installed sound system designed for voice transmission only, since the primary intention was to have classical concerts only in this acoustically-optimised concert-hall. However, the number of shows where dedicated sound reinforcement was needed started to grow steadily and for the past two years B&B rented a Harman Pro rig for special events at the Konzerthaus.

When it came to fitting a new infrastructure, the ve

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USA - The Genlyte Group Incorporated has announced that the company's board of directors has authorised the repurchase of up to 5% or approximately 1,450,000 shares of the company's outstanding common stock. Under the share repurchase programme, the company expects to acquire shares primarily through open market transactions, subject to market conditions and other factors.

The company may enter into Rule 10b5-1 plans to facilitate open market repurchases under the programme at times when it might otherwise be prevented from doing so under certain securities laws, provided the plan is adopted when the company is not in possession of material non-public information.

Larry Powers, chairman, president, and CEO of Genlyte Group, said: "The share repurchase programme reflects our confidence in Genlyte's financial and operating performance strength. We completed four acquisition

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USA - With the heat index nearing 100 degrees each day, this year's Lollapalooza festival was another scorching three-day event with artists, bands and music fans from across the world converging on Chicago's Grant Park. Shure's SM58s, Beta 58As and other performance microphones were a mainstay on all of the festival stages, large and small, throughout the festival.

"With as many as five people singing at any one time, our vocals are really important, so naturally, Shure microphones are our top choice for vocals and we always insist on a Beta 58A whenever possible," said Mike Jasinski, guitarist/keyboardist for The 1900s. "We had a really good time at Lollapalooza and everybody said the sound was great."

Some of the acts using Shure gear included The 1900s, The Black Keys, G. Love & Special Sauce, M.I.A., My Morning Jacket, Patti Smith, Peter Bjorn and John

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UK - Two of the UK's highest profile live events of 2007 took place at London's new Wembley Stadium at the beginning of July - and a Yamaha DME64N digital mix engine was a fundamental part of both events.

Both The Concert for Diana and the UK Live Earth gig seven days later featured a diverse array of high profile acts playing short sets. The requirements for each of the many acts were very different and, with extremely short turnaround times, the audio production was always going to be a major logistical challenge for sound company Britannia Row.

For monitoring, the company's solution was to employ three different monitor consoles, with a Yamaha DME64N digital mix engine to act as a switching matrix between them. Using a DME in this way had already been tried by Brit Row at June's Wireless festival in London's Hyde Park and the success of the system meant that the company had

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Switzerland - The fifth annual Shure Montreux Jazz Voice Competition concluded during this year's Montreux Jazz Festival on 12 July. Over 60 aspiring artists representing 29 countries entered the competition. From them, eight candidates were invited to perform at the competition's semi-finals at the Petit Palais.

The event concluded with Cyrill-Aimée Daudel being awarded first prize and the public prize. Laura Brunner was awarded the second prize, followed by Jennifer Ledesna receiving third prize (all USA).

The competition jury was headed by jazz legend Al Jarreau for the second consecutive year who commented to all finalists: "All of you have already won. You found something which fills your lives with pride and joy - your heart for music."

Festival founder Claude Nobs hosted the award ceremony where the three finalists each received a Shure ULX/Beta 87 Wi

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USA - A combination of compact Electro-Voice line arrays kept sound focused and sightlines open at the recent Oregon Jamboree country music festival.

Taking place over the first weekend in August, this year's Oregon Jamboree featured headliners Dierks Bentley, Trisha Yearwood and Jo Dee Messina. For the past five years, Horne Audio (Portland, Oregon) have used EV line array systems to great effect at the festival, and, in the spirit of continuous improvement, this year they tried something different with their sub deployment.

"Our client asked that we try an alternative to ground-stacked subs, to keep the low-end from overwhelming the seating areas directly in front of the stage," says J. Peter Horne, "so we decided to fly two side-by-side arrays of six XLC215 subs per side, keeping the low-end off the ground alongside our main hangs of twelve XLC-DVX per side a

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USA - Tour sound company Sound Image is on the road with Gwen Stefani and a rig that includes Harman Pro Group HiQnet-enabled components from Crown International, dbx, and AKG. With System Architect as the main control application, all the Harman products integrate seamlessly to enable a network that allows the sound engineer to access the system from a variety of positions in a venue.

The Gwen Stefani tour HiQnet system comprises 86 Crown I-Tech 8000 amplifiers, four dbx DriveRack 4800s, and the new AKG HUB 4000 Q, providing HiQnet control over the WMS 4000 wireless microphone network. 60 JBL Professional Vertec VT4889 line array loudspeakers, 24 JBL Vertec 4880 arrayable subwoofers and AKG IVM 4 personal monitors are also in use.

(Jim Evans)

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Slovakia - Circus World is a Slovak touring non-traditional music and dance show reflecting modern music, dances and interpretations of folklore. One grandMA full-size, one grandMA video media server and twelve MA Digital Touring Dimmer racks were used to light the show.

"The project is really sophisticated so we had to utilise devices able to work with 'any other device'. Also high reliability of the components was necessary. Based upon these criteria, the MA equipment was chosen," said Martin Kubánka, director of Q99. "The comfortable programming and playback functions as well as the 'clone-function' make the grandMA our favourite console."

The lighting rig features 16 x Martin MAC 600, 8 x Martin MAC 500, 2 x Robert Juliat Cyrano and 16 x Arri Studio 1kW. The show was created in co-production of SLUK (Slovak Folk Artistic Ensemble) and Q-99 which delive

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UK - With the industry's leading players rolling out major new products and services, it's a dead cert that PLASA 07 will be the place where decisions shaping the high profile projects, events and tours of the coming year will be made. Both Earls Court 1 and 2 will be packed with new ideas in audio, lighting, AV, rigging, system integration, engineering and effects - and specialists looking to identify the best solutions for their projects, or even to witness the next generation of ideas, will get a chance to see them all in one place and talk to the people who make them tick.

The best of the new technologies will be showcased in the PLASA Awards for Innovation - an awards scheme which puts design and development work at its centre. And for the first time this year, there'll be a new award focusing on the people behind the products - the Gottelier Award - intended to recognise t

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Spain - Barco's MiStrip, its new creative LED element, has been chosen by world-renowned Japanese architect Toyo Ito and Fira 2000 for use in the Fira Barcelona Gran Via exhibition centre in Barcelona, Spain.

Toyo Ito, one of the world's most innovative and influential architects, is known for creating extreme concept buildings, in which he fuses the physical and virtual worlds. His latest design of the Fira Barcelona Gran Via in Barcelona runs true to form being based on recurring organic forms where water, natural light and well-conceived interior illumination all dominate the design.

One of these organic forms can be clearly seen in the design of the Vestibule (main entrance), where the façade itself is of curved glass, with organic walls protecting it and a flat upper deck with an architectonic projection jutting from its edges. In keeping to the organic form, Toyo Ito al

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UK - Bristol City Football Club (BCFC) has marked its promotion to the Championship by installing a new sound system at its Ashton Gate stadium.

Following a competitive tender process against a specification by Steve Jones, Venue Technology expert for the Acoustics Division of Capital Symonds, the contact was awarded to Bristol-based systems integration company Sounds Commercial. UK cable specialist VDC Trading supplied much of the Low Smoke Zero Halogen, steel wire armoured and fire tough cable for the project.

Damian Orritt, installation contracts manager of Sounds Commercials says: "We use VDC for our cabling requirements because it manufactures and stocks the breadth of products that we need, particularly for complex installations. In this case it was important that we specified rugged and reliable cable that couldn't be tampered with - and that it complied with the v

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USA - After several days of intense educational sessions, hands-on demos, and field trips to local venues, the successful Music Retail Academy held at Bosch Communications Systems HQ culminated in the presentation of Electro-Voice with the '#1 Supplier' award from Sam Ash Music stores.

The award recognised the company for "all the outstanding service that Sam Ash Music has received over the past 40 years. Your continued service to our company and our people is why you have become our most valuable supplier."

Bosch Communications Systems' VP of sales, Thomas Hansen, says: "It's a unique honour to be recognised by an organisation as well-respected and professional as the Sam Ash Music Stores chain. Our goal with Sam Ash and the rest of our partners is to provide the utmost in delivery, service and customer support. This award validates the improvements that we've

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The Netherlands / USA - Royal Philips Electronics has completed its acquisition of Color Kinetics Incorporated. As a result of the transaction, Color Kinetics will be financially consolidated with immediate effect within the Luminaires business group of Philips' Lighting division.

A statement says: "The acquisition of Color Kinetics further bolsters Philips' strong intellectual property portfolio, adding important patents relating to intelligence and control technology for LED lighting. Color Kinetics also has in excess of 15,000 professional installations worldwide and an array of large, industrial customers in professional channels.

"The acquisition of Color Kinetics builds on the acquisition of Lumileds in 2005, through which Philips ensured a leading position in high-power LEDs, and on the recent acquisition of TIR Systems, which provided Philips with a strong li

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UK - International staging specialists Stageco provided the organisers with three identical main stages for shows on both sides of the Atlantic, for the second year running.

The company supplied its Classic 4-Tower Roof system, offering a 25 x 20m performance area to bands such as Basement Jaxx, Kasabian and The Killers in the UK and The Police and The Smashing Pumpkins in the USA.

This tried and tested stage design was introduced by Stageco 17 years ago and is still highly popular with production teams for festivals and touring throughout Europe: it was used recently for Metallica tour 07, and the German festivals Rock am Ring and Rock im Park. The V Festival stages were installed over a three day build and took just two days to demount, creating a consistent focal point at all the shows.

The European Stageco teams under the management of Dirk de Decker installed the main s

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China - The 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games will be held in Shanghai from 2-11 October 2007. The event will mark the first time the World Summer Games will be held in Asia, and only the second time they will be held outside the United States. In addition to almost 7,500 athletes, Special Olympics expects the Games to draw 40,000 volunteers, 3,500 event officials and thousands of spectators and journalists.

The Opening Ceremonies for the World Games will be produced by award-winning producer/director Don Mischer and take place in the 80,000-seat Shanghai Stadium.

Trinity Technology, responsible for the supply of technical equipment for the Opening Ceremonies, selected Prolyte Asia Pacific to supply Prolyft hoists for the rigging equipment. Over 260 hoists, in various types, are currently being installed in the new stadium. A crew of trained technicians organised by Pro

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UK - Rambert Dance Company - England's oldest contemporary dance company - has invested in an Eos by ETC. Technical director Malcolm Glanville comments: "We'd had an ETC Obsession for 10 years, and with the introduction of moving lights, programming became quite a time consuming process. The Rambert Company's presentation is primarily based on its lighting and when we had a lunch break, the programmer would have to stay behind to continue working.

"As soon as I got my first look at Eos, I decided that was the way we wanted to go. We've also always had a very good relationship with ETC."

The Company holds regular dance workshops and shows across the country, returning twice a year to London's Sadler's Wells, but the first outing for Eos was at Truro's Hall for Cornwall in July, when the Company performed several pieces created by some of its own dancers.

As par

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UK - Adlib Audio supplied sound and lights to the Virgin Mobile Sessions Stages at both sites - Stafford and Chelmsford - of the V Festival.

Located in 2,000 capacity tents, Sessions featured a lively line up of "ones to watch". Adlib designed and supplied two identical sound and lighting systems for the different venues. The rigs were designed to be fully flexible and as dynamic as possible to cater for a full range of bands and fast changeovers.

On the sound side, crew chiefs Steve Pattison (Chelmsford) and Hassane Es Siahi (Stafford) studied as many band specs as they could ahead of time and made sure they were appropriately equipped.

The FOH desks were Midas H3000s, supplied complete with a comprehensive set of effects including Lexicon PCM 70s, TC D2 delays and Yamaha SPX 2000s. Compressors were a mix of dbx and BSS and the gates were Drawmer. "Essentiall

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USA - For the past ten years, the little town of Ellensburg, WA has lit up with the sweet sound of jazz for one July weekend. Dubbed 'Jazz in the Valley', the event attracted ever-growing crowds in the early years until officials put a clamp on the maximum number of attendees to preserve the intimate feel of their 10 stages. Now tickets sell out months in advance and bands clamber to join the roster.

The sound system on the main stage has grown as well. Musicians were self-amplified the first year. In the nine years that followed, FOH engineer Mike Bruce evolved his system to keep pace with the size of the crowd and the technical sophistication of the performing bands. The main stage at this year's Jazz in the Valley boasted 15,000 Watts and digital signal processing from Symetrix' Integrator Series - the Deuce 722.

Bruce replaced six rack spaces of analogue processing with th

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Ireland - J&C Joel has designed, fabricated and installed seven movable acoustic panels in the main Curtis Auditorium at the prestigious new Cork School of Music.

The J&C Joel team led by Tony Griffiths, played an active role in ensuring that the 420 seat Curtis Auditorium has the flexibility to provide exactly the right acoustic environment for anything from piano recitals to full orchestral performances to vocal and choral works.

J&C Joel's biggest challenge was presented by their late appointment to the project. By the time this happened, all the AC, ventilation, heating ducting, drainage pipes, containment trays and other plant and services were already in place up in the plenum - the sound proofed concealed roof space above the auditorium.

This is where all the suspension and movement control equipment required for the seven panels had to be installed - comprising a com

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