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Norway - Production Resource Group (PRG) was awarded a seven-figure contract to be a primary technical supplier, providing lighting, video, LED and rigging equipment and services for this year's Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo.

Following five weeks of pre-programming at PRG's facility in London, 31 trailers (approx. 270 tons) of technical equipment and a team of more than 65 technical specialists from across the PRG group have travelled to Oslo. The three shows are televised to an estimated worldwide audience of 120 million, building to the live final on 29 May.

PRG (formerly PROCON Event Engineering) has provided technical services for the Eurovision TV show in Athens (2006), Belgrade (2008) and Moscow (2009).

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Comprised of dedicated specialists and project managers, the recently formed Rosco Architectural group will provide designers, contractors and suppliers with product consultation, detailed specification information and customised support from idea conception through final turn on, assisting at each level of the project.

Though experienced in the broad range of Rosco products, the Rosco Architectural group's primary directive is to support Rosco products used in the creation, colouration and control of light in themed environments, new construction, corporate locales, retail and interior designs, and hospitality - namely Rosco LitePad products, X24 effects projectors, dichroics lenses and accessories, and control solutions for fluorescent and LED luminaires.

Ame Strong has taken up the position of director of Rosco Architectural. Since 2003, Ame has been Rosco's worldwide

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UK - DiGiCo is the latest company to confirm its presence at PLASA 2010, taking place at Earls Court in London from the 12-15 September 2010. DiGiCo is joining a strong line up of pro-audio companies already committed to the show this September.

DiGiCo managing director James Gordon commented: "Before booking a stand at PLASA 2010 we had to evaluate our heavy commitments to PL&S and the Montreux Jazz Festival. Through the process it just became clear PLASA is such an important date in our calendar and DiGiCo just has to be there in 2010."

DiGiCo can be found on stand 1-E4, at the front of Earl's Court 1 among a host of other pro-audio brands such as Allen & Heath, HK Audio, Equipson and Roland.

Also joining a long string of pro-audio brands that have committed to PLASA in recent weeks is KV2 Audio: having moved stands from its 2009 location, KV2 Audio can now be fo

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USA - Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge (featured as 'One of America's Most Innovative Churches' in Outreach magazine) has recently moved into its new worship facility, the HPC Arena (www.healingplacechurch.com). To serve the 3,000-seat Sanctuary, SIA Acoustics, responsible for sound system and acoustical design, selected Outline products to reliably reproduce the word and music of the church's worship leaders, as well as numerous visiting groups.

The main sound system is comprised of 42 C.D.H. 483 Butterfly loudspeakers, divided into three arrays (two of 13 elements and one of 16) to cover the floor seating area, with 10 Subtech 218 SP's for low-frequency reproduction and 11 Micra II SP loudspeakers for front-fill.

The raised seating area is served by six delay arrays, each composed of six Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. elements and two C.D.L. 1815 cardioid 'Low Packs', connected

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USA - Nestled in the foothills of the Sierras and best known for olives and orange groves, Lindsay, CA has become known for some very innovative municipal programmes promoted by its forward-thinking Mayor Ed Murray , along with city manager Scot Townsend, head of city services Mike Camarena, and associate engineer Neyba Amezcua.

When the city recently undertook an extensive downtown makeover that included new roads, sidewalks, street lights and trees, Mayor Murray and his team wanted to do something that would really put the town on the map and make it stand out.

Anyone who visits Lindsay will see they succeeded. Hundreds of ornamental Chinese pistache and palm trees that line a six-block area in the city's downtown district are now aglow in brilliant colour - pinks, purples, blues, oranges, and a whole spectrum of dramatic hues. The trees are lit up with inground colour-chang

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Norway - Lighting designer Al Gurdon specified nearly 1,900 Chroma-Q LED fixtures to provide a stunning lighting and video effects wall forming the centrepiece of the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest, Europe's largest non-sport television production.

Oslo, hosted the 56th Eurovision event at the Telenor Arena. The three live shows, consisting of two semi-finals and Saturday's final, were watched on television and online by an estimated audience of over 120m people in 45 countries. In addition, over 80,000 people attended the live shows and various dress rehearsals.

The event was televised by host broadcaster, NRK and featured a core production team working under the leadership of executive producer, Jon Ola Sand and TV producer, Hasse Lindmo. Production management design was by Ola Melzig, with lighting design by Al Gurdon. Stage design was by Kirsten Weltzin, Bonsak Schieldrop, T

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Norway - ShowTex supplied all stage drapes and decorative fabrics for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest in Oslo's Telenor Arena.

Marjon Franken of the Dutch ShowTex office comments, "The curtains and stage motion systems had to be gorgeous and versatile for this show. Each of the 39 performances had their own look and feel. Thomas Nysveen, Kirsten Weltzin, Bonsak Schieldrop, Audun Stjern and Trond Olav Erga from this year's host broadcaster NRK the Norsk Rikskringkasting created the stage."

The round stage featured a ShowTex Kabuki modular drop system, DekoSilk semi-sheer Venetia drapes and projection surfaces, Choucroute Heavy, PolyStretch dimensional sculptures, Molton CS backdrops, DekoTaft wall drapes, and ShowLED Chameleon RGB starcloth systems.

For the top Belgian entry by Tom Dice, Me and My Guitar, ShowTex Molton CS masked light perfectly and ShowLED

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Australia - The new $58m winter sports facility Icehouse, located at Melbourne's Waterfront City precinct in the Docklands, is one of the more impressive pieces of infrastructure built in this city for a long time.

Billed as the largest winter sport facility in the southern hemisphere, the Icehouse features two full-sized ice rinks suitable for ice hockey, curling, short-track speed skating, figure skating, and recreational skating.

The Bradbury Rink is designed as a family friendly entertainment rink, with 'general skating' already proving to be very popular. The rink features a striking audio visual design by Massteknik, including a JBL sound system and a light show that would not look out of place at a major city nightclub. Both rinks also have massive LED screens at the end of them, with the Rink 1 screen being used as a scoreboard for ice-Hockey, while the 8m wide screen

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Malaysia - K.M.E. reports that one of the leading full service providers for audio, video and stage equipment in Malaysia, SES Sound Electronic Service SDN BHD is using a substantial Pano line array system. The configuration consists of line source units QL 906, down-fill units QL 1215 , low mid extensions QLM 115 and cardioid subs QCB 318 plus controlling.

SES Sound is equipping many industry events, including the annual Anugerah Industry Muzik which was held for the 17th time this year. The AIM is the most important music award in Malaysia. The event, presented by Afdlin Shauki and Adibah Noor, took place at Putra World Trade Centre in Kuala Lumpur on 2 May 2010. The centre is situated in the heart of KL and offers multi-purpose facilities with modern audio-visual infrastructure.

The organizers requested a system which could be integrated inconspicuously into the stage yet p

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Eurovision Update - The teenager who represented the UK at the Eurovision Song Contest has said he is "still smiling" despite coming last in the competition. Josh Dubovie, 19, from Basildon in Essex, scored just 10 points with a song penned by Pete Waterman. Dubovie said it had been "a privilege to represent the UK" and one of the best experiences of his life.

Acts from 25 countries took part in the event. It was won by Germany, whose entrant Lena scored 246 points. Turkey's MaNga came in second place, with Romania third and Denmark fourth. This is the third time the UK has finished in the bottom spot in the past eight years, following on from Jemini in 2003 and Andy Abraham in 2008.

Dubovie, who was chosen to represent the UK after securing the most public votes on Your Country Needs You! on BBC One in March, said, "This has been one of the bes

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UK - Hoist UK has launched their revamped website, www.hoistuk.com which has enhanced new features and informative new content, along with improved navigation and usability.

"An interactive news feed section has been added to the website, allowing visitors to the site to be kept fully informed of the latest new product releases and project news from Hoist UK and our leading suppliers" comments Tony Dickson, director of Hoist UK. "The case studies section allows our existing and of course our new customers to see the exciting projects and installations that we have been involved with."

Fellow Director Paul Jordan comments, "As we continue to grow as a company, it is extremely important that our customers, and potential customers have easy access to product information, downloads, and new product updates."

(Jim Evans)

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Turkey - The meeting and party areas of the resort of Mardan Palace in Antalya features top-of-the-range lighting supplied by Coemar. The style of the resort combines the Ottoman-flavour gold colours and finishes with the clean-cut lines of European design, creating spaces with attention to every detail, where luxury is expressed to the full.

To achieve a more harmonious blend of the lighting equipment with the architecture of Mardan Palace, Coemar has customised its projectors where necessary, colouring them gold or white according to their use.

In the jazz bar, the stage is entirely lit by Coemar LED products, which produce a high output in limited dimensions, without heating the surrounding area. Thirty-six Pinlite LEDS provide the basic lighting, each with 12 1.2 W Luxeon LEDs, four red, four green and four blue. Six I Wash Leds moving heads are installed for the moving li

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UAE - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises, distributors of Shure microphones and audio electronics in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman have supplied a complete range of wireless microphones and wireless in ear monitors to production company, 7 Productions & Events.

Although a newcomer to the market, 7 Productions & Events has quickly managed to create a presence in the OB rental business. Currently the company boasts an OB truck with 16 cameras, which has been used to cover many live events that include concerts, sports coverage's and other additional outside broadcast occasions.

"7 Productions & Events has a fleet of professional OB vans that supplement their services with top of the range equipment," commented Richie Hiranandani, marketing manager. "Their recent purchase emphasises the presence of Shure products not only in installed an

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Croatia - L-Acoustics' Croatian distributor Dicroic has installed a system of 108P coaxial enclosures into the new Terminal B at Dubrovnik Airport, opened in late May by Prime Minister Jadranka Kosor.

Two rows of eight 108P active coaxials have been installed; the first on the ground floor and the second below the roof on the third floor. Built-in microphones on each of the eight gates on the ground floor can notify travellers in any part of the terminal, using any combination of the 108Ps, from one localised speaker to the entire terminal.

"We've managed to get extremely good results in this large area in terms of excellent sound coverage without reflection, with a relatively small amount of enclosures," says Slaven Tahirbegovic from Dicroic. "When we compare the sound with other airports, the main difference is that using the L-Acoustics 108Ps, we have managed

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USA - "For me the imperative was it had to be transformational," says Doug 'Spike' Brant of Performance Environment Design Group (PEDG), the conceptual force behind Bon Jovi's latest tour. "The show essentially starts with nothing and then morphs and changes throughout - there's always the unexpected."

Encompassing the unexpected fell to Tait Towers. "We've worked with Doug many times before and he always challenges us," said Adam Davies Tait Towers VP. "His designs are theatrical in that they are complex underneath, but always look simple in execution and never detract from the artist."

Played 360 wherever possible, the stage is an ellipse within a circular walkway with automated lighting towers and robotic LED platforms to the rear. A video screen sits above. "These shows are even more elaborate than the last tour," said Bon

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UK - Through the countdown to the end of arguably one of the BBC's most controversial chat shows, Richard Martin Lighting continues to support lighting designer Chris Kempton on Friday Night with Jonathon Ross.

The show's rig includes Stage Zooms, MAC 250s, MAC 500s, MAC 700s, VL2000, Chroma Strips, Stage Bars, Pixel Pars, MR16 Battens with extras as and when required since 2002. This time it was the turn of the GLP Impressions/ XL which were the main focus whilst Groove Armada performed.

The chrome GLP Impression XL offers 240 LEDs. When asked about his choice of specification Kempton said, "I was delighted with the performance of the GLP units on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. We always try to achieve fresh and distinctive lighting looks on the show and the GLPs are a very powerful unit both in light output and visual impact.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Back in December 2009, Litestructures were approached by newly formed Formula One racing team, Virgin Racing, to design and manufacture a hospitality structure for the 2010 Formula One season. The structure, known in the paddock as a 'motorhome', naturally had to be portable to allow transportation between events, but equally, as a key part of the company's branding, it had to be different and have outstanding visual impact to highlight the team's new backer and stakeholder - Richard Branson's Virgin Group - for their debut Formula One season.

Litestructures immediately established a working relationship with the professional and ambitious young team, and once the drawings were signed off in February, Litestructures started work on the build with impressive results: the main structure is built from two-tier aluminium trussing in LitePro 290/390 with a brushed finish crowned

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UK / France - De Lane Lea - one of Europe's leading sound post production Facilities is delighted reports that it is now back open and ready for business. Based in the heart of London's Soho, the studios have undergone a major refit following a devastating fire in July 2009.

To celebrate the re-opening of the facility, De Lane Lea travelled to Cannes to sponsor the Women in Film and TV event in the UK Film Centre.

The event, attended by over 200 film industry invitees took place on the sunny first Sunday of Cannes and De Lane Lea CEO Huw Penallt Jones announced the facility back open for business and the launch of new department De Lane Lea Sound and Vision.

Back in London, the refurbished and modernised facility consists of four mixing studios and two ADR studios. At the heart of the facility is the impressive Studio One. Measuring some 16.5m long by 9.5m wide, the r

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UK - Roland Systems Group reports a substantial percentage increase in sales of its RSS portfolio of digital audio products to the house-of-worship market.

Reading-based audio systems integrator SFL, a specialist in the house of worship sector, has passed a significant milestone since becoming one of the first UK dealers for the RSS range. Mark Payne and his team have now sold 20 of the compact M-400 V-Mixing Systems, following the installation of two consoles into the newly-built Finchampstead Baptist Church in Berkshire, and a complete M-400 with 8-way M-48 Personal Monitor System to the Dominion Centre in London.

The FBC is an impressive house of worship, offering a rich variety of facilities to the local Baptist community which raised a substantial sum in grants and donations to build it. The modern design houses a sports hall, library, café and youth centre, all sp

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Greece/China - Telmaco, the Greek AV systems integration company, has partnered with Barco to equip the Greek pavilion during the Shanghai Expo 2010. With a combination of 21 events projectors and 16 near seamless LCD displays, they present visitors with a day in the life of a Greek city.

Telmaco is responsible for the design, equipment supply and commissioning of the Greek pavilion. To create this environment, Telmaco used a total of 18 RLM-W6 6,000 lumens WUXGA three-chip DLP projectors and three CLM HD8 8,000 lumens single-chip DLP projectors to create images on screens of various sizes, formats and curves.

"We have been a Barco distributor for Greece and Cyprus since 1978," says Athan Velouzos, market manager museums, VR, simulation from Telmaco S.A.. "We chose to use the RLM-W6 primarily for this installation, because it is the most silent projector availab

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UK - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light and manufacturer ETC recently hosted a successful 'refresher course' training day covering ETC's Eos and Ion console ranges.

Held at London's Duke of York's Theatre, the course was divided into two parts. The first was designed to provide an update as to the new and changed functionality in the recently released Eos software version 1.9, including changes to the behaviour of the Update command and the new locked, absolute and by-device palette types. The second part covered configuring and using the many remote devices that are now available as part of the Eos system, including networking consoles to remote video interfaces and PC/Mac client software, and connecting both the standard RFR Radio Remote and the iRFR iPhone/iPod Touch Remote.

Hosted by ETC's Luke Delwiche and White Light's Roger Hennigan, the day was enjoyed by arou

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South Africa - Lighting designer Mauritz Neethling of LCD Productions used Robe moving lights at the core of his rig for the much hyped finale of Survivor South Africa Santa Carolina, which was broadcast from M-Net's Studio 6 in Johannesburg.

The brief was to recreate the "rustic" feel of Paradise Island in Mozambique, where the bulk of the action took place, complete with a technical team and equipment from sister company Blond Productions who were supplying lighting for the location episodes of the series.

The studio measures 18m deep by 30m wide, with 10m of headroom, and the Robe fixtures used were 12 ColorSpot 700E ATs, 12 ColorSpot 250 ATs and 12 Scan 575 XTs.

The 700s were used as front light for the 'tribal' area, and to create realistic fire effects across the set, for which the animation wheels proved the perfect tool.

The Scan 575 XTs were used

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UK Noted for his work with The Style Council and subsequently as Paul Weller's long-time drummer, Steve White has since collaborated with many different artists. One of his biggest commitments is to education, a significant part of which is playing clinics across the UK on behalf of drum manufacturer Mapex. He recently completed a 10-date tour, playing at specialist retailers from Colchester to Cardiff and Coleraine, with a K-Array KR200 system providing sound reinforcement.

Using a PA system for an acoustic drum clinic may sound unnecessary, but it's not just about the drums themselves. Attendees need to hear White as he shares the secrets of his trade, while he also uses a Roland SPD-S for triggering samples.

"At the clinics I use samples from records that I've played on and more quirky elements like old school hip hop loops and beats, which say a lot about the music I

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UK - Yamaha is running a series of pre-summer festival season technical training sessions in early June to ensure as many visiting band engineers as possible are up to speed with Yamaha technology

Taking place from 8-10 June inclusive, the sessions are being held at Yamaha Commercial Audio UK's headquarters in Milton Keynes.

With the facilities being located close to the centre of the UK, the sessions will be as accessible as possible for all attendees, as well as having Yamaha's resources and technical support team on hand.

"The sessions are aimed at experienced audio engineers and console 'baby sitters' who will appreciate a chance to brush up their knowledge of the Yamaha PM5D, M7CL and LS9 ahead of the UK festival season," says Naomi Wilkinson, Yamaha Commercial Audio UK's sales and marketing co-ordinator.

"With the high numbers of Yamaha digital console

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