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China - Prolight + Sound Shanghai is increasing its exhibition space by 40 percent for its 2012 show to be held 11 - 14 October 2012 at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre in Shanghai, China.

The show is organised by Messe Frankfurt (HK) and INTEX Shanghai and last year attracted a record 419 exhibitors from 18 countries and regions and 18,522 visitors from 85 countries and regions.

Commenting on this year's show, Mr Evan Sha, deputy general manager of Messe Frankfurt (Shanghai) Co Ltd said, "We have expanded the exhibition space by 40 percent to 35,000sq.m to accommodate a strong demand from our exhibitors for bigger booths. The extra space also allows us to make sourcing easier for buyers as halls will be segmented into the categories of audio, visual, lighting and stage equipment and AV integrated products."

Under the Chinese government's 12th 'Five-Year

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UK - Following the success of last year's events, Sennheiser UK has announced the dates of its 2012 integrated systems seminars. This year sees the number of events increased to three, with Hopetoun House, near Edinburgh, once again chosen as the initial venue on 23 May, followed by two new venues, Ragley Hall in Warwickshire on 29 May and Surrey's Pennyhill Park on 31 May.

"The format of the seminars has proved popular over the past couple of years, so we will be keeping the basis the same, but tailor the content to account for the constantly changing requirements of the industry," says Ken Morrison, business area manager for Sennheiser UK. "The accent is still firmly on providing information, education - and a little entertainment - for our integrated systems, AV and live sound colleagues in the industry."

Participants can expect to learn about the latest

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Mexico - Robe lighting has a new Mexican distributor - Mexico City based Vari Internacional - a high profile company established for over 25 years.

The announcement was made during the recent 2012 Soundcheck Expo trade show also in Mexico City, at a special launch party staged at the Polyforum Siqueiros, part of the World Trade Centre complex. The venue is a creative / social facility and art gallery showcasing the work of famous Mexican artist, muralist and political activist, David Siqueiros.

Says Robe's Latin American regional sales manager, Guillermo Traverso, "We planned the Robe party and the announcement very carefully as we wanted to make a huge impact with it and the news of the partnership."

Vari Internacional's CEO Hugo Patiño Cuellar states, "Robe shares our philosophy of offering great products and service, with immediate response and the best te

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Korea - Following the signing of a new agreement, C&C Lightway will distribute Coemar products in Korea as an exclusive supplier and dealer.

"I'm delighted with this agreement with C&C," states Salvatore Grillo, director of Coemar S.p.A. "It's the result of a close synergy between the two parties. For Coemar this means being able to set up a stable partnership with a highly qualified company operating in Korea, a rapidly-growing market for applications for entertainment and infrastructures. In the latter sector Coemar is gaining an increasing market share with lines of dedicated products."

"We're very proud to have finalised our partnership with Coemar, a prestigious name that will play a leading role in our already excellent business in Korea," comments H.M. Chung, managing director and president of C&C Lightway.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - The nominees for the 2012 Tony Awards have been announced, and the nominees in the lighting, sound, scenic and costume design categories are as follows:

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A PLAY

John Lee Beatty - Other Desert Cities

Daniel Ostling - Clybourne Park

Mark Thompson - One Man, Two Guvnors

Donyale Werle - Peter and the Starcatcher

BEST SCENIC DESIGN OF A MUSICAL

Bob Crowley - Once

Rob Howell & Jon Driscoll - Ghost the Musical

Tobin Ost & Sven Ortel - Newsies

George Tsypin - Spider-Man Turn Off the Dark

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A PLAY

William Ivey Long - Don't Dress for Dinner

Paul Tazewell - A Streetcar Named Desire

Mark Thompson - One Man, Two Guvnors

Paloma Young - Peter and the Starcatcher

BEST COSTUME DESIGN OF A

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Producer Power - Independent theatre producers are combining to launch an association that will represent their interests in negotiations with theatre managements, in the face of worsening trading conditions which they say threaten to put them out of business.

The League of Independent Producers will lobby and negotiate on behalf of its members with other trade bodies or with theatre owners directly, with the stated aim of "improving the lot of the independent producer". The body, which is in the process of being constituted and registered, has grown out of a more informal group - the Society of London Theatre's independent producers forum.

Greg Ripley-Duggan, one of the founding board members of LIP and its acting chair, told The Stage "It was suggested to me that we should revitalise that now defunct body. In response to that, I sent a round-robin email

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Czech Republic - Rental company T Servis has purchased additional L-Acoustics K1 WST line source enclosures from local distributor Pro Music. This brings the total of K1 enclosures in T-Servis' rental inventory to 64.

The Prague-based company recently relocated to a new, 3,000sq.m warehouse with a private rehearsal studio including four production offices, two dressing rooms with showers and its own cafeteria.

"T Servis required more K1 inventory to supply its growing international clientele throughout Central and Eastern Europe," explains the company's managing director, Radim Janousek.

With more than 350 L-Acoustics boxes now in its rental stock, T Servis is looking forward to a busy summer season with tours including Sting and Metallica, as well as popular open air festivals such as Frequency and Nova Rock.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - A mock castle in the centre of Northampton has been reborn as an opulent new cocktail bar, called Borjia, equipped with an impressive Nexo PS10-R2 system by local installer Fabtronic.

Dating back to the 1920s, the building was created as a memorial to a fallen soldier in the First World War, complete with turrets and ramparts. Despite being a landmark in the town, it stood empty for five years until James Smith, Paul Clarke and David Ward moved in to transform it into Borjia.

The bar has a capacity of about 140 but this is set to increase to 200 after some extra building works. Open from midday, it operates until 3am on the weekends, and with a strict over-25s policy, it is attracting an upmarket crowd.

Northampton-based installation company Fabtronic has designed and supplied a Nexo house PA for Borjia, using four PS10-R2s and two RS15 subs, powered by NXAMPS4x4. Proje

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UK - City Park is a six-acre public space in the heart of Bradford which contains the largest man-made water feature in any UK city, and which provides a superb intra-urban landscape comprising fountains, trees and attractive green spaces. Bradford-based Pro Audio Systems recently provided a comprehensive technical infrastructure to support the gala opening of the new facilities.

A variety of entertainment was on offer during the day, from a street theatre group featuring a giant inflatable lobster to the City of Bradford Brass Band, the award-winning Bradford-based Mind The Gap theatre company, the Q Corporation exploring the British obsession with queuing, 15ft tall Liver Birds, illuminated stilt walkers and talking post boxes. Musically-inspired performances included a human juke box, a giant opera singer with a hidden orchestra, a five-piece calypso group and a host of local

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USA - Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system was selected by promoters, Cato Music, to manage FOH and monitors on the British Music Embassy stage at this year's iconic SXSW festival in Austin TX, USA. Showcasing the UK's brightest new bands and artists, the British Music Embassy was exclusively based at downtown Austin's Latitude 30 club, where an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T112 Control Surface was installed at FOH, digitally split using a Dante networking card to a duplicate iDR-48/T112 for monitors.

There were performances from nearly 60 bands over the course of the week-long festival, including emerging talent Django Django, fiN, Maverick Sabre, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Jonquil, Ben Howard, Slow Club, Twin Atlantic, D/R/U/G/S, Skindred, and Clock Opera.

"I ran the desk in a very analogue way, all inputs on the left banks, and master section on the right and some v

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UK - Liverpool based Adlib rounded off a busy April 2012 tour supplying sound, lighting and rigging equipment plus crew to comedian Jeff Dunham on his Controlled Chaos tour.

In doing so, the company was renewing its penchant for working with some of the funniest people on the planet!

The tour already had a lighting design in place and a spec to which Adlib worked. Based on four trusses, the front one was in the 'advanced' position, around 30ft out from the front of stage. This was rigged with eight Martin Professional MAC 700 Wash moving lights, four ETC Source Four Profiles with 19 degree lenses and seven 4-way linear Moles for audience illumination.

Above the middle section of the stage was a 56ft wide truss that provided mid-stage lighting positions for 12 MAC 700 Profiles and a 24ft wide by 18ft high projection screen flown at 8ft off the ground, complete with bla

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South Africa - Experiential agency Tinder-Box, created an elegant farewell dinner for some 60 guests to honour the outgoing president of Volvo South Africa. The full technical for this occasion was professionally catered for by MJ Event Gear and included the new Robe 100 Beams.

Held at the Hilton Ballroom on 21 April 2012, Volvo management along with some of their biggest clients gathered to say good-bye to Anders Lindblad, who plans to relocate back to Sweden. The occasion included performances by Fever Trio, the Volvo Star for Life choir (Star for life is a non-profit Swedish school created in South Africa), and a surprise act by Swedish band Tripple & Touch, who have performed with the Star for Life Choir on several occasions - just in from Sweden that night.

The original spec included 12 LED PARcans, Source Fours, MAC 250 Entours and Prolyte Trussing. However, when MJ's de

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Croatia - If jazz music is epitomised by freedom of expression then the VIP Jazz Club in Zagreb is better placed than most to understand that concept. Its location on Bana Jelacica square is practically at the heart of Croatian contemporary history; situated in downtown Zagreb, the square is significant for being the cradle of Croatian independence. The club itself is comparable in size to the venerable Ronnie Scott's in London and indeed hosts a similar range of recognised international jazz artists. Like Scott's it also boasts a d&b audiotechnik sound system.

Owner Mr. Kokanovic was already a well-known jazz promoter in Zagreb when he gave first thought to opening a permanent jazz venue. At the time he called upon Miro Vidovic from Morris Studio to act as an independent technical consultant. "After some preliminary proposals he approached us to bid," said Tomislav Ko

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UK - Hawthorn, one of the UK's largest suppliers of technical production services, has swelled its projection hire inventory to include six Christie Roadster HD20K-J 3-Chip DLP projectors, from of the newly launched Christie J Series. "This investment is very important, assuring we complete our offering and provide our customers with a greater range of equipment," states Hawthorn's head of video, Oliver Moores.

Moores continues, "We buy Christie because of the people we deal with there. The product is stunning but the relationship we have with them is the most important thing. The Technical support from Christie is very helpful and you can speak to someone in depth. They're always very quick to resolve issues when they do occur and Christie is a very good product. I would say it's one of the best.

"We opted for the J Series as it is packed with features, so

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Norway - Olavshallen is a multi-purpose venue situated in the north of the city of Trondheim, Norway, close to the river Nidelva. With a total capacity of 1204 seats on two levels, the venue welcomes a multitude of disciplines including touring theatre, live music, dance and comedy.

GDS distributor for Norway, Elektrik Solutions was approached by the technical team at Olavshallen to supply replacement fittings for the venues ageing auditorium lighting system. The brief was to supply a reliable, sustainable product that could be easily installed between performances, so as not to disrupt its busy performance schedule. The existing fittings were downlights and used standard 100W lamps which were proving inefficient and becoming increasingly hard to source. Petter Nilssen Sales Manager for Elektrik was consulted by the venue and recommended the GDS ArcSystem 1Cell Pro adjustable fi

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Switzerland - Green Hippo's Swiss distributor, IQunlimited attracted yet more people with another set of popular training sessions.

After the successful training sessions organised in conjunction with Green Hippo at Theatre Basel in the autumn of 2011, IQunlimited scheduled another two-day training seminar for an extended range of clients.

The training took place Tuesday and Wednesday 13 & 14 March in a Cultural and Community Centre close to Zurich with invitations going to IQunlimited's customers as well as potential clients.

With attendees ranging from various fields including rental companies, theatres and operas, TV/Broadcast, cultural centres, concert halls as well as freelance designers and operators, IQunlimited managed to reach a wide range of market sectors, increasing Hippotizers profile even further in Switzerland.

Once again the seminars were held by Green Hipp

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Bahrain - Festivities are underway as Manama, capital city of Bahrain, celebrates its appointment as Capital of Arab Culture 2012.

As part of the festivities the city produced a spectacular opening ceremony, Path of Pearls, which was packed with magical imagery and effects. Responsible for the stage and lighting concept was Belgian Lighting designer from Painting with Light, Luc Peumans, who employed 170 Clay Paky fixtures to light the vast tiered stage, full sized orchestra, aerialists and dancers.

Long-term Clay Paky stockist, Eclipse Staging Services supplied local Bahrain Company, AVL Concepts, with Clay Paky Alpha HPE 1500, Beam 1500, Wash 1500 and Profile 1500 along with a large number of Sharpy fixtures.

Darren, general manager for Eclipse, comments, "One of the fields in which Luc Peumans and his company Painting with Light excels is in utilising the latest tech

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UK - Canford has announced that it has acquired the brand Enclosure Systems, based in Borough Green Kent and will take over manufacture and distribution of the range from this point forwards. Enclosure Systems (ES) has a range of high quality racks and accessories and is a leading player in the audio-visual, IT and data networking sector. Having been one of Canford's principal suppliers of 19 inch racks for the last 10 years, the brand has established a very strong position within sections of the broadcast systems integration and audio and video installations markets.

Canford will retain and develop the core ranges and will maintain continuity with existing ES customers and markets whilst expanding the brand's reach further into the broadcast and installer sectors. Chas Luchford, ES's sales manager is moving over to join Canford and will retain the ES portfolio ensuring complete

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UK - Centric Commercial Finance, an expert in SME funding, has provided Martin Audio with a £1.3 million invoice discounting facility. The additional working capital will be used to ensure the on-going growth of the business.

Martin Audio is an affiliated portfolio company of Sun European Partners, LLP ("Sun European Partners"), the European advisor to Sun Capital Partners, Inc. This is one of a number of deals completed by Centric with private equity houses in the first quarter of 2012, the company says.

Tim Hawkins, commercial director at Centric, comments: "As the popularity of ABL [asset based lending] grows and proves itself to be a flexible alternative to traditional bank overdrafts, we're increasingly working with private equity houses. Thanks to its superior products and established position, Martin Audio is an ideal candidate for the type of fundi

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UK - The 3rd Annual PLASA Rigging Conference will take place on Monday 10 and Tuesday 11 September 2012 at the Earls Court Conference Centre in London. This unique 2-day international event explores and debates all aspects of this specialist section of the industry. Running alongside PLASA 2012, the Rigging Conference has become a regular date in the diary for anyone involved in rigging and working at height for temporary installations.

As the only annual event of its size that is dedicated solely to the global rigging community, it attracts professionals from over 30 countries. Out of around 200 delegates, over 40% are international visitors. These include not only rigging practitioners themselves, but venue technical staff, production managers, health and safety staff and policy makers, providing an exclusive platform to examine and debate the use of newly devised products, in

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UK - Chauvet DJ LED Shadow blacklight wash panels featured on Coldplay's recent European tour. Supplied by TMB and specified by Lite Alternative, the fixtures will resume their tour when Coldplay returns to Europe in the fall of 2012.

An element of the live tour performances well suited for a blacklight, are the glowing wristbands - called Xylobands - that concertgoers receive before the show. The bands glow once the music begins - due to the imbedded data receivers - making the audience part of the overall visual experience of the show. This sea of glowing lights surrounds the energetic stage design of neon colors complemented by Chauvet DJ LED Shadow.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - When it was ready to upgrade its venerable Meyer Sound MSL-3 loudspeakers of more than two decades at its 2,472-seat Andrew Jackson Hall, the Tennessee Performing Arts Centre (TPAC) in Nashville chose Meyer Sound again, this time a system based on the M'elodie line array loudspeaker.

"The MSL-3s had served us well since the mid-80s," says Larry Bryan, TPAC's chief audio engineer. "But we were ready to step into the 21st century with the latest Meyer Sound line array technology."

As typically deployed, the system comprises left and right flown arrays of 16 M'elodie loudspeakers each, plus six deck-stacked 700-HP subwoofers, eight MINA line array loudspeakers spaced across the stage lip as front-fill, and a Galileo loudspeaker management system with a Galileo 616 processor for drive processing. The system was provided by Blackhawk Audio of nearby White

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Australia - The TV Week Logie Awards are the Australian television industry awards, which have been presented annually since 1959.

The 54th Annual TV Week Logie Awards were held at the Crown Entertainment Complex in Melbourne, and was televised Australia wide on the Nine Network.

Performers at the event included British-Irish boy band One Direction, Flo Rida, Tony Bennett and the The Voice mentors, Seal and Delta Goodrem.

Showtech Australia provided all the rigging services for the broadcast and had the opportunity to use its BT280, BT200 winches and Nomad Control Consol that set a new benchmark for scenery mechanics at the Logies.

With six winches in total, four BT280 and two BT200 the set design called for six panels on three tracks to move throughout the evening to create many different looks for different segments of the production. 4 900 Kg LED video wall panels and 2

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UK - Established international lighting distributor, MGC Lamps has announced a new name and a new identity. The business which operates in over 90 countries worldwide, has now become MGC Lighting Group.

"MGC Lighting Group better reflects the market areas we operate in and reinforces that we are the lighting distributor of choice for our customers," said managing director James Greig. "We have worked hard over the last 30 years to establish a good reputation. Although the old name has served us well, we needed a facelift to reflect that we are a large, modern company with global coverage, a loyal customer base, and a team that possess technical knowledge that is second to none in our industry."

MGC Lighting Group was conceived after a six-month process that involved the whole team working at its three offices in the UK, Germany and Spain. Workshops were hel

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