Business

Details
China - French loudspeaker manufacturer APG has announced the opening of a new showroom in China. Situated at the Shengzhen branch of APG's Chinese distributor, BVCAM, the 80sq.m facility is dedicated exclusively to APG products.

Featuring products from the Micro, Micro Axial and Dispersion ranges along with a number of compatible subs, the new DMS26 processor and the SMX15 multipurpose monitor speaker, the showroom has already hosted demos for some 50 clients including dealers, consultants, sound engineers, plus TV and rental companies.

"We know that simply having fantastic products is not enough," says BVCAM sales director Kelvin Kung. "You can't sell a professional loudspeaker system on the brochure alone - you have to be able to show the product to the customer, and more importantly, you have to let him hear it. I believe that APG products are truly exceptio

Details
Jazz News - The Bull's Head in Barnes, one of the UK's most established and respected live Jazz venues, will mark 50 years of promoting jazz and blues this November with an extraordinary programme of events to celebrate the landmark.Owner Dan Fleming has devised a month-long festival programme that will take place in The Yamaha Jazz Room. A launch party will kick off festivities on 12 November and the celebrations continue until 12 December.

The launch, to be hosted by virtuoso trumpeter and bandleader Paul Eshelby, will remarkably feature octogenarian Vic Ash, who was the headline act for the first gig and opening night of the club back in 1959. On the same bill, and with a nod to the future will be Yolanda Brown, Kit Downes and Elisa Caleb.

Throughout the Festival, an array of artists will assist Fleming to mark the occasion, including Don Weller, Peter King, Art Themen, Guy

Details
USA - Opened a year ago as a multipurpose worship and performance centre for young people at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA, The Refinery is an all-Lab.gruppen installation, with multiple C Series amplifiers being used to power a number of sound systems.

"It's a great result," stated Greg Baker, Saddleback Church's technical director. "Our new gymnasium and auditorium within The Refinery are very well served by our Lab.gruppen amplifiers, which have been totally reliable since we added them in June of last year. We are very pleased with the new addition."

The new facility derives its distinctive name from the church's avowed aim to "Refine young children into adulthood." Reported budget for the recently-added audio, video and lighting system was close $2 million.

Working with a comprehensive AVL system design from Acoustic Dimensions, The

Details
UK - i-Pix BB4s and BB7s LED luminaires were right in the front line along with the glamour and clamour of the latest London Fashion Week (LFW), where they played an integral part in Nick Gray's lighting design for the British Fashion Council (BFC) Tent at Somerset House. This was the BFC's official show venue for the September 09 event and hosted up to eight shows a day.

Gray's design company Renegade was asked to light several venues, adding an injection of fresh new style in the visuals department to celebrate the 25th anniversary of LFW. At the BFC tent they were working for production company, Bacchus.

The tent was lower than it has been previously, and black throughout for the first time, creating a more intimate and very slick tailored vibe. Gray's rig was designed to dovetail and blend incongruously in with the venue. The 'spine' truss above the 45m long white runway w

Details
UK - Belfast-based lighting rental company Production Services Ireland (PSI) supplied all lighting and crew to the White Sapphire Ball, a high profile gala charity event in aid of the Northern Ireland Children's Hospice, staged at the Europa Hotel in Belfast.

Asked onboard by event organiser, actress and local celebrity Séainín Brennan, PSI was challenged with a brief of creating something special for the occasion, which featured entertainment from the cast of Riverdance and other leading theatrical productions for the 400 VIP audience.

PSI's Sean Pagel presented a production design, which included the wrapping of the end of the Europa's Grand Ballroom in a combination of high and low resolution ColorWeb LED surface.

This provided a highly dynamic backdrop, making a dramatic visual impression whilst offering the practical facility of being able to run text, sp

Details
UK - Kave Theatre Services of West Sussex, England recently supplied all lighting, sound, AV, set and crew requirements on a large-scale production for a dance school client. The show was choreographed around some of the most famous movie soundtracks in history with a set design brief to deliver something "unusual and exciting."

Kave project manager Dave Singleton created a dynamic lighting design utilising the company's staging products including 34 Martin MAC 600 and 16 MAC 700 moving heads along with assorted generic lamps. He then placed a mixture of MAC III Profiles, MAC 2000 Profiles, Atomic 3000 strobes fitted with Atomic Colors scrollers, generic lamps, and other assorted moving and LED fixtures around the set and stage floor, plus a mix of Martin MAC 575 Kryptons and MAC 250 Washes at front-of-house. The visible set frontage was covered with Martin LC Series L

Details
UK - Stage Electrics is currently supplying all lighting equipment for the colourful new production of Disney's High School Musical 2, Live on Stage!. The story follows the Wildcats as they celebrate their last summer before starting their Senior Year. This all new stage version is based on the Disney Channel's original film, and is produced by Stage Entertainment UK who produced the London production of Hairspray the musical and Sister Act the musical.

Technical equipment includes a large number of moving lights, predominantly a mix of Martin MAC 700 Profiles and Varilite VL2000 Wash fixtures, over 50 Rainbow 6" Pro scrollers, two Ivanhoe follow spots, almost 200 generic lanterns and two 'Big Shots' compressed air confetti canons.

Lighting control for the tour comes courtesy of two MA Lighting GrandMA Lite consoles, with a further full-size GrandMA u

Details
UK - Lisburn-based Zest Audio has recently completed the installation of a high power Community sound system for the demonstration facilities of Lightstep Technologies at their Belfast headquarters. Lightstep produces innovative products to help people escape from life threatening situations.

Following many well publicised disasters in recent years, involving major loss of life in high rise buildings, nightclubs, underground stations and at sea, Lightstep has developed systems that represent a significant step forward in life safety systems.

Much has been done to improve and coordinate the response and ability of the fire, ambulance, police and other emergency services but, until now, little progress has been made in developing integrated visual systems to increase the chances of escape from burning buildings, gas leaks, underground black outs, explosions on land or at sea, ca

Details
UK - School performing arts installer School Stage, based in Wembley North London, have installed the first batch of Showtec Indigo 250 LED moving heads into their prestigious install in the new multi-purpose lecture theatre at Gladesmore Community School, Tottenham, North London.

The installation contained mainly Showtec 3W RGB tri-coloured PAR 64 led PAR cans, Showtec 3W tri-coloured LED Studio beams and the 4 Showtec indigo 250 LED moving heads.

Chris Newton, MD of School Stage said: "I heard all of the excitement about the new Showtec LED moving lights at the recent PLASA Show 2009, but I was unable to attend the show. I wanted to try something different on this install, rather than install the usual industry movers on this project.

"The system was 90% LED anyway, to fit in with the building's design. The lighting rig had to be relatively high. I had future acc

Details
UK - Following two years of planning, the Palladium in London's West End has installed and commissioned new ETC Sensor dimmer racks - some 670 ways - and a Unison system for the house and worklights as well as the 'independent' circuits.

"We knew we needed to replace our previous dimmers, which were installed in 1964 and were definitely at the end of their working life," says the Really Useful Group (RUG)'s operations and technical manager, Julian Rees."When we looked around for alternatives, ETC's dimmers were the clear winner. They've been proven to be reliable, with a lot of installations in the London area. We also felt that we were going to get good support and backup when we needed it. I have no doubt we made the right decision."

As the theatre was in use at the time, Rees and his colleague, Palladium chief electrician David Draude, needed to find a s

Details
UK - Northern Light has installed a customised lighting system in three Glasgow tower blocks which are poised to bring a splash of colour to the city - and predict the weather at the same time.

The Castlemilk Lighting Project, part funded by Glasgow Housing Association (GHA), will see LED lighting technology installed in the northerly stairwell windows of each of the three, 20 storey, Dougrie Place high rises.

As well as creating a colourful landmark which will be visible right across the city, the lighting system utilises up-to-the-minute internet technology to enable residents to check the current weather conditions - and view the weather outlook for the next day.

The Castlemilk Tenants Housing Association came up with the original concept for the project after taking part in workshops with GHA and Collective Architecture and. In addition to funding from GHA's Wider Action

Details
UK - A.C. Rigging, a division of A.C. Entertainment Technologies, has recently been appointed as a distributor for CM Entertainment Lodestars. As a supplier of CM equipment to this market for many years, the new agreement extends A.C's stockholding to include the full range of Columbus McKinnon Lodestar and Prostar hoists, winches and associated products.

From its offices in High Wycombe and Leeds, A.C. can provide UK and international delivery of CM products. The company's large stockholding currently includes over 200 CM chain hoist bodies, four kilometres of genuine CM Star grade chain and thousands of CM hoist spares.

This choice of CM products is backed up with a full range of related services, including a comprehensive range of spares, post sales technical support, system integration and product training. In addition, the company has a department dedicated to the assembl

Details
USA - ZFX Flying Effects recently announced a strategic alliance with Stage Technologies, based in Las Vegas, Nevada, to offer automated solutions for productions that require more complex flying sequences. ZFX will add award-winning products from Stage Technologies, including hoists and control systems, to its roster of complete flying services.

The news coincides with the appointment of Joe Champelli as ZFX's new general manager. An automation and machinery design expert, Champelli will spearhead the development and implementation of automated technology and products, the company says.

"Automation provides greater precision and versatility to the artistic flying effects for which ZFX is already known," says Champelli. "The blend of our artistic experience and Stage Tech's reputation and reliability in motion controlled flying equipment makes an ideal union.&qu

Details
Germany - One of Europe's largest festivals for jazz, soul, and pop rock music, BW-Bank jazzopen stuttgart 2009 recently concluded after 11 days of live concerts, featuring Lenny Kravitz, Grace Jones, Sonny Rollins, and a special presentation of Katie Melua with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra.

The largest concerts this year were moved indoors to the new Stuttgart fairgrounds, with Meyer Sound systems providing sound reinforcement for the first time.

The transition to Stuttgart fairgrounds offered a convenient location for the 28,000 visitors, and gave the performers a more stable environment despite Germany's unpredictable summer weather conditions. "With this new venue, we opened a new page in the festival's history and it was important for us to also move sound to a new level," says promoter Jürgen Schlensog. "And this year, we successfully achie

Details
UK - Red Square Audio's Paul Nicholson became the first person in the UK to purchase the brand new NTi Audio XL2 Audio and Acoustic Analyzer system when he made the deal at PLASA09 in London in September. The advantage of the XL2, according to NTi, is its flexible user interface. Its measurement screens can be personalised with only a limited subset of the comprehensive functionalities enabled for simplified operator interfaces. Advanced users may access all menus, settings and store their preferred measurement configurations.

Previously having used the AL1, Nicholson was impressed with the replacement XL2 and took it away from the show. He has already used it at a concert for SPL and FFT mapping and for RT60 and STI measurements at a prestigious installation project on behalf of an audio consultancy company.Nicholson commented: "The XL2 is a brilliant audio tool. It's real

Details
South Africa - Johannesburg-based Gearshack Event Services is tasked with providing audio for many of the region's most notable events. The company recently completed a series of projects for the University of Johannesburg, a pre-party event for the 2009 South African Music Conference, as well as a concert date with Hip-Hop artist The Game. For each project, the loudspeakers of choice were Aero Series line arrays from D.A.S. Audio.

Held on 16 June at the University of Johannesburg, the Youth Day Commemoration attracted over 1,500 attendees and included performances by the University's choir, along with several guest speakers. Gearshack erected a sound system consisting of 12 D.A.S. Audio Aero CA-28A self-powered, two-way line arrays. Stacked six modules per side atop three double 18-inch bass bins, the combination of twelve Aero CA-28As and six subwoofers provided a compelling s

Details
Switzerland - The well-established Swiss rental company Wick Audio AG has completed a major investment in Nexo PA systems, and now boasts the complete range of products from Geo S12 and Geo S8 to PS8.

Headquartered near St Gallen, Wick Audio AV spent a long time evaluating top-of-the-range PA systems before finally making a decision in favour of Nexo. The company now has more than 30 PS Series high-output compact loudspeakers in inventory, along with a 24-cabinet Geo S8 system and an 18-cabinet Geo S12 rig. Wick Audio has opted for RS15 subs and NXAMP 4x4s equipped with EtherSound cards to power the different systems.

Reto Scherrer, the CEO and chief audio engineer of Wick Audio, comments: "Whether it's a simple PS8 system of a complex line-array set-up using GEO S12, the sound quality is excellent from the very start.

"The Nexo systems are engineered to be a preci

Details
UK - Arena Seating's Special Structures division goes into the Showman's Show 2009 in good shape having created bespoke media desks for this October's Artistic Gymnastic World Championships hosted at the O2 Arena, London.

ATP appointed Arena Seating when faced with the challenge of accommodating the world's media at London's O2 Arena from 13-18 October, as the venue has no dedicated media area in the spectator section.

Arena's Special Structures Martin Clark project managed the design, manufacture and installation of the bespoke desks. The system was designed to be easily installed (and removed), fitting over the existing in-house tiered seating and providing ideal work stations for over 200 international media reporting on the action.

In his capacity as Arena's special structures manager Martin Clark is currently working on an even more ambitious installation for a sporting

Details
USA - Florida-based distributor LED Source has made several announcements related to the growth of their business.

First, the company has doubled its space. By taking on an additional building and knocking down some walls to provide room for additional inventory and to accommodate growing sales staff.

Company president, Marcel Fairbairn says: "We were literally busting at the seams to a point where not only were we short on desks, but we had nowhere for people to park! We are hoping this new location gets us through the next two years, however we're keeping an eye open for more space already."

The company has added some key people. Timm Stifter joins LED Source from Gear-Source, where he was a multi- tasking sales support manager for the past three years. He takes on the role of the growing sales support structure in LED Source, while also over-seeing some of the l

Details
Belgium - This year marks the 25th anniversary of both Night of the Proms and ShowTex. For years ShowTex has provided the main stage fabrics and motion systems for this international music tour. This edition of Night of the Proms will be no exception.

The show kicks off at the Antwerp Sportpaleis on 23 October and travels from Belgium to Holland and Germany for 42 concerts. More than 600,000 audience members in total can once again experience spectacular live music backed by dazzling effects.

Headliners for this year's classical pop fusion extravaganza include OMD and the first reunion concert of Swedish rock stars Roxette. Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation, jazz legend Toots Thielemans and Peter and Zoltan Katona.

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - When the Imago art gallery in the heart of London's art centre underwent a recent refurbishment, they called on specialist contractor PEL Services to design, install and commission state of the art audio-visual, fire detection and security systems into its new contemporary art gallery.

The sophisticated new audio-visual systems feature the latest technology but have been designed by PEL to be easy to use. A Bose Professional Freespace 3 multi-zone, multi-floor sound system was installed, together with a Crestron control system for flexibility and ease of use. Each floor of the gallery can play different music, allowing the gallery space to be utilised to the maximum.

Music can be played via the five-disc CD player installed or using the iPod docking bay - simply drop an iPod into the unit and immediately play music throughout the system direct from it. In addition to the

Details
UK - West Sussex-based creative design house 7thSense has supplied four of its Delta media servers to the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago for the new Giant Heart within the YOU! The Experience exhibit, which opened 8 October 2009.

YOU! The Experience, located in the Museum's Abbott Hall, is one of the first and most comprehensive exhibitions that showcases the connection between the human mind, body and spirit in the 21st century. The 15,000sq.ft exhibit provides a hands-on opportunity to explore and optimize your personal health, fitness and well-being. The 13ft tall Giant Heart is a focal point of the exhibit, and allows guests to see different interior and exterior views of this amazing virtual organ-and it can even beat in time with guest's own pulse.

Ian Macpherson, co-founder and director at 7thSense, offers this overview of the Giant Heart's AV des

Details
UK - Stage Electrics' most recent addition to its extensive hire portfolio is the latest lighting console from Zero 88, the ORB. This latest offering joins an expanding list of lighting control available to hire from Stage Electrics, and answers the recent demand from customers requiring a professional end market product for their theatre productions. Stage Electrics is also the first hire specialist to add this advanced theatrical lighting console to its rental stock.

The ORB has been designed for 21st century theatrical lighting control, with 2048 DMX control channels allowing users to control multiple LED fittings, intelligent lights or media servers controlling video, as well as the standard generic dimming systems common to theatres and television. The console has recently proved popular on a variety of Stage Electrics' Pie and Pint events across the UK, where Zero 8

Details
UK - On the eve of staging the BBC Electric Proms 09, the Roundhouse in Camden has commissioned a new Martin Audio dedicated cinema system for its 102-seat Studio Theatre (where the BBC's New Music Shorts initiative took place to coincide with The Proms).

The venue ordered three Martin Audio Screen 3s as a conventional L/C/R system, along with eight Effect 3Rs as a cinema surround sound, along with a Screen Sub1A (1 x 18") from Autograph Sales. The resellers also provided consultation, product recommendation and design and installation assistance.

Purpose-designed for screening rooms, the Screen 3 is a three-way system, with dedicated mid-range and high frequency sections, while the Effect 3R two-way passive system is a reduced-height enclosure specifically made for screening rooms with low ceilings such as this, to ensure that it can still be optimally installed a

  1. Shattered Glass prepares for World Cup with Soundcraft
  2. Industry secures new approach to creative skills
  3. St Peter reinforced by Iconyx
  4. Martin MAC Luminaires for Ben Hur Live
  5. Music industry asked for feedback on future
  6. Green Day on the break with Studer
Page 1105 of 1813

Latest Issue. . .