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USA - The collapse in high winds of a temporary concert stage at the Indiana State Fair on Saturday claimed five lives and left almost 50 injured, according to US news reports. An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collapse began on Sunday, and its findings will be watched with great interest by the event production industry.

In addition to issues surrounding the build and stability of the structure itself, the question of why the event was not stopped and the audience evacuated far sooner will surely form a major part of the investigation.

It is reported that organisers had urged audience members to seek shelter just minutes before the sudden winds hit the stage structure - far too late, as it turned out, for an effective evacuation. With news reports claiming that forecasters at the National Weather Service had predicted the strong winds of 60-70mph up to t

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Australia - ARX has announced the release of their new TAP-IT transformer isolated audio line tapper.

ARX managing director Colin Park comments, "With the ongoing convergence of audio, AV and IT systems, providing a clean audio feed to wireless and cabled transmission and recording systems has become a priority for systems designers, Integrators and Installers.

"Hums and ground loops, problematic Y leads, the misuse of headphone outputs or jury rigged patch ups need no longer be tolerated because the ARX Design Team has developed the new TAP-IT Transformer Isolated AudioLine Tapper as the solution.

"Main inputs and outputs are hardwired, so your signal integrity isn't compromised, and the TAP-IT's passive design eliminates the requirement for problematic external power supplies and 'wallwarts'."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Building on its hugely successful summer of providing technical production packages in temporary power, lighting and audio, Pearce Hire will be sponsoring the PLASA Production Bar, located in Earls Court 2, at the London Show from 11th-14th September.

Pearce Hire invites clients and PLASA visitors to join them at the Production Bar for a drink, and to learn more about their latest investments. This year alone, Pearce Hire has expanded its inventory by investing over £500,000 in new hire equipment.

It will be the first time Pearce Hire has had a PLASA presence, and the Production Bar is seen as a great networking opportunity, right in the heart of the exhibition. The bar is jointly sponsored with other world-renowned companies.

With such a full order book at the start of the season, Pearce Hire has invested heavily to cope with the demand of many new and existing e

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Finland - Philips Entertainment Lighting has delivered a symphony of lighting solutions to concert lighting in the €180m Helsinki Music Centre.

Supplied and installed by Philips Entertainment's Finnish Distributor Hedcom, the key challenge in this modern concert hall was to ensure that all lighting fixtures operated silently and efficiently with minimum heat output so as not to interfere with the listening experience of the audience.

Pekka Rytilahti, product manager for Hedcom reports: "We installed over 150 Philips Entertainment luminaires into the 1700-seat main auditorium and five additional, smaller spaces. The specification included Philips Selecon SPX, Arena, Rama and Pacific fixtures alongside a number of Vari-Lite VL1100AS.

Rytilahti worked closely with the client project manager Antti Rehtijärvi from ISS Proko, theatre consultant Tapio Ilomäki from Akukon Co

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UK - Artist, architect and designer Ron Arad has invited his favourite artists, musicians and friends to create works for a 360 degree video projection installation at the Roundhouse, London. Bloomberg are the primary sponsor.

Blitz Communications has been commissioned to provide the technology to bring the design concept to fruition. The installation takes the form of a curtain made from 5,600 silicon rods, 8.1m high, creating an 18m diameter 360 degree canvas for film, live performance and audience interaction.

Blitz installed 12 Barco RLM W8 projectors which are mounted on the truss ring above the silicon rod curtain. Each of these projects a portrait image 8.1m high by 5m wide, overlapped to produce a seamless 360 degree display at 13,520 by 1,920 pixels.

Media delivery and control is implemented using 12 Dataton Watchout display PCs networked to a Watchout control serve

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Australia - Jands Staging, together with The PA People, are rapidly approaching completion of the new Assembly Hall at the Sydney Grammar Senior School in College Street, Sydney.

The building is being constructed by Southern Cross Projects and sees Jands again working with Peddle Thorp & Walker (PTW), City Electrical, and The PA People to deliver "a world class performing arts and music venue". Jands previously worked with PTW on both the Sydney Theatre and City Recital Hall.

This project includes the installation of JLX-PRO Lighting Bars, Jands H500PVX Hoists, and SAX P1 Controllers together with Jands Dimmers and ETC Control.

The PA People have developed a Vocal PA with Jands Technical Resource Group using JBL VRX and CBT loudspeakers, BSS Blue and Crown Amplifiers.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Event & Management Services is enjoying busy times. The E&MS projects team has been invited to deliver the celebratory party for Kraft Foods as they move their UK headquarters from Cheltenham to Uxbridge after 37 years. Emma Cook, project manager for E&MS is supplying a series of fully equipped Big Top venues on Cheltenham Racecourse, with circus themed entertainment including aerial acts and fire eating plus catering services.

Over the last few months, E&MS has been supporting the Sceptics in the Pub regular meetings that have been held at D fly in Cheltenham. These discussions provide opportunities for people who are "interested in science, scepticism, rationalism and critical thinking to socialise and discuss matters of interest, usually with a guest speaker".

12 July at the Montpellier Chapter Hotel in Cheltenham saw the Launch of The sustainable S

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UK - King Sound Reinforcement is a well established regional sound company based in Bristol, that has been serving the south-western UK for over 12 years. The company has just invested in 12 SMX15 monitor speakers from French loudspeaker manufacturer APG, supplied by APG's distributor Red Square Audio.

Paul King, owner of King Sound comments, "King Sound has a reputation for never following the crowd when it comes to speakers systems - our only criterion is to buy the very best product for the job. I can honestly say that after exhaustive testing over a nine-month period of many premium monitor options, the APG SMX15s came out as the clear winner.

"Sonically they are excellent," he continued. "The innovative multi-position rigging bar gives us a five-angle wedge or in-fill and the pole mount enables their use as a small FOH box when needed. This, coupled w

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UK - For this year's Big Chill festival, Adlib designed sound systems for two stages - Revellers' and The People's Ear.

Otto Kroymann led the Adlib team of seven - Mike Flaherty, George Puttock, Tommy Bradshaw & himself, who looked after the Revellers', while Simon Lawson, Alan Harrison and Chris Smethurst took care of things on The People's Ear.

The sound system on the Revellers' stage was JBL VerTec, suitable for an eclectic line up ranging from Club Zirconia to Kormac's Big Band and NZ Shapeshifter to Annie Nightingale.

The flown arrays each contained 10 VT4889 speakers a-side, run in combination with six VT 4880A subs a-side on the ground, Coda LA8 in-fills.

The main system was driven by Camco Vortex 6 amplifiers, with Labgruppen PLM20000s for the subs and fills.

They used the opportunity to further test a fibre optic Dante network, which took the signal from the FOH

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UK - Manchester- based dbn Lighting has been asked to work on some challenging and quirky projects in its time, but Eclipse, a special performance by Malian musical superstars Amadou and Mariam for the Manchester International Festival was their first concert where the requirement was to 'light' it entirely to be dark.

The three sold out performances were staged at the 500 capacity New Century Hall in central Manchester. Eclipse told the story of the duo's work and life together, featuring a collection of songs - a fusion of pop, blues and Malian music - spanning their career which started over 25 years ago when they met at the Mali Institute for the Young Blind.

Amadou and Mariam specifically wanted the audience to experience the show in total darkness, so they could appreciate the psychological and sensory shifts involved in perception and experience that take

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UK - SSE Audio Group has added four further Soundcraft Vi6 consoles to its inventory to meet the additional demands of the 2011 summer outdoor season.

This brings the company's tally to eight (with a further six Soundcraft Vi1's also in hire stock) - and according to project manager Pete Russell all have been out on front line duty more or less permanently since their arrival.

An early advocate of the platform since realising the easy transition to the digital world it offered analogue sound engineers, Russell said, "A lot of our business is supplying control and monitor packages, and the Vi6 is proving extremely popular with bands.

"Monitor engineers choose to take them because of their intuitive nature, their compact footprint and the fact they are good 'on the fly' when they have to be set up quickly. They also like the sound and the intuitive nature of the desk

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UK - London based AV and technical production services company Presentation Rentals (PR) has become the UK's largest stock holder of Core Lighting's Point 20 battery powered wireless DMX controlled LED uplighter fixtures.

The purchase of 48 fixtures is part of a new investment to help service a busy summer of varied events and part of the ongoing planned expansion of PR's lighting department. This reflects a generally buoyant trading period over the last six months and a demand from clients for the latest in lighting technology.

Presentation Rentals works across all sectors of the corporate presentation, live and experiential event market, supplying full lighting, sound and AV equipment packages and crew. The company has built its reputation on providing excellent quality kit and technical expertise.

PR MD Ian Coull says, "Having the latest LED technology onboard makes

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Singapore - Broadcast Professional and their sister company Electronics & Engineering have invested in an additional seven Green Hippo demonstration units for their three overseas offices. Their offices in Malaysia and Indonesia have each been furnished with a Hippotizer HD, HippoCritter and GrassHopper. The headquarters in Singapore is showcasing the Hippotizer HD and HippoCritter and has now added a GrassHopper to complete their demo stock.

"Broadcast Professional believes in providing the best solutions for customers and Green Hippo have proven themselves to be one of the best media servers to date with their powerful engine, flexible system and ease-of-use as well as a customisable ZooKeeper interface," says John Paul Tan, product manager at Broadcast Professional Singapore. "It is an all in one solution in a box for intermediate or advanced techies who would

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UK - The Board of Directors for Neo Neon Holdings and Neo Neon UK PLC invite you to visit the company's new showroom facility in Milton Keynes. Neo Neon have invested substantial capital to provide the UK and European market with a new base to better service the requirement of its customers.

"Neo-Neon lighting can be seen enhancing the visual lives of millions of people around the world for the past 33 years," says the company. "Neo-Neon UK PLC is a subsidiary of Neo-Neon Holdings Ltd, and was the first to market with a complete range of SSL White LED based General and Commercial and Consumer Retail DIY products. For many years Neo-Neon has been at the forefront of LED Technology to cover all market sectors from Architectural to General task Lighting and extensively caters for the Entertainment lighting market also, with thousands of products to cater for all requ

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UK - Rosco is offering 'swag' to customers. "It works like this," states Rosco. "You submit a photo of a production in which you used an E-Colour, Roscolux or Supergel colour to achieve a specific purpose or goal. You'll need to tell us, in a couple of sentences, why you chose the Rosco colour you used and what you or the director or the design team wanted to convey with the colour choice. If you need more than one picture to tell the story, you can send up to five! You'll also have to fill out an online form giving us permission to share your work along with providing some of the detail of the production as well as all the credits.

"In return, Rosco will send you one of the most interesting pieces of swag we've ever created. It's a coffee mug, artfully coloured in a Roscolux colour, complete with the SED curve. (You'll receive one of the 10 different Roscolu

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UK - London-based draping and dressing specialists Cover It Up (CIU) supplied and rigged a luxurious drape interior for the Gatsby Club, a VIP dining and social entertainment environment that ran during the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships.

Cover It Up was working for Detail, who specialise in providing high end facilities to prestigious sporting events. The venue, run by event hospitality specialists Keith Prowse for the duration of the Wimbledon Fortnight, was a 400 - 600 capacity glass fronted De Boer structure that was located in the grounds of the adjacent Wimbledon Cricket and Golf Club.

The themed colours were spacious white, cool green and effervescent yellow. With the aid of flexible drape rig configurations, the room could also be sub-divided into different areas and tailored exactly to individual group booking requirements.

Cover It Up decked the space out usin

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UK - This year's PLASA Rigging Conference, 12-13 September 2011, presents many of entertainment rigging's pioneering icons. Industry heavyweights - Alan Jacobi, LVO, Steve Colley and Chris Blakeley - will headline this year's unmissable conference that will give you the opportunity to hear from over 40 industry experts and provide an invaluable international networking opportunity.

Over the action packed two day conference, sharing their creative visions and a wealth of experience, speakers and panellists will include:

Michael Anderson, Ilan Bahar, Derrick Bailes, Rinus Bakker, Nick Barnfield, Chris Böettger, Ron Bonner, Harry Box, Simon Caldwell, Andy Charlesworth, Neil Darracott, Don Dimitroff, Tony Dickson, Robin Elias, Sally-Ann Dod, Cristiano Giavedoni, Amedeo Guizzi, Roger Hamilton-Smith, Marc Hendriks, Chris Higgs, Scott Johnson, Sven Knight, Oz Marsh, Abigail Matthews

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UK - The first six pre-production prototype Components Co SMART:e fixtures have not sat still for long, no sooner had they been assembled and bench tested they were straight out of the door and on their way to London to be used at Ghost the Musical's press night party at the Corinthia Hotel.

Ghost associate LD, Tim Lutkin, got his first glimpse of the SMART:e whilst chatting to one of the product's designers recently and offered to give them their first real test.

"They're a fantastic bit of kit," says Lutkin. "I just can't get over how small and light they are, the battery life is great, the colour mix is brilliant, especially all the pastel shades you can get by adding the white in. But the best bit for me is their look, they are just so smart, they don't look like a marquee up-lighter and for me that is the deal clincher."

The SMART:e is the fir

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UK - One weekend in Hackney's Victoria Park presented Martin Audio's Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array (MLA) with three separate festivals to contend with.

Promoted by Eat Your Own Ears, Underage, Field Day and Apple Cart saw Capital Sound Hire return to the park with the same system they had fielded for the LED Festival a few weeks earlier - working alongside Loud Sound, the event management company, and LarMac LIVE, the production company.

This increasingly popular festival site is bordered on one side by trees, a canal and high-tariff residential properties. Thus environmental Acoustics experts Vanguardia needed to be satisfied that the sound would not bleed beyond the site perimeter and Cap's crew chief Nick Foots, supported by Martin Audio's development manager Phil Anthony, set presets that would comfortably ensure this, while being able to retain a threshold of 98dB-100d

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Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises, distributors of Shure microphones and audio electronics in the UAE, Bahrain, Qatar and Oman have supplied MBC with 18 channels of the Shure UHF-R system. The sale also includes the new UR1H bodypack transmitter in addition to the dual channel receivers.

"MBC have been using the Shure UHF Premium series for many years now," commented Shajahan K K, Shure product manager. "After demonstrating all the new features and benefits with the UHF-R, it was only common sense for them to consider the new wireless system."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - West London based Entec Sound & Light supplied the main stage sound design and a d&b audio system for the three-day 2011 Guilfest music festival, staged at Stoke Park in central Guildford, Surrey. It was the event's 20th anniversary, renowned for its diverse line ups and laid-back, friendly, family atmosphere.

It was the seventh consecutive year that Entec has supplied the event, for which Liam Halpin was crew chief, systems designer and radio supervisor. His successful sound design model has been used for the last five years, during which time it has been tweaked and honed to give an optimum sound on site - for a wide variety of artists and styles - producing the absolute minimum noise pollution in the surrounding areas.

The system consisted of nine deep left and right hangs of d&b's J8 large format line array speakers and a distributed bass array across the front of the

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Michael Forever - Christina Aguilera, Cee Lo Green and Motown veteran Smokey Robinson are set to perform at a tribute concert in honour of Michael Jackson. More acts will be added to the bill nearer the time. The event coincides with the trial of the Dr Conrad Murray, charged over the singer's death. The gig takes place at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium on 8 October.

While the concert has raised the doubts of Randy and Jermaine Jackson, it has the full support of the star's mother and other siblings. British acts Leona Lewis, Craig David and JLS have also been lined up to perform at the gig. Several of Jackson's brothers will also perform, along with 3T, which consists of Tito Jackson's three sons. "We're delighted that such exciting and globally recognised acts have joined the line-up to pay tribute to a music legend," said Chris Hunt, president of concert promoter Glob

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UK - Showsec helped the Olympic 2012 celebrations get off to a flying start, as they ensured the safety of thousands of guests at the One Year to Go countdown event in Trafalgar Square in London on Wednesday 27July, 2011.

Over 6,000 people attended and among the crowds were a plethora of special guests and VIPs including Prime Minster David Cameron, London Mayor Boris Johnson and Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The countdown, organised by Greater London Authority (GLA) in conjunction with Innovision event management company and Westminster Council, was televised live on BBC One. It saw David Cameron make a brief speech on the current planning and budgeting for the games, followed by dancing, live music from The Feeling and the unveiling of the 2012 medal designs by British artist David Watkins.

Dayo Adelugba, Showsec's head of se

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PLASA 2011 sees a new industry presence in the form of Ten Thousand Things, a Hong Kong based distribution company for lighting accessories and technology. The company forms the sales arm of the newly created Alderamin Group (Stand1-E32), provider of comprehensive project solutions.

Borrowing a phrase found in Chinese literature referring to material reality, Ten Thousand Things offers sales and support for a wide range of lighting products.

"We offer our own growing range of consumable items - lamps, power and data cables, gaffer tape, gels, connecters - basically all the everyday lighting industry essentials," says Alderamin Group co-owner, Simon Fraser."Our Ten Thousand Things branded range is complemented by three internationally respected franchises. We are the distributor for City Theatrical and Green Hippo in Hong Kong and Macau, and we also sell Artistic Licenc

  1. RCF adds digitally steerable array
  2. Multi-Play launched by Artistic Licence
  3. Win a holiday in the sun
  4. Batmink to debut new product range
  5. Stageline launches the Stageline SL50
  6. Allen & Heath focus on iLive
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