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USA / Europe - After meeting while recording in Nashville, Robert Plant and lighting designer Chris Lisle ended up at Bandit Lites for a few days experimenting with old tried and true lighting fixtures. Plant had very definite vision of what he wanted, and it was lighting standards of PARs, lekos, fresnels and cyc lights - All of this is scattered around on a series of small stands and vertical pipes.

The show is controlled with the classic Hog 2 console and sets up in little to no time. Bandit client rep Brent Barrett worked with Lisle, tour manager Rick Feulner, production manager Gary Trew and Trinifold Management rep Nicola Powell to insure complete satisfaction of the simple but dynamic vision Robert Plant held in his head.

Plant and Lisle spent a few days at Bandit Lites Nashville facility programming the lights and completing the show before it even hit the road with hi

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UK - WiSE (Women in Stage Entertainment), the industry organization set up to address the under representation of women in the backstage, technical and design disciplines of entertainment, smashed even its own expectations during PLASA 2010.

Co-founder Sarah Rushton-Read says: "During the show we shot past the 200 barrier in terms of membership and now have over 270 members and counting! It was great to meet and greet so many of our members on our own stand and we thank our sponsor Bryan Raven of White Light, Esther Heaslip and the White Light team for making this happen. The WiSE stand was heaving every day during Tea O Clock (4pm - 6pm), where WiSE members served tea and cakes to industry colleagues and other WiSE members. Of course we could not have achieved this without all the wonderful WiSE women who were prepared to - tongue in cheek - don their pinnies, bake some fa

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UK - Havells Sylvania, the global designer, manufacturer and provider of professional lighting solutions has opened its European headquarters in London. The move aligns with the global strategy of Havells Sylvania to better serve its European customers and become more agile in a dynamic international market and high growth developing markets, says the company. The new office will be inaugurated by Qimat Rai Gupta, chairman & founder of Havells Group.

A statement says, "This decision underscores the company's vision to consolidate Havells Sylvania's position as one of the leading global designers and suppliers of lighting products. Set in a global lighting market characterized by an increasing demand for energy-saving and eco-friendly light sources which is forecast to reach US$24 billion by the year 2015, Havells Sylvania is well-positioned to cater for the European market

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UK - Companies and individuals from across the country picked-up accolades at the inaugural Live Music Business Awards, held on 7 October at the Radisson Blu Portman Hotel, in London's West End.

The capital dominated the major venues' league, with Wembley Stadium and Wembley Arena winning the respective Best Venue Teamwork (Stadium/Arena) awards, although the O2 Academy in Newcastle beat London's Koko to Best Venue Teamwork for a major club.

Other winners included Spectacle of the Year - Muse at Glastonbury, Best Festival (below 15,000 capacity) - Bloodstock Metal Festival and Agent of the Year - Geoff Meal of The Agency Group.

Breakthrough Artiste was won by Mumford & Sons, while the Outstanding Contribution award went to Mark Cooper and Alison Howe, co-directors of BBC Television's Later ... with Jools Holland, for the boost the programme has given to the liv

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UK - Audio visual rental company Terry Tew has become the first hire company to purchase a SoundField DSF-2 and DSF-3 digital microphone system for discrete-channel 5.1 audio capture. Within weeks of the digital SoundField mic arriving at the Terry Tew HQ to the north-east of London, the system was in such demand that managing director Tew has now purchased a second complete DSF-2/DSF-3 rig and a UPM-1 stereo-to-5.1 upmix processor as well.

"Anyone that does HD OB work for Sky is now required to use a DSF-2/DSF-3 system, and although Sky has rigged many of them permanently at some Premier League stadiums, not everywhere has one," reports Tew. "We received a few calls asking if we rented them, and I realised it would be worth our while to have a system.

"SISLive used our system this year at Wimbledon, and then our customers started using it so regularly that

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UK - Stage Electrics has once again provided full technical production for the Guardian Hay Festival, held in Hay-on-Wye in the Brecon Beacons each summer. The world's leading literary festival, famously labelled by Bill Clinton as The Woodstock of the mind, has also exported its concept to create sister events in India, Columbia, Mexico, Spain, Maldives and Kenya.

In 23 years the event has grown from a number of venues in the picturesque town to a much larger greenfield site just outside. The site infrastructure is designed to ensure that visitors and guest celebrities alike enjoy the experience without traditional festival discomforts. Generous trackway and tentage ensure that encounters with mud, even in a wet year, are minimised; conversely, on sunny days there is plenty of space for visitors to relax on the lawns.

Content spans the literature readings and di

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UK - A total revamp of the Baldwin Boxall website (www.baldwinboxall.co.uk) has just been announced. There is information on current product ranges with access to downloadable literature, however, there are also presentations, video and accreditation downloads available. In addition, general information on voice evacuation, emergency voice communication and a news page can be found.

Baldwin Boxall care very much about providing full documentation. With this in mind they have ensured that, as well as information on all current product ranges, older material is included too. Instruction manuals for 'out of manufacture' products can be quickly located, either by button navigation or via the site's useful search facility.

Commenting on the new website, Nick Baldwin, marketing director said, "Here at Baldwin Boxall we are all delighted with the finished article. During the des

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USA - Lighting designer Tim Dunn from Gearhouse South Africa will give a presentation about lighting the acclaimed Closing Ceremony for the 2010 FIFA World Cup for Robe at the Lighting Design International (LDI) exhibition 2010 staged in Las Vegas 22 - 24 October.

The presentation is currently scheduled to run once daily for the three days of the show - one of which will be in Spanish. Full details to follow. Interested parties can register for a place at the front desk of the Robe booth.

Robe ColorWash and ColorSpot 2500E ATs and REDWash 3-192s were used extensively - along with other fixtures - in the award winning event at Soccer City Stadium, Johannesburg, South Africa, produced by The VWV Group.

Dunn's presentation will detail the challenges faced by him and his team, which included precision lighting around the large format pitch video projections. Dunn will also expan

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India - The 19th Commonwealth Games in Delhi which finishes today is being broadcast for the first time in high definition - 26 Yamaha LS9 consoles are being used by outside broadcast specialists SIS LIVE to ensure that the televised audio is as good as the images.

SIS LIVE is Europe's largest outside broadcast and satellite uplink provider and is supplying production / coverage facilities and services to cover the Games. The company won the multi-million pound contract from India's public broadcaster, Doordarshan, part of Prasar Bharati, the Broadcasting Corporation of India.

Taking delivery of the 26 LS9-32 consoles from SSE Audio Group, SIS LIVE is using YG2/YS2 mini-YGDAI cards, also supplied by SSE, to seamlessly integrate the consoles with a huge Optocore network. The system is bringing 17 different track and field events from 12 different venues to a global television a

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USA - The nearly 12m viewers of the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards, telecast from the Nokia Theatre L.A. Live in Los Angeles on 12 September, saw Sennheiser microphones and wireless technology deliver much of the excitement - at the celebrity arrival area, on the main stage, and across both the indoor and outdoor performance areas. The event showcased a mix of established artists and fresh faces, including Eminem, Rihanna, Paramore, Linkin' Park, Florence + the Machine, Drake, will.i.am, Nicki Minaj, among many others.

Host Chelsea Handler used a Sennheiser wireless microphone, as did all presenters. Wireless specialists Soundtronics supplied one dozen channels of true-diversity receivers, including EM 3532s, along with SKM 5000 and SKM 5200 wireless handheld transmitters.

Sennheiser was also featured in many of the night's performances. Eminem, one of the big award winner

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USA - Entering its sixth performance season, the $64 million DeBartolo Performing Arts Centre at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, campus has recently upgraded its former audio system in the Leighton Concert Hall and now hosts a Soundcraft Vi4 digital console with BSS Soundweb London digital signal processing.

After many demos with the Vi4 and several other consoles, the Centre's technical crew unanimously agreed on bringing the Vi4 to Notre Dame.

"The Vi4 was the perfect investment for the centre's transition to digital sound," said audio engineer Joshua Ingle. "Everything from its ease of use and amazing sound quality to its sleek looks and size were considered, and the Vi4 fits the bill better than all the other choices."

The acoustics in the Leighton Concert Hall are world-class, with the ability to mechanically change wall surfaces and reverb ti

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UK - AV specialist Whitwam celebrated its 100th birthday on 7 October with an evening reception, canapés and audio visual showcase, at its premises in Winchester.

The Mayor of Winchester attended to cut the cake and say a few words, as well as over 100 loyal customers and friends of the company gathered over the years. Some ex-staff were also in attendance; some of whom had worked for the company 50 years ago. The event at the new modern premises, with its dramatic lighting and state-of-the-art technology, would have been a far cry from the traditional music shop on Winchester high street, where they had worked many years ago, says the company.

Nowadays the company is a specialist audio visual supplier with clients such as Westminster Abbey, St George's Chapel - Windsor Castle, The Royal Society and the National Police Improvement Authority.

"We are very proud of

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UK - SSE Audio has once again chosen Le Mark to produce their removable tour labels. "SSE is committed to providing excellent customer service and we pride ourselves on quality and tidiness of our equipment and cases. Maintaining this professionalism is carried all the way to the labels we use on our cases," says SSE's Stefan Phillips.

" We have been using Le Mark's removable Tour Labels for many years, allowing each road case to clearly show the SSE logo and be easily wrote on to identify the contents. An advantage of using the removable labels is how easy it is to keep the cases looking fresh and tidy. Each and every time the equipment goes out on hire we replace the label and re-identify the case contents, keeping the cases clean, tidy and its content accurately identified."

(Jim Evans)

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Qatar - An L-Acoustics system has been installed into Seven, the new club at La Cigale Hotel in Doha, Qatar, supplied by L-Acoustics certified provider Venuetech.

The 1,000-capacity oval-shaped club has been installed with an unusual sound system based around a stereo configuration located in front of the DJ booth. This comprises two hangs of four dV-Dosc cabinets focused on the dance floor and four hangs of three Arcs medium format line source cabinets to cover the table areas around the dance floor. A further system of six distributed 12XT coaxial boxes cover a pillared area.

The club also features an unusual sub bass setup of six SB28 subs in a horizontal ARCS/SUB configuration, to deal with the very wide shape of the venue. This provides homogeneous sub/low frequency coverage all around the room.

The DJ, VJ and LJ all have personal monitoring systems of 12XT coaxials, an

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Germany / Austria - The National Theatre Mannheim, Oberhausen Theatre, and Osnabrück Theatre in Germany, as well as the Vienna State Opera are all investing in the MAC III Performance, Martin Professional's new 1500 W profile moving head with continuous framing system. The four venues will acquire a total of 48 Martin MAC III Performances, which will replace older Martin MAC 2000 Performances and Martin PAL 1200s, as well as fixtures of other manufacturers.

The Martin MAC III Performance is based on the successful MAC III Profile, which has proved its operational reliability for years on the largest tours. It was therefore the appropriate starting point for the theatre version. The effects module of the MAC III Profile can be easily replaced with the framing module of the MAC III Performance.

Due to the modularity of the luminaire, nothing further is required - the assembled

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USA - With a congregation of approximately 8,000, Vineyard Church of Columbus is the largest church in Central Ohio. The church recently completed a dramatic overhaul of its multipurpose room and installed a new sound reinforcement system drawn from the catalogue of D.A.S. Audio.

Co-owned by Ed Whitney and Mike Hockenberry, Reynoldsburg, OH-based Metro Audio Video was contracted to design and install the church's new sound system. The sound reinforcement system that Whitney ultimately deployed consists of eight D.A.S. Audio Variant 25A powered, two-way mid-high line array elements, two Variant 18A powered subwoofers, plus three AX-V25 steel bumpers to hang the system.

Whitney discussed the challenges of the project. "Vineyard Columbus' multipurpose space is used for everything from meetings and banquets to small concerts. When the church decided to renovate, they wanted t

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USA - Las Vegas was the destination earlier this year for two lucky winners of the Robert Juliat competition, staged in celebration of the company's 90th Anniversary.

Jean-Jacques Mansard, technical director of Le Channel Scène Nationale de Calais, and his wife, Isabelle, won the five-day trip for two to Las Vegas, with a four-night stay at the Caesar's Palace hotel, after entering the competition at the SIEL-SATIS 2009 show in Paris.

Visitors to the stand were invited to write a short testimonial about Robert Juliat products. These were subsequently entered into a draw, the first prize of which also included a helicopter night-flight over Las Vegas and two tickets for the Cirque du Soleil show, O.

Mansard's winning testimonial, which was picked at random, stated, "Since 1982 I have been working with Robert Juliat products and I am delighted with them. They offe

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UK - Lanta Lighting was an integral part of TV's The Gadget Show attempt at the world's largest game of Tetris. Viewers of Five's popular tech show saw one of Lanta's best selling LED lights enter the record books when 200 Fireball PAR Cans were used recently at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre.

Lanta's managing director, Grant Lester explains why the Fireball PAR64 TRI was chosen by The Gadget Show: "Everyone knows that LED fixtures use a fraction of the power of incandescent bulbs, so choosing this technology was an obvious choice." He continues "Lanta was the perfect partner for the TV show since they needed a large number of reliable units at short notice. Tri-colour, DMX-controlled, Fireballs fitted the bill to a tee."

Nearly a kilometre of data and power cables networked the Lanta Fireballs into a single, computer-controlled grid.

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UK - A line-up of top speakers has been announced for the International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) Enlighten Europe Conference, taking place alongside The ARC Show 2011 at The Business Design Centre from 12-13 January 2011.

Leading experts operating within the lighting industry, including Jason Bruges of Jason Bruges Studio, Durham Marenghi of DMLD and Leni Schwendinger, principal designer of New York based company Leni Schwendinger Light Projects, will speak on subjects such as LED Technology, Energy Saving Initiatives and The Value of Light.

Conference speaker Leni Schwendinger commented, "I am looking forward to speaking at the IALD Conference and comparing The ARC Show with our American lighting shows. Europe always produces innovative products, so I'm looking forward to seeing them at the show and catching up with colleagues."

Other confirmed spe

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UK - Hoist UK has recently moved to larger premises. This is the third move in Hoist UK's lifetime and again has been necessary due to the growth of the company since their last move only three years ago.

"Thanks to this relocation, Hoist UK and our sister company AJB Precision Fabrications can now be housed under one roof, this will allow us to offer seamless integration of our own manufactured products and those of our internationally renowned suppliers to our clients," says Hoist UK director Tony Dickson.

The new Hoist UK & AJB Precision fabrication facility is located at Unit 2, Wrynose Road, Old Hall Industrial Estate, Bromborough, Wirral, CH62 3QD.

"Our sister company AJB Precision Fabrications is a steel and aluminium fabrication company, with in-house CNC machining facilities. The directors of AJB are Phil Williams and Mike Nicholson who like Tony Dick

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Thailand - The Crown Property Bureau of Thailand has recently opened the Rattanakosin Exhibition Hall, an interactive self learning centre and venue where invaluable pieces of information and artifacts on the history, arts, and culture of the Kingdom of Siam (also called Rattanakosin) era are compiled and maintained in the most extensive range ever found in Thailand.

Based in Bangkok, this centre has been designed and managed by Rightman Co, a company specialised in exhibition designing and set-up.

Advance Technology Contracting Co, a Thai-based AV system integrator, was in charge of supplying the AV equipment and turning into life Rightman Co's creations.

A Medialon control system has been integrated by ATC. "Medialon Manager software is the best AV interactive control system solution", declares Noppharit Neansa-ard, AV and lighting specialist for ATC. "It al

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India - When this month's XIX Commonwealth Games took place in Delhi, all the action from track and field was broadcast throughout the world over digital fibre networks using more than 100 Optocore devices.

The network was commissioned by SIS LIVE who were awarded the multi-million dollar contract to supply production and coverage facilities and services to the Games.

Working with ZOOM Communications, South-East Asia's largest broadcast services company, coverage was provided for 17 different sports and outside races across 12 venues in Delhi.

SIS LIVE and ZOOM Communications both rented large consignments of Optocore digital and analogue network interfaces from UK sales and hire production company, SSE Audio Group.

In addition SSE provided SIS LIVE with a large number of Yamaha YG2/YS2 modules and 26 Yamaha LS9-32 consoles; the cards were used in conjunction with both the

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UK - Early September saw London's Twickenham Stadium eschew its usual diet of rugby in favour of a high profile benefit concert for the Help For Heroes wounded serviceman's charity. With the much-vaunted live 'reunion' of Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow as its centrepiece, Sennheiser equipment and staff were there in force to help ensure this complex event went as planned.

Played to a capacity 60,000-strong crowd, the 12 September event saw Williams and Barlow joined by a high profile supporting cast, providing a day of suitably 'something for everyone' performances. These included The Saturdays, Pixie Lott, Alexandra Burke, Sir Tom Jones, Katherine Jenkins, Enrique Iglesias and, appropriately, the Band of the Coldstream Guards and ex-serviceman-turned-musician James Blunt.

Working closely with audio providers Brit Row and crew chief Derrick Zieba, Sennheiser UK provided a wid

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UK - Britain's biggest professional bicycle race, the Tour of Britain, is a gruelling eight days of cycling that takes place during September, with each stage hosted in a different location around the UK. It culminates in a fast-paced action-packed stage in London, this hosted by the Olympic and Para Olympic Borough of Newham. For the second year running, the organisers called upon the services of AP Security to provide stewarding and traffic management.

AP's remit included covering the course for the TfL London Stage of the Tour, and also took in the Newham Waterfront Festival, organised by Newham Council and sponsored by ExCel London. Set up to coincide with the tour, the Festival was hosted in Royal Victoria Square and featured international street theatre, a wide variety of foods and live music, culminating in a spectacular fireworks display.

With around 15,000 spectators

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