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UK - Based on an increasing demand for its maintenance services, Point Source Productions has instituted a dedicated equipment service department created specifically to overhaul clients' own equipment.

"Point Source Productions has always serviced its own hire equipment and, in the past, we have serviced our customers' equipment on a more or less ad hoc basis, fitted in around our existing work schedules," says hire manager, Ian King. "But a large increase in demand over the past year has shown us there is a distinct need for a dedicated service department."

Equipment servicing can take place either at the client's own premises or those of Point Source Productions and can be tailor made to suit each customer.

"Many schools, for example, have their annual Portable Appliance Testing done by electricians who have little knowledge of theatre equipment,&

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UK - PSCo has announced the relaunch of its website, www.psco.co.uk. Managing director Stuart Holmes comments: "We are launching the first phase of the website which is online now, designed to help clients access technical information more freely, find out about our training courses and to make contact with the team more simple. We wanted to create a site which easily cross referenced the products with their accessories and gave clear outlines about our services to the trade."

The new site has video content, showing the PSCo technical team in action as well as details of the company's upcoming showcase events, product information for the 108" Sharp LCD, Orion Infinite Plasma and Samsung large format display range and an area to contact the training team directly for details of upcoming courses.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - The ESTA Foundation has announced the 2009 Behind the Scenes holiday cards created by some of the industry's most talented designers. Four designs are offered this year.

Scenic designer Douglas Schmidt has created an elegant stage waiting to be brought to life by dancing snowflakes, while colleague Beowulf Boritt's card is a challenge for theatre lovers, filled with props to identify from some of the many shows he has designed.

Photographer Andrew Hefter is back for a third year with a card featuring the ghostlight as a beacon of hope against a brilliant night sky. Tim Hunter Design has used a large canvas with the Behind the Scenes ghostlight to remind us that the holidays are the time to care for each other and for those less fortunate.

There are several ordering options. Meeting the minimum order of 250 cards, you can personalise your card with a company logo and a

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Australia - Robe moving lights got right into the fast lane for the 2009 Melbourne International Motor Show, where they were used on several stands for which lighting equipment was supplied by Victoria-based Clifton Productions, one of the exhibition's main technical suppliers.

Different combinations of Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs, ColorWash 2500E ATs and ColorSpot and Wash 700E AT Series fixtures were used to illuminate a host of premium automotive brands including Toyota, Holden, Mazda, Lotus, Honda and Nissan.

Each of the stands lit by Cliftons had its own design and layout - developed with each of the individual LDs involved, complete with specially created lighting effects. These ranged dynamically from Lexus' massively impressive display with large washing effects to KIA's modernist LED screen presentation.

"Lighting effects play a huge part in having impact and makin

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UK - eMerging, the UK distributors for Merging Technologies' Pyramix audio workstation and the Smart AV Tango control surface, has signed a supplier agreement with Jigsaw Systems, the Nottingham-based hi-tech equipment retailer. Under the new deal, inked after the Broadcast Video Expo show earlier this year, Jigsaw will be able to offer Pyramix systems and Tango controllers to their customers in the creative audio-visual and IT industries.

"We're well known for being Pro Tools suppliers, but we've never carried Pyramix before," says Mark Rickaby, audio consultant at Jigsaw Systems. "However, when eMerging showed us the Tango at the back end of last year, we thought it had a lot of potential. We put the Tango on our stand at the Broadcast Video Expo show in February, and the response we got from visitors there was so overwhelming, we signed the deal with eMerging s

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Russia - Martin Professional again played a starring role in the Eurovision Song Contest, this year with a remarkable 1,120 m2 Martin LC Series LED panel backdrop specified by UK lighting designer Al Gurdon of Incandescent Design.

Also involved were 400 MAC 2000 Washes, 76 MAC 600 washlights and 112 Atomic 3000 strobes with an extra 20 MAC 600s adding colour to the VIP Green Room. Main technical supplier for the Eurovision Song Contest was Procon Event Engineering. PRG served as a secondary supplier with a local Russian contractor also supplying some equipment. Supervising all of this was Rich Gorrod from Incandescent Design.

More than 750 moving heads and over 100 km of cabling were utilised. Procon sent 42 trailer trucks with technical equipment and a team of more than 70 people to this year's event at the Olimpiysky Arena Moscow.

Incandescent Design was contracted to prov

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Hong Kong - Fashion and accessories brand Chanel turned to Lighthouse Technologies, for a high-tech makeover using the latest LED screen technology at its new storefront, located at the Peninsula Hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong.

For the Hong Kong showcase, which follows hot on the heels of Lighthouse's installation at Chanel's US shop in Beverly Hills, 40 6mm front access panels (P6-FA) were installed in a 5 x 8 panel configuration, 3.2m wide by 3.84m high. Adjacent to the store's staircase, the screen is visible to audiences walking down the stairs or looking in through the windows as they pass by. Lighthouse was responsible for the entire installation, which was completed in March.

"Chanel is a brand that thrives on creativity, a value that Lighthouse pursues in every project we take on," says Peter Chan, general manager of Lighthouse Technologies. "The fact

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UK - RG Jones Sound Engineering demonstrated the versatility of its custom Martin Audio AM distributed stadium system when Wimbledon's Centre Court retractable roof received its inauguration at a TV spectacular.

A packed crowd assembled to see a programme of exhibition tennis, and were at the same time treated to songs by Katherine Jenkins, Faryl Smith and the four-man classical/pop group Blake. Jenkins and Smith performed Amazing Grace as the opening number to coincide with the roof inching its way across to full cover position for the very first time.

RG Jones worked with production company 360 Events to stage the production, which was broadcast live on BBC2.

RG Jones' Tim Speight, who had joint project managed the installation for The All England Lawn Tennis Club with Jon Berry, explained, "When the requirements of this system were first set out three years ago, it w

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Israel - Two Allen & Heath iLive digital systems were used at the recent Noshfim Bakikar festival in Kfar-Saba, Israel. Now in its 20th year, the annual event is a celebration of the town's musical heritage, featuring performances from many of the country's national youth orchestras, and attracting 40,000 visitors.

The three-day music event comprised a series of indoor and outdoor concerts, celebrating the wind instrument. The first day included a special open air performance by an 'all-Israel' symphonic youth orchestra, involving the National Youth and Tel-Aviv Music Academy orchestras. The second day had youth orchestras playing at venues around the town, as well as jazz and improvisation workshops.

Israeli PA company, More-Kol, managed the audio requirements for many of the festival's larger events, employing a pair of iLive systems, comprising iDR10 MixRacks and iLive-144

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USA - When Capron Lighting & Sound Company's David Gruber was looking for a powerful light with which to project the Jake Burton logo at the 27th annual US Open Snowboarding Championships, he decided that Robert Juliat's 4000W HTI Lancelot was the right light for the job.

The championships, which took place in March this year at Stratton Mountain, Virginia, were to be televised, so a bright, sharp image was called for to ensure the logo of the world's leading snowboard manufacturer, and founder of the championship, was presented to best advantage, for both broadcasting purposes and to the surrounding audience.

"I needed a fixture that would project a sharp image at a distance of 500ft," explains Gruber, who was project lighting manager for the event. "My research indicated that a Robert Juliat Lancelot 4,000 watt HTI followspot would be the best choice, and that

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UK - The 2009 festival season kicked off in May with BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend and a host of artists on both stages using Sennheiser equipment. This year's Big Weekend took place at Lydiard Park, Swindon and was covered on Radio 1, BBC Three on TV, on the Red Button and on BBC Mobile.

The main stage was supported by Sennheiser in conjunction with Britannia Row and saw their crew, with assistance from Sennheiser's Dave Hawker and Mark Saunders, undertaking the set up. Additional equipment was supplied to Brit Row by Sennheiser, with Dave Hawker helping with the planning and licensing as well as setting up antenna distribution on the preceding Friday afternoon.

This led to a large amount of Sennheiser equipment on the main stage; all In Ear Monitors were Sennheiser EW 300 G2 IEMs and all of the main stage's presenter mics were Sennheiser SKM 5200s with KK 105 heads.

In additio

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USA - Building on their prior joint success at The Nokia Theatre L.A. Live, Total Structures recently provided EPIC Production Technologies with over 500ft of its Element 12 & Element 20 truss for Club Nokia L.A. Live, the latest entertainment venue to open at this new Los Angeles entertainment development.

The truss, all powder coated with a specific texture of black, varied from straight 20.5" square Element 20, fitted with steel fork-ends for maximum strength, to 12" square Element 12 nut and bolt connection truss, custom radiused to match the architectural lines of the newly completed building.

The truss, which was designed, fabricated and delivered to site in less than three weeks from date of order, was supplied with specific California stamped engineering reports to provide the 2,300 capacity, 59,000sq.ft venue with accurate loading capabilities of their new s

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UK - Sound Technology has announced distribution in the UK of the JoeCo Blackbox Recorder from 1 June 2009.

The Blackbox Recorder is a multi-track capturing device aimed primarily at the live music market. It records 24 channels of hi-res audio directly to a USB2 drive. It can be plugged into the insert points on any console and can also provide Virtual Sound Checking facilities. Recording to standard external USB2 disks formatted with FAT32 in Broadcast WAV file format (BWAV), any material can be instantly used in a studio Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) without any need for time-consuming file conversions or transfers.

JoeCo Ltd and the Blackbox Recorder are the brainchild of Joe Bull, who last year relinquished the reins at SADiE, the company he founded two decades ago.

Bull comments, " It's great that we've been able to team up with such a professional distributor a

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Romania - Sibiu-based Artmania Foundation is busy preparing the upcoming ARTmania Festival. The Festival will be taking place between 17 and 19 July 2009, and will have bands such as Nightwish, Pain, Opeth, My Dying Bride and Tristania performing. Artmania production Manager Silviu Scrob's relationship with Adamson began when Scrob heard the Adamson Y-Axis system at the Red Rock Festival in Luxemburg in 2007. The Y-Axis system he heard was installed at the indoor venue Rockhall which seats 6000 persons.

Since then Scrob has been requesting the Adamson systems on a regular basis. Adamson partner Omnitech in Romania purchased a 16 box Y10 & T21 sub combo in the fall of 2007, and followed it up with an additional Y10 and Spektrix order in 2008, thus facilitating Scrob's requests. The recent first Artmania event with Omnitech's Adamson system took place at the 4060 seater, Sala Pala

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Asia - The musical Cats, one of the longest-running musicals on Broadway and in London's West End, is now travelling across Asia and putting on more than 400 performances in 20 venues spanning Taiwan, China, Thailand and Korea. Sound reinforcement for Andrew Lloyd Webber's score is provided by a Meyer Sound M1D line array loudspeaker system.

"We're a long way from our support base in Australia, so we needed a system that was flexible, reliable, easy to tour, and great sounding," says Kelvin Gedye, sound designer for the Cats production by Really Useful Company Asia Pacific (RUCAP) and the production supervisor for Melbourne, Australia-based System Sound, the tour's sound provider.

"We know Meyer speakers always deliver, night after night. Cats is a very dynamic show, going from whisper-quiet moments to pumping dance segments, with everythin

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Australia - The iconic Bondi Pavilion building set on the edge of Sydney's Bondi Beach, has recently had a refurbishment to its theatre that included lighting control, acoustic upgrades and new seating. LSC Lighting Systems, supplied the lighting control system including a maXim XL lighting desk plus four 12 channel iPRO dimmers. Equipment was supplied through Herkes Professional Lighting.

The Bondi Pavilion was originally constructed in 1928 and included "dressing accommodation," Turkish baths, shops and a ballroom. Revitalised by the Waverley Council in the 1950s and reopened in 1978 as the Bondi Pavilion Community Centre, it is now a vibrant arts and entertainment venue and includes an art gallery as well as the Bondi Pavilion Theatre. The theatre seats 230 in raked format onto an end stage that can also work as a proscenium.

The Bondi Pavilion precinct presents a

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UK - Sunbaba literally put one at the back of the net, a screen that is, for Nike's five-a-side football tournament Show Your 5. Sunbaba provided a 126sq.m DigiSound scrim for client Limelight Sports. A video projector and screen were placed behind the scrim and due to the weave of the fabric there was no need for a cut out.

The football tournament searched the UK to find the best 5-a-side football team in the country through a series of knockout matches leading to the final which was held at Alexandra Palace in May. The experiential campaign was part of the biggest push the sports brand has launched in the UK in the last 10 years accompanied by television advertising featuring Wayne Rooney, Joe Cole, Rio Ferdinand and Fernando Torres.

A pitch area was created within the venue which was surrounded on three sides by temporary seating. Sunbaba provided a 21m X 6m Digimesh

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UK - When the doors of Barnsley's former Civic theatre reopened on 5 March 2009, it marked the completion of one of the most dramatic regeneration projects to be undertaken in the town. The newly refurbished building offers a unique combination of managed workspace, a new performance and exhibition spaces.

The main internal space is The Assembly Room - a highly flexible, 350-seat space that can be used to support almost any type of entertainment or event, from contemporary dance and drama to classical music. The space features a sprung wooden floor and is fully equipped with its own audio and lighting system. Systems installer Northern Stage Services Ltd elected to specify Tannoy's VNET range of networkable loudspeakers and subs throughout the main performance hall.

A total of eight Tannoy VNET 15 full-range speakers are flown across the main hall floor area, three down each s

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Hong Kong - Over a 12 day period in December 2009, Copenhagen will host the United Nations Climate Change Conference, at which ministers and officials from the 192 UN member states, plus representatives from a large number of interested organisations, will discuss all aspects of climate change.

To raise awareness of the importance of the conference - and of the issue of climate change in general - international pressure group Greenpeace has invited LED media design company LED Artist to be its artistic partner in establishing an iconic Countdown Clock, to be displayed in various public areas in Hong Kong.

Designed to serve as a reminder to both the Hong Kong government and general public that there is an ongoing race against time to combat climate change, the Countdown Clock comprises one of LED Artist's Multimedia Information Systems Tower (MIST) systems, depicted emerging fr

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UK - Arcstream AV has sent the world of plasma in a spin at the O2's British Music Experience with the new PlasMotion concept, screens that can rotate 360° on their Z-axis to create an eye catching display.

The new concept was chosen by PRS for Music, for the British Music Experience at the 02 London.

In a video display that rotates just like a propeller, three PlasMotion screens are installed on truss stands, side by side, and co-ordinate image content and screen rotation to create stunning imagery. PRS for Music used the screens as part of the welcome area leading into the exhibition. The screens display musical connections between famous songwriters, all of whom feature in the main exhibit.

The speed, direction and duration of the rotation can be set according to requirements, receiving video signal and power supply via slip rings in the drive shaft this means continu

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USA - Spring in New York and Tribeca Film celebrates emerging and returning filmmakers. The Vanity Fair party was held on 21 April at the historic State Supreme Court building in downtown Manhattan. At the top of the portico steps, guests were treated to a 4 x 41ft. Barco LED wall programmed to resemble a marquee. The LED wall was divided into two sections, forming a portico into the building's rotunda.

Media content for the LED wall utilised a combination of graphics promoting Tribeca Film, Deluxe, and Panavision. Logos for the three brands were animated into a sequence that played all evening. "The Hippotizer allowed us to sequence and dissolve the graphics using a number of layers," says lighting designer Adam Bassett. "We also utilised the Hippotizer's animation and effect features to create interesting and dynamic transitions between the various base content.

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Germany - Italian loudspeaker manufacturer dBTechnologies is hosting its second ever distributor convention at its European headquarters in Cologne this month. The two-day event entitled Prosonic, is set to showcase the new models from the Flexsys, DVA and DVX ranges with a particular focus on Opera Digital, launched at Frankfurt this year.

Taking place on 22 and 23 June, the event invites worldwide dBTechnologies distributors to attend, giving them an opportunity to get up close and personal with each of the new products. The itinerary is interspersed with four sound demonstrations, some in-house and one in situ, each pitching dBTechnologies products against their competitors.

"We want our distributors to be fully conversant with each of the new active speaker ranges. They need every useful piece of information at their fingertips, so we're giving them the chance to hear

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Denmark - Martin Professional has opened an online shop for purchasing Martin lighting and smoke products and more. The new Martin E-Shop, accessible at eshop.martin.com, provides 24/7 access to Martin Professional products from one location.

The Martin E-Shop is initially available to all Martin Professional distributors, as well as the Scandinavian and UK markets, but will soon be made available in the USA, Germany, France and Italy.

The E-Shop is simple to use with a shopper-friendly purchasing process, familiar Martin web design, secure payment system, and direct delivery. Also available via the website are product accessories, spare parts, swag and more, making the Martin E-Shop a one-stop shop for everything Martin, says the company.

(Jim Evans)

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World - Lighting designer Steven Douglas is using grandMA lighting control for the first time on the current Killers Day & Age world tour, which has just completed its first US, UK and European legs. He had two grandMA full-size consoles - one in tracking backup - and four MA NSPs running over Ethernet, controlling nine real DMX universes and 111 virtual universes for all the video content, stored on three Vixen media servers run via Arkaos, also triggered from the grandMA.

Design wise, Douglas went for a complete departure from the last Killers tour, which had been classically theatrical in style. This time the stage and lighting have a contemporary look, a juxtaposition of circles and rectangular shapes and a massive 268 panel ColorWeb screen which spectacularly defines the space.

It's the first full tour on which he's specified a grandMA, although he's used it on num

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