Business

Details
Austria - The MEET/BTT trade conference takes place every two years and is hosted by OETHG and DTHG, the professional theatre and TV associations for Germany and Austria. This year the event was in Bregenz, Austria and featured an extensive schedule of conferences and seminars.

Together with RTC, Zero 88's distributor for Austria, Zero 88 showed the Frog 2, Leap Frog 48/96 and Jester series as well as the new Master Touch Screen for the Chilli dimmers. Zero 88's powerful 3D visualisation software Light Converse, which played a big role within the lighting design contest, had a lot of very positive feedback during the show, says the company.

A highlight of the event was the lighting design contest. This was the first time a lighting design competition had been arranged at the show and was accomplished in co-operation with the OETHG, DTHG and RTC.

Applications for the competit

Details
Germany - Following tarmLED 4x4's successful deployment at numerous productions this year, it was most recently the highlight of an event staged by Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart. The system was installed horizontally above the heads of the 400 invited attendees and thus emulated an innovative LED-ceiling. At the finale of an approximately two-minute laser performance, the Mercedes star appeared in breathtaking brightness on the auditorium's 'LED-sky'.

Thanks to tarmLED 4x4's lightweight construction and daisy-chain cabling from module to module using just a single, combined, power and data line, the total weight of the approximately 50sq.m LED-surface, including all power supplies and processors, could be reduced to around 600 kg, which was an essential factor in arranging such a production, due to the limited load-bearing capacities of the existing suspension points. Data transmis

Details
UK - Bandit Lites recently donated lighting for the fourth annual Pinnacle Business Awards, hosted by the Knoxville Chamber and presented by Regions Bank. Over 650 business people attended the 2008 event, which took place at the KnoxvilleConvention Centre.

Building on the success of the past three galas, this year's awards ceremony featured a reception, a silent auction, followed by dinner and an awards presentation - emceed by John Becker.The Pinnacle Business Awards Gala is an occasion to honor both the nominees and award winners, all of which are outstanding representatives of the greater Knoxville business community.

To light the event, lighting designer, Will Twork, primarily chose to use Martin MAC 2000s, 600s, 500s and ETC Source Fours. Lighting was controlled by a Whole Hog II.

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - London's Tower Hamlets is known as one of the city's less well off areas. Yet one of its schools, Morpeth in the Bethnal Green district, has done particularly well, with a £13.5m grant from the local authority which has led to a complete rebuilding programme. As part of that programme, the school has a new performing arts block, including a theatre which doubles as a school assembly hall, and three drama studios.

Morpeth, which specialises in arts and music, has recently invested in an ETC Congo jr and two SmartFade lighting control desks, as well as SmartPack dimming. Chris Bocking at Redbridge Drama Centre, who was brought in as a consultant for the installation, explains: "We recommend ETC control desks because they are very sophisticated yet user friendly. One of the problems which all schools face is that staff leave and there might be no-one else trained to

Details
Poland - Midas and Klark Teknik's newly-appointed Polish distributor Audio Plus has made its first XL8 Live Performance System sale in record time - just two minutes after its official appointment to the position.

The sale was confirmed following a training academy which introduced XL8 to Poland, just before the appointment became official. Audio Plus, a long-time Electro-Voice distributor, is regularly supported at its academies by local small-to-medium rental company Legro. Owners Jacek Graczewski and Grzegorz Lesniewski underwent a few hours of XL8 training before the academy, and went on to mix four bands throughout the evening.

"Just after midnight on 17 May - two minutes after Audio Plus became the official Midas and KT distributor for Poland - I received one of the shortest phone calls ever," recounts Pawlak. "It was Jacek from Legro, who said, 'Hi, Sebia

Details
Finland - The April Jazz Espoo is the largest annual jazz event in the Helsinki area. The five-day event draws thousands of visitors from throughout Europe and beyond. This year marked the Festival's 22nd year, as well as the city of Espoo's 550th anniversary, making the event even more noteworthy.

Performers at this year's festival included singer Angelique Kidjo, jazz legends Ron Carter and Pharoah Sanders with their ensembles, and jazz composer Maria Schneider conducting the Espoo Big Band. Sound engineer Tuomo Matikka handled the event's audio using a Meyer Sound system.

The Festival's largest venue, Tapiola Hall at Espoo Cultural Centre, was outfitted with two arrays of 12 M'elodie line array loudspeakers each. Low end was covered by six 700-HP subwoofers configured in cardioid pairs. The main arrays were augmented by two UPA-2P loudspeakers for in-fills and eight MM-4 mi

Details
UK - APR Audio has placed an order for Electro-Voice's new XLD and XLE compact line array cabinets to add to its already extensive EV inventory, becoming the first rental company in the UK to offer all five of EV's professional sound reinforcement systems.

Now the largest Electro-Voice systems rental house in the UK, APR first adopted the X-Array concert sound technology in 2000, two years later, buying into EV's line array concepts, first with X-Line and then with XLC systems. With this latest purchase of 24x EV XLD281 and 12x XLE181 compact cabinets, APR is intending to service its growing interest in touring musicals and cabaret-style one-off shows, which play in town theatres where audience sizes are generally less than 1500.

APR's owner Andy Reed is also a partner in new company R2 Digital, which owns the rights to a number of touring productions and supplies production s

Details
USA - Renkus-Heinz will show three new products, including a new live sound line and a second generation version of one of its most successful products, at Infocomm 2008.

Details will be revealed on Day 1 of the show, but will include a major expansion of the successful Iconyx digitally steerable array loudspeaker concept, and a new addition to the popular Sygma series of installation loudspeakers, say the company.

"People have been using Iconyx for a wide variety of applications," says Renkus-Heinz president Harro Heinz. "But we've had intense demand both to expand the technologies it features, and to broaden its application horizons. Our research and development team has also been very active on several other fronts. The pace has been fast here, and we think people will be pretty excited by the developments we will be showing at Infocomm 2008."

(Jim Eva

Details
China - The National Centre for the Performing Arts, formerly known as the National Grand Theater, Beijing, was recently equipped with MA Lighting technology. The Centre, an ellipsoid dome of titanium and glass surrounded by an artificial lake, seats 6,500 people in three halls and is 200,000m² in size. It was designed by French architect Paul Andreu.

Four grandMA full-size and one grandMA ultra-light are used to control three major performance halls: the Opera House for operas, ballet, and dances (seats 2,416) the Concert Hall (seats 2,017) and the Theatre, for plays (1,040 seats). All grandMA consoles are connected via MA-Net which is based on fibre optical. Besides other fixtures the National Centre for the Performing Arts has got 200 moving lights installed.

ACE - Advanced Communication Equipment provided the lighting equipment. Lighting design was a joint effort by NGT,

Details
UK - Event services specialist PSL enjoyed such a positive response to its recent open days for customers that it has decided to repeat them, staging four Open Days at its Potters Bar HQ at the beginning of July.

A PSL Open Day provides an opportunity to discuss event production at every level in a calm and unhurried environment, says the company. There's a chance to evaluate the latest technology in the AV presentation industry, such as powerful new tools for visual display in widescreen format and HD projection.

PSL specialist John Montague will be showing visitors how to maximize the impact of their presentation material on a full 20' wide screening area, providing accessible explanations of what cutting-edge content generation devices like the Hippotizer media server can bring to the party.

PSL has been investing heavily in new display equipment, many items of which will

Details
USA - Four southwestern regional rental production and staging companies have each recently chosen JBL's Vertec line array systems for use in their audio rental business operations. The Dallas headquarters for AVW-Telav (a Freeman company), Ford Audio-Visual Services (Oklahoma City), Gemini Sound (Dallas, Texas), and Backward Audio (Salina, Oklahoma) have each recently selected JBL's new VT4888DP-AN midsize powered line array systems with VT4882DP-AN powered arrayable subwoofers.

While each firm serves different markets and has its own approach to rental sound reinforcement, the establishment of a large common inventory of similar loudspeaker systems provides some significant new options for rental customers in Oklahoma, Texas and beyond, says JBL. A total of 72 new powered midsize JBL Vertec line array elements with 36 supporting powered subwoofers will all now be located withi

Details
USA - The presentation of the International Dance Music Awards (IDMA) is one of the highlights of the annual Winter Music Conference (WMC) in Florida. The awards single out for recognition the movers, shakers, clubs, and systems setting the pace in the international DJ and dance stakes. Dynacord: was nominated for an IDMA in the 'Best Sound System' category but, with the nominated Pacha club in New York and IDMA-winning Space Miami both boasting Dynacord alpha installations, it topped the Best Club category.

Infinite Audio Systems won the 'Best Sound Installation' category; and the founder and CEO of the Miami-based installation company, Lord Toussaint said, "It is an award that perhaps represents the level at which we are installing nationally, and soon internationally. We are designing and integrating more than audio systems. We are installing 'revenue generating equipmen

Details
USA - Nexxus Lighting has become an Energy Star Partner. Energy Star is a joint programme of the US Environmental Protection Agency and the US Department of Energy that helps consumers save money and protect the environment through energy efficient products and practices.

"Based on this new partnership, Nexxus will be testing its new Array Lighting LED lamps to achieve Energy Star certification," stated Zdenko Grajcar, chief technology officer for Nexxus Lighting. "This partnership enforces Nexxus Lighting's commitment and initiatives to increase energy savings for our customers and protect the global environment.

"The guidelines for Energy Star Certification as it relates to solid state lighting (SSL) have been established and by utilising our patent pending Selective Heat Sink (SHS) technology we feel we will not only meet the standards, but exceed them.&

Details
Ireland - Westlife's Croke Park Stadium show in Dublin was enjoyed by a sold-out live audience of 85,000, with Bandit Lites supplying all onstage lighting.

The band's 2008 show was designed and directed by William Baker, who also designed the set, with the lighting design created by Baz Halpin. On tour and for Croke Park, lighting was operated/directed by Dave Lee.The show was produced by Production North.

The design saw Halpin going very theatrical, with all the structures concealed, apart from a centre stage 'W' shaped truss. Lighting fixtures were all positioned on a series of angled trussing sections, some of which moved. This ensured the gaps were filled, and that light could be focussed from all angles right across the performance area for even and balanced coverage.

Upstage, there were six moving trusses, all suspended on two points each. Running on Bandit's own fully

Details
UK - Live event specialist tdc transformed Sheffield City Hall's ballroom for the final of a Dragon's Den-style student business challenge. The Sheffield-based company provided AV support for the BiG Challenge, a competition designed to encourage and generate enterprise in education.

The event, which forms part of BiG - Make It Your Business, provided 180 teams from 18 schools and two colleges in Sheffield with the chance to pitch for a share of £100,000 to support enterprise in their school, as well as a five day trip to the Harvard Business School in Boston, USA.

Each team of budding entrepreneurs received £25 to start and run their business over a six month period and generate as much profit as possible with the most successful teams making the City Hall final.

More than 20 awards were presented at the event with Myers Grove School taking the ove

Details
USA - City Theatrical's new SHoW DMX wireless DMX received the "Live Design Lighting Product of the Year Award" from Live Design Magazine at the Broadway Lighting Master Classes on May 20, 2008 in New York City.

SHoW DMX was a nearly unanimous first draft pick by the judges in the Wireless Networking category. One judge noted: "I find City Theatrical's product innovative in the multiple ways that it seeks to attain higher levels of data fidelity and create ways to peacefully coexist with other radio signals in the 2.4GHz band - adjustable power output, limited bandwidth mode, and limited burst mode."

Another judge noted, referring to SHoW DMX's reliability: "The SHoW DMX system was no different than using wires - first time I could ever say that."

CTI's SHoW DMX system utilizes a patent pending method that synchronizes the hopping pattern of the

Details
USA - Pennsylvania-based Anderson Audio recently augmented its existing inventory of Lab.gruppen amplifiers with the purchase of 12 PLM 10000 Q Powered Loudspeaker Management systems. According to Anderson Audio owner Chris Anderson, the new PLM units - each of which incorporates two full modules of Dolby Lake Controller processing along with four channels of amplification - will afford greater flexibility in reconfiguring his largest touring system as well as a more compact form factor.

"The flexibility is the biggest thing that attracted us," states Anderson. "The cool thing about the PLM 10000Qs is that basically every one of the channels drives a speaker, so four channels of the amp covers the four channels that the speaker system needs. All you do is dial in the PLM to whatever you want that speaker to do."

Anderson notes that a further benefit of his

Details
USA - Highland Baptist Church in Meridian, Mississippi contacted several nationally-known audio consultants and contractors to help solve their sound reinforcement problems.

Will Roland of local firm Gracenote Consulting recognised and praised the sanctuary's unadorned sound and proposed to improve the reinforcement situation by designing a system with excellent pattern control to avoid over-energizing the walls and ceiling in the first place. The tight, low-frequency pattern control of the full range Danley SH-50 and the rich subsonic response of the Danley TH-50 proved integral to his success.

MS Audio, LLC of Jackson, Mississippi installed the system from Gracenote Consulting's design drawings. As the room has two aisle's with a centre seating section and two side sections, Roland used two Danley SH-50s powered by Lab Gruppen C48:4 amplifiers to cover each seating section w

Details
UK - Adlib Lighting supplied equipment and crew to the Wombats first full UK production tour which has just finished.

Lighting designer Ali Pike has worked for the Liverpool indie rockers since they were unsigned three years ago, and says: "Adlib have always looked after us, whether it's been a few specials for one offs and the previous tour, right up to the full rig and crew for this one - they are absolutely brilliant."

Pike's design starting point for the tour was based on some elements that have been used in their live visuals for some time. A lot of the initial concept ideas also came from the Backfire at the Disco promo video, which features a series of DJ and disco lighting effects.

Pike persuaded the band that they could reproduce some of these on tour using more robust and practical kit like PixelLines. The back truss was rigged with four bars of 6

Details
UAE - Triangle Entertainment Services unveiled at the recent PALME exhibition in Dubai d&b audiotechnik's recent additions to their renowned E-Series range, four new loudspeakers the E8, E12 and E12-D as well as the E15X subwoofer and the new lightweight D6 amplifier.

Lightness and power typifies the new additions to d&b's multipurpose E-Series; thoroughly modern loudspeakers, the E8, E12 and E12-D combine astutely engineered polyurethane hard foam cabinets, with highly efficient coaxial LF/HF drivers at their heart. Designed for use as stand-alone full-range loudspeakers, any of these models can be integrated into larger systems with the seamless homogeneity that has become a d&b convention. All three models have rotatable horns, with patterns of 90° x 50°, 80° x 50° and 110° x 50° (h x v) respectively, high power ratings of 129 dB, 134 dB, 133 dB SPL, a

Details
UK - Lighting design and rental company Blinding Light supplied lighting, AV and sound production for an event showcasing the high spec Nissan Finesse range. This was staged at the Hilton Metropole Hotel, at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.

The Reading-based company was contacted by the German office of production company George P Johnson, after they received a call from Nissan. Blinding Light's Paddy Stacy took an outline brief late on Wednesday afternoon which was to create a car showroom environment in the Hotel's Kings Suite for a series of presentations the following Monday and Tuesday.

He prepared the quote, designed and drew the lighting plot and kit list and sent these to George P Johnson for approval. They loaded in at 2 a.m. on the Monday to be ready for the first show at 10 a.m.

Blinding Light supplied over 200m of trussing that was laid out on the fl

Details
Venezuela - Corporacion Dynaco provided concert sound rental services for two of the largest events held during Festival Movistar Musica 2008. Movistar, a division of the Spanish telecommunications company, Telefonica sponsored the festival.

More than 25,000 people were attracted to the production sites, which each featured eight major international artists from Venezuela, Spain, Argentina, and Colombia like Los Amigos Invisibles, Caramelos de Cianuro, Chino y Nacho, Diego Torres, and David Bisbal. The 8 May event was held at the Zulia State capitol of Maracaibo's baseball stadium, and the 10 May 10 event took place in Caracas, at the Universidad de Venezuela's baseball stadium.

Dynaco deployed 36 JBL Professional VT4888DP-AN midsized powered line array elements equipped with JBL DrivePack technology for the main left/right arrays and four VT4888DP-AN elements as near- fills.

Details
UK - With the high profile of the Cardiff Bay development in Cardiff which includes the Welsh Assembly and the Wales Millennium Centre, a new multi-storey car park, owned by Knight Frank LLP needed to integrate with this dynamic area. To achieve this, the architect Scott Brownrigg and lighting designer Paul Traynor PLDA of Light Bureau developed the idea of six wave shape structures to be installed on the long facade of the new car park.

The steel and fabric structures were manufactured and installed by Base Structures with the intention of the three-dimensional wave shapes to link the car park with the original purpose of Cardiff Bay and its connection with the sea. Another visual link with the sea was the requirement for the night time appearance of the wave to be lit using a combination of blue and white lighting.

Particular consideration was taken by Light Bureau in the sp

Details
Portugal - Void Acoustics reports an unusual installation in Portugal, involving a club in a tunnel. Porto's newly opened Gare Club features an all-Void system, installed by T2 Produção e Eventos, designed to deliver high impact sound throughout the club. The club's main room occupies a 35m tunnel, with a ceiling height of 10m and just 6m wide, with the system incorporating Void's signature design, the triple-horn Air Motion speakers, as well as the Stasys 8 dual 18" horn loaded enclosures.

Gare Club's owners, DJs Freshkitos, were keen to match their unusual venue with an eye-catching system, capable of delivering a top quality sound throughout the club. They approached local and international sound company, T2 Produção e Eventos, on the basis of its reputation for high profile installations across clubs, venues and theatres. T2's Raul Ribeiro, a sound engineer and prod

  1. Roland Systems recruits SFL Group
  2. Success for 30th ABTT Theatre Show
  3. FX Unlimited takes first Tiger
  4. Corn Exchange invests in V-Mixing
  5. Hawthorn adds more Impressions
  6. L-Acoustics Against Global Warming
Page 976 of 1813

Latest Issue. . .