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UK - Where are we with Remote Device Management? What are the benefits? How do I use it, install it, specify it? For the answers to these and many other questions about RDM, just come along to stand 2-P37 at PLASA 2010. Sponsored by the PLASA Technical Resource Office and 25 industry supporters, the RDM 'Compatibility Corner' is a must for all consultants, specifiers, users and manufacturers of lighting systems.

Peter Willis and a team of industry experts will be on hand to explain each of RDM's key features with hands-on examples of RDM interoperability and connectivity using a range of manufacturer's compatible products. They will be offering one-to-one briefings for consultants and specifiers and regular mini-presentations on specific aspects of RDM benefits. There is also a special session for RDM developers, which will take place on the stand on Monday 13th September from 5

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Europe - Faithless have been on tour since early this year, playing in clubs, theatres and on the summer festival scene across Europe. Throughout, the band's monitor engineer Ben Milton has been relying on the DiGiCo SD8.

MIlton has been using DiGiCo consoles since the company started in 2002, when friend and prolific theatre sound designer Bobby Aitken introduced him to the brand.

"I have been specifying DiGiCo consoles when I can ever since," says Milton. "When I was putting together the monitor spec for Faithless, I wanted to use the best sounding console with the smallest footprint. We were starting the tour in European theatres, some of which have very limited space onstage - the Paradiso in Amsterdam springs to mind - so it was crucial that I kept my footprint small and flexible."

Milton has seven wedge mixes on stage and eight stereo in-ears, and t

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UK - Adlib Audio's Summer festival season continued apace with the Liverpool- based company supplying three trucks of audio equipment for 8 stages plus 20 of their technicians to the new three-day Vintage Festival at 'Glorious' Goodwood.

Vintage 2010 - "Celebrating 5 decades of British Cool" was the first of what will be an annual music and fashion-led festival of 'cool', dating from the 1940s, 50s, 60s, 70s & 80s . It features leading DJs, bands, collectors, purveyors of vintage clothing and classic vinyl, alongside contemporary bands and brands inspired by the UK's richly expressive music and fashion heritage.

The refreshing entertainment concept was set in the beautiful surroundings of the Goodwood Estate, ensconced in a secluded valley overlooking the Sussex coast, with a capacity of 20,000. James Neale crew chiefed the 20-strong team and oversaw all of the proje

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UK - Event organiser UBMi BV has extended its contract with DB Systems, the IT and AV rental company.

As part of the new agreement, DB will supply bespoke AV systems and services for eight shows between now and 2012, including CPhI 2010, CPhI 2011, CPhI 2012, as well as Food Ingredients Europe 2011.

Oliver Richardson, DB's sales director, said, "I'm delighted that UBM has extended our contract for another two years. Our relationship with UBM is built on a solid foundation of trust developed over years of working together."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - FocusTrack, the production lighting documentation system, is already in use on some of the biggest theatre shows in the world - but it is by no means limited to huge shows, as shown by its recent use to document Roadkill, one of the hit shows at this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe.

This harrowing play, directed by Cora Bissett and designed by Jessica Brettle, featured 'evocative mood lighting' designed by Paul Sorley that set the uncompromising tone of the production. Given top ratings in every review, it was decided to document the show lighting precisely both to maintain it during its Edinburgh run and in case the show gained a future life beyond the festival.

Taking charge of this process was James Gardner, who has been using FocusTrack for some time in his work as a production re-lighter in Scotland. He explains his use of the system: "My experience is t

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UK - Currently playing in a theatre constructed over the former Eurostar platforms at Waterloo station is the York Theatre Royal production of The Railway Children, produced by Jenny King and Matthew Gale for the Touring Consortium in association with the National Railway Museum

It fell to Northampton-based Unusual Rigging to create, in that cavernous space, a 45m long theatre which straddled tracks and platforms and would house 1000 people and a genuine 66 tonne steam train.

Unusual Rigging's Simon Stone said, "We are used to dealing with the unusual but this was a real turn around - we took the theatre to the train instead of the other way around."

The primary concern was the station's glass roof which, not designed to take heavy loads, needed to support 450m of truss weighing 5 tonnes, with an additional 2.5 tonnes of lighting equipment and one tonne of s

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Georgia - The Bridge of Peace spanning the river Mtkvari is the third project in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi using Pharos controllers with the collaboration team of Italian architect Michele de Lucchi, French lighting designer Philippe Martinaud and Dutch lighting engineer Marco de Boer. A graceful and elegant sculpture, its dynamic, mesmerising illumination is created using only white light.

The 1200 fixtures in the glass canopy provide a substantial canvas for geometric and organic lighting effects, generated by a networked Pharos LPC 1 and LPC 2. An additional four LPC2s and three LPC1s control the 4100 LEDs incorporated into the glass parapets of the 150m interactive walkway. Integrated along the walkway are 256 sensors connected to the digital inputs on 32 Pharos RIO 80 remote devices networked via 16 Pharos PoE switches to the LPCs.

As pedestrians pass the sensors, s

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Finland - Sweden's LumenRadio and Sun Effects of Finland have delivered wireless RDM/DMX controls for the most wet and wild festival in Finland.

In May 2010 the seventh consecutive Pacifique dance music event was held at Serena Water Park in Espoo, Finland. The always sold out event gathers 3500 fans of electronic music annually to party the night away in very hot and wet conditions.

In the main hall there is a vast see-through glass wall with complete winter and snowy forests outside. Inside, the crowd is mostly dressed in swimwear, basically dancing barefooted and doing waterslides in bikinis. Due to the very special nature of the venue there has always been a demand for wireless technology for the event.

"In previous years we have tried different wireless DMX systems and have always experienced a number of problems or failures. When we heard about Lumen- Radio we imm

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Denmark - Silkeborg hospital has recently decided it needed to improve conditions for staff and patients, and commissioned lighting designer Rune T°nnes to help - starting out in the radiology department.

"One of the challenges," says T°nnes, "was that, being south facing, the x-ray and MRI rooms were flooded with bright daylight. Clinicians had to pull the blinds down in order to work, but were then left with poor artificial lighting. I spoke to the operators about their needs and examined the machinery, to see how I can make their jobs easier."

In the control rooms, a certain level and temperature of lighting was necessary to ensure the monitors could be seen easily while also providing a comfortable working environment for the department, which is in use 24 hours a day, seven days a week. T°nnes specified a mixture of primary red and blue for

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UK / The Netherlands - PLASA 2010 sees the announcement of the merger of two of the strongest names in the trussing and staging industry - Prolyte Products Group, based in the Netherlands, and UK-based Litestructures.

A statement confirming the merger declasres, "Both companies represent the cutting edge in professional truss and staging systems, each with their own strengths and specialities, their drive for high quality products and innovative design making them a natural fit. This merger will create a new organization that is stronger in every sense and is set to become a dominant force in the industry in terms of size, product range, resources and, crucially, sales force."

The statement continues, "This in turn will open up new market opportunities in and outside the fields that both companies have served up until now. Based on brand strengths and fuelled by

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UK - Two of Scotland's market-leading professional audio companies have committed to a joint venture which they say will "raise the bar" in their specialised industry.

Glasgow-based WS Steele has signed a memorandum of understanding with Dalgety Bay company Clear Audio Systems, known in the industry as Claude, to work together to develop opportunities.

WS Steele, established 70 years ago, is a leading provider of high-end audio-visual systems while Clear Audio Systems specialises in a niche audio market - the supply and installation of induction loop systems and audio enhancement products to assist the 15% of the population who have hearing difficulties. The two companies have a combined turnover of just under £2m and a joint workforce of seventeen.

WS Steele managing director Stuart McArthur and Claude's CEO Kim Rose say there is sound synergy and strategy u

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UK - Despite two multi-platinum selling albums, being a three time Grammy Award nominee, Ivor Novello and MOBO award winner and enjoying a public profile that most singers can only dream about, it took 2006 X Factor winner Leona Lewis until the summer of 2010 to embark on her first headline tour.

Monitor engineer Ant Carr did some promo work for Lewis earlier in the year and has previously worked for Syco, her management company, so he was ideally placed to get the best from the singer's voice in the array of arenas that the Labyrinth tour took in.

"This year Leona was to tour with a fresh band, so it was a good opportunity for me to come in," he says. "To be honest, choosing Sennheiser was a no brainer for me. It's my choice of microphone and the in-ear stuff is great."

Carr has Lewis, plus her four-piece backing band, two backing singers a

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UK - International staging company Stageco will be enjoying an action packed weekend in London. The weekend highlights three of the company's diverse services and culminates with a stand at PLASA 2010.

The weekend for Stageco will kick off on Saturday with the Muse concert at Wembley Stadium, one of the UK tour dates for the band. Stageco has engineered a spectacular skyscraper designed stage for the world tour, creating the illusion of a band playing in the basement of an imposing building.

On Sunday Stageco will be at the Help for Heroes concert, which supports Prince William and Prince Harry's charity, at Twickenham Stadium. Stageco will provide a Super Roof for the one off concert, featuring Robbie Williams, Katherine Jenkins and a host of contemporary artists.

The busy weekend finishes with Stageco sharing a double decker stand at PLASA 2010 along with fellow Ent

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UK - Four days in mid-August saw the Bristol International Balloon Fiesta's 32nd year, with 500,000 visitors enjoying the spectacle of over 100 hot air balloons of all different shapes and sizes, the RAF Red Arrows and a range of complementary ground-based attractions.

Brought in by Richmond Event Management, it was AP Security's first time at the event and something rather different from the live music circuit which tends to dominate the company's summer workload.

"We were really looking forward to the new challenges that the Fiesta presented," says AP's northern regional manager Simon Miller. "As always we started planning well in advance, in this case in April, and attended monthly meetings in Bristol where all the partners would meet and discuss the event and their roles within it."

AP's staff covered the entire site except the car parks, including al

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Denmark - Guitarist, composer and producer Henrik Andersen has chosen a DPA SMK4061 miniature stereo miking kit for the live debut of possibly the most advanced guitar in the instrument's history: the 52-stringed, three-neck Manzer Medusa.

The concept for the Medusa sprung from Andersen's success on the Indian classical scene and a desire to create a personal trademark encapsulating his musical identity. Accordingly, the Medusa features necks of a veena, sitar and conventional guitar.

"The sonic range and acoustic colours of the Manzer Medusa are fantastic and outstanding, so I needed to find a mic solution for live concerts," says Andersen. "I ended up choosing the SMK4061 stereo miking kit from DPA. The 4061 miniature mics are extremely small, but catch the overall sound of the 52-stringed beauty. For me they set a new standard, because the small size of the m

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UK / Austria - A reciprocal business partnership has existed between Le Mark & Tüchler since the late 90's seeing strong growth of Tüchler flooring within the UK . PLASA 2010 sees the official launch of a new venture between the two companies with the introduction of PVC front and rear projection screens and frames.

"This opportunity will allow us to fully utilise the production skills of Tüchler," says Le Mark's managing director Stuart Gibbons. "We have for some time considered developing 'a screen range' alongside our existing line of performance flooring."

Tüchler GmbH was founded in the 1970's as a specialist supplier of fire proof textiles to the Austrian theatre industry. The Company has grown to be one of Europe's most renowned manufactures of theatrical textiles, high performance stage flooring, projection screens and technical accessories. Vie

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies has confirmed its status as an official sponsor of the Jack Goff racing team for the 2010 ELF Renault Clio Cup with Michelin Championship.

For this year's Championship, Jack Goff is sponsored by several entertainment technology companies, including Avolites, Fibre Optic Systems, GLP, HSL Group, Litestructures, Pixel Range, Robe, Rope & Rigging and SES.

Jack Goff and his Renault Clio racing car will be appearing in the JG-Motorsport Lounge at PLASA 2010. Visitors to the lounge have a chance to enter a free prize draw to win an exclusive track day experience with Jack.

AC-ET's UK sales director, Phill Capstick comments, "Further to AC-ET's sponsorship of the BRDC's exclusive Rising Stars Programme supporting promising young British racing drivers, it was a natural progression to sponsor a talented up and coming driver from the local ar

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UK - Electrovision reports that it has secured its continuing relationship with Behringer, after over 10 years of successful association with the German company.

A Behringer statement says, "Electrovision will now be authorised to service regional dealers in the European market who are not participating in the group's container programme with fulfilment of Behringer and Bugera product orders. The appointment marks a significant milestone in the existing relationship between the two companies."

Richard Fox, managing director of Electrovision, comments, "We have been fortunate enough to have a long and successful relationship with Behringer and we firmly echo their goal to offer 'the best equipment at fair prices', which helps us to stay competitive and makes the Behringer and Bugera ranges accessible for our customers."

Fox continues, "Electrovision's

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Austria - Tannoy's QFlex steerable array system has recently been specified to good effect in Austria, solving a long-standing intelligibility problem in a historic ballroom. Located in the town of Wiener Neustadt, 30 miles south of Vienna, the opulent classical ballroom is housed in a 350 year old building that began life in the 17th century as a church and then later home to the Mayor's Office following a long stint as a factory for most of the 19th century.

The building was then acquired for use by a local bank with a grand opening in 1898 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Emperor Franz Josef I, and has remained in the hands of the financial institutions ever since with numerous renovations and a number of sound systems for the ballroom space having come and gone over the years.

To mark the 150th anniversary of the bank, the owners (Sparkasse Wiener Neustadt) sought to a

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USA - Aviom's Pro16 personal mixing system is proving a big hit on Broadway, where it is being used as part of the monitoring setup by three of the season's hottest musicals - Promises, Promises, Come Fly Away, and La Cage aux Folles - to help the orchestra to stay on cue.

Promises, Promises, a musical adaptation of the hit 1960 Billy Wilder film, The Apartment, has the most traditional arrangement of the three shows, with a large orchestra playing in a pit near the stage. Production Resource Group (PRG) supplied Promises, Promises with its Aviom A-16II Personal Mixers and mounted them on the orchestra musicians' microphone stands, so musicians can easily access and customize the mix they need to listen to in order to properly get their cues.

With an A-16II, individual performers can create custom monitor mixes tailored to their indivi

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USA - There is still time to earn 12 ETCP renewal credits and save with the early registration rate for Tomcat USA's Safely Building the Beast workshop at the 2010 LDInstitute. This new workshop will take place on 20 &21 October 2010 in conjunction with the LDI Show in Las Vegas.

This day and a half, ETCP recognized workshop features training from industry experts. Day one consists of a half-day course on fall protection led by Bill Sapsis, president and founder of Sapsis Rigging, Inc. as well as a half-day course on truss design, use and theory taught by Will Todd, product support manager for TomcatUSA.

For the morning of day two, Will Todd and Keith Bohn of Tomcat USA will lead a session on ground supported and outdoor structures which includes an overview of design elements and safety consideration of these structures, examples of real world scenarios from the Tomcat

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UK - Hawthorn has announced the launch of its new division, Hawthorn Walling Systems (HWS), designing and building tensioned fabric structures for the exhibition and events industry.

Clients are now looking for more economical, yet high quality build methods for large exhibition stands and event sets, says the company. HWS offers a solution to that, with large-scale tensioned fabric systems that are already a popular alternative to more traditional build methods.

HWS has partnered with American company Dockside Canvas to produce high-quality tensioned fabric structures using their patented Fab-X-Frame aluminium extrusion system, designed specifically for large exhibition stand builds.

The HWS walling system produces seamless fully printed structures of any size, but is also suitable for smaller sets, event walling and branding. The fabric can be printed to high resolution wi

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USA - When Barry Manilow moved his hit show from the Las Vegas Hilton to the Paris Las Vegas for a new two-year residency, the production team wanted to make a few changes to better reflect and adapt to their new home. To do so, they brought in lighting designer Chris Medvitz of Lightswitch to create an intimate yet powerful lighting design. Lightswitch then enlisted the assistance of PRG and 65 Vari*Lite luminaires from Philips Vari-Lite.

"When the production was moved from the Las Vegas Hilton to the Paris Las Vegas, everyone wanted to create a new look and feel for the show so that they could really compete against the larger Vegas shows that were established on the strip," says Medvitz. "Barry had never done a theatrical-type show before, so they felt this was a great opportunity to capitalize on the intimate 1500-seat Paris Théâtre."

Over the n

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UK - Live Nation confirms that one of the UK's premiere concert venues, the Manchester Apollo will officially be changing it's name to O2 Apollo Manchester with immediate effect.

The Grade II listed venue will be undergoing a full interior re-decoration in keeping with its Art Deco style.

O2 Apollo Manchester has been central to the British touring circuit for decades, attracting Best Venue nominations and patrons from across the globe. With shows from every major rock, pop and comedy act on the touring circuit. The breadth of styles of events covers every market.

Paul Latham, COO international, Live Nation comments, "It gives me great pleasure to announce this partnership with O2 and it facilitates our investment in one of the greatest music venues in the UK . Concert fans deserve the best and this partnership delivers that and so much more."

Shadi Halliwell, he

  1. AVnu Alliance hosts discussion panel at PLASA 2010
  2. Architainment gets behind charity walk
  3. Barix and Railtec partner for Swiss rail installation
  4. London's Hideaway installs d&b sound system
  5. ARX appoints distributor for Latvia
  6. HK Audio reinforces Sandown summer festival
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