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The Institute of Acoustics (IoA) held its 16th conference on Reproduced Sound in November - and much of the varied content was relevant to the theatre and live music industries.

Multi-channel sound reinforcement was a topic that generated a large amount of interest, with presentations from David Malham (University of York), Fred Ample (Technology Visions), Robin Whittaker (Out Board Electronics) and Steve Ellison (Level Control Systems). It was clear that the demand for higher-quality audio environments is growing rapidly.

Robin Whittaker explained the theory of source-oriented reinforcement and illustrated its applications from the wealth of theatre, industrial and music productions that Out Board has undertaken. Whittaker concluded by stating that the concept of source-oriented reinforcement has several key benefits; namely, the minimisation of room effects, even distribution of SP

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Christmas week was Cereco International’s busiest week since the launch in September of its web-based lighting and audio equipment auction. Cereco’s John Lethbridge reports that in the period between 27 December and New Year’s Eve, over £7,000 worth of product was snapped up by several individual first-time buyers. There was a last-minute battle between five bidders for 42 ETC Source 4 Pars that started at £50.00 each and closed at £65.00 each. John Lethbridge puts this success down to the fact that people had plenty of time to be on-line over the holiday period. Also, most of the bidders are now subscribing to Cereco's free weekly e-mail newsletter that keeps them informed of the latest deals and action on the website. The site specialises in new and ex-demo equipment supplied by leading manufacturers and distributors, rather than ex-rental equipment, although some

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Stagetec (UK) Ltd has just been appointed an approved by contractor by the NICEIC which maintains a Roll of Approved Contractors that meet the Council’s Rules Relating to Enrolment and national technical safety standards including BS 7671 (IEE Wiring Regulations). This is designed to protect consumers against the hazards of unsafe and unsound electrical installations.

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Following our feature last month on the new Tussaud’s in New York, we switch coasts to look at Tussaud’s Vegas’ debut at the $1.4billion Venetian Hotel.

The Venetian, with its indoor Grand Canal (complete with gondolas, singing gondoliers and stylish waterside cafés), is the perfect host for the Tussauds Group’s celebration of all things celebrity.

Madame Tussaud’s is to be found within the St Mark’s Library building which, of course, is a full-scale replica of the famous Venice landmark. Tussauds has created a $20million experience that showcases glamorous personalities, many of whom have ties with Vegas, in sumptuous surroundings. The design elements of the exhibits have been thoughtfully executed with talent and kit pulled in from around the globe to make this Tussaud’s a dazzling experience, even by Vegas standards. Show producer Phil Pi

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Tony Hall, the BBC's head of news, has been appointed the new executive director of the Royal Opera House. Speculation has been rife as to who will succeed to what is fast becoming one of the most challenging roles in the arts world. His appointment is almost certain to generate controversy, as he seems to have had little or no experience in running a venue of this profile and complexity, although his time at the BBC, which saw him graduate from the corporation's newsroom in Belfast in the 1970s to editing the Nine O'Clock News and subsequently heading the news and current affairs side, will no doubt serve him well. Michael Kaiser, former executive director, left in December to return to the United States.

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The ESTA website has been having some difficulties since Monday, January 8th. Wybron, which hosts the ESTA website and all its e-mail aliases, was forced off-line when its service provider went bankrupt and terminated all service without notice. Wybron has been able to create a temporary dial-up connection for the ESTA server, which should allow email through, although access to the website will be very slow. ESTA wishes to apologise for any inconvenience caused. Until the problem is resolved, all ESTA web services will have limited accessibility. Therefore, please use the following alternate email addresses to contact the ESTA staff, in order to ease strain on the temporary connection:

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The fireworks industry has combined resources to form a new trade association - The Guild of Firework Pyrotechnic Operators (GFPO) - in an attempt to improve professionalism through training and improve working practices to reduce accidents. The GFPO was launched yesterday at Event Expo at London Docklands Arena. Its membership will initially be drawn from event industry professional and semi-professional firers, though it is hoped subsequently to widen the membership to amateurs. As part of its remit, the GFPO plans to standardise working practices for people firing fireworks, and have a nationally recognised set of graded standards.

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The Boston Globe newspaper has reported that US scientists say they have stopped light, held it in one place and then let it go again. The Harvard University team is due to publish its findings later this month. It is thought that light, which normally travels at 186,000 miles (300,000km) per second could, if ‘tamed’, be used to relay information around high-speed computers. Scientists Ronald Walsworth and Mikhail Lukin are expected to publish the details of their experiments in the January 29 edition of the journal Nature.

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Lighting designers Howard Harrison, Mark Henderson, Paul Pyant and Hugh Vanstone and scenic designers Bunny Christie, William Dudley, Rob Howell and Brian Thomson are amongst those nominated for the 2001 Olivier Awards, the nominations for which were announced by the Society of London Theatres.

Harrison was nominated for his designs for The Witches of Eastwick and To The Green Fields Beyond, Henderson for All My Sons at the National Theatre, Pyant for Hamlet, also at the National, and Vanstone for The Cherry Orchard at the National and The Graduate in the West End. Of the set designers, Christie was nominated for Baby Doll at the National and then in the West End, Dudley for All My Sons, Howell for The Caretaker and Thomson for The King and I, covered in L&SI’s June 2000 issue.

The National’s revival of All My Sons took the most nominations of any production, with its six

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The Ministry of Sound’s New Year’s Eve bash at the Dome, not only ushered in the New Year, but also ushered out the old Dome.

The ‘Closed’ sign has at last been hung and all that remains before the new owners move in is to clear the place. Ironically, the auction of its contents will in all probability attract more interest than the attraction itself. Auctioneer Henry Butcher International has been appointed to dispose of the Dome’s contents. Under the hammer goes all the lighting, audio visual, broadcast and sound equipment, restaurant and catering equipment, stage equipment and office furniture. Even the equipment from the world famous Millennium Show will be for sale including stage and acrobatic props, costumes and rigging.

The assets are to be disposed off over the next three months by both Private Treaty and Public Auction. The Private Treaty sale

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Janet Garner, managing director of Wembley (London) Ltd, was appointed Executive Secretary of the European Arenas Association (EAA) at its recent meeting in Barcelona. The EAA is the largest European co-operative association of arenas with 13 members spread across 12 countries and further expansion is expected. From a new base in a majestic canal-side house in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, the EAA aims to help the arenas to think and act as a group and to exchange information with each other. 2001 will be the EAA’s tenth anniversary.

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PLASA (the Professional Lighting and Sound Association) has recently introduced its latest addition to the range of benefits which it offers to members. PLASA’s new Human Resources service, set up in conjunction with CP Associates HR Consultancy, provides PLASA members with access to professional help and advice with personnel issues. The service is designed to offer practical, independent advice, based on the latest factual information available, and covers areas including contracts & terms of employment; disciplinary and grievance procedures; employee benefits; employment legislation; pay reviews; recruitment and selection; risk assessment; redundancy and absence control.

To use the service, members simply call the PLASA office, and are then given the telephone, fax or e-mail address of CP Associates. They are then entitled to 15 minutes of free advice on any one subject. Where

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Several new projects have been given the green light this month. Dunfermline Athletic has won planning permission for a business enterprise centre, 60-bedroom hotel, swimming pool and leisure facility at its football stadium in Fife. Meanwhile, maintaining a sporting theme, Grimsby Town is expected to start work on a new football stadium at Great Coates in September, having won the go-ahead from North East Lincolnshire Council. Travel giant Stagecoach has submitted plans for the development of a multiplex cinema and entertainment centre at the bus station site in Exeter, and the BBC has begun recruiting 80 staff for a new £4m TV and radio news broadcasting facility in Sevenoaks.

Details courtesy of UK Business Park.

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The planned auction of the Dome’s contents may possibly die before it even gets going if Legacy plc’s bid for the site is not concluded on 14 February as intended. It appears that the Government and Legacy cannot agree terms, and, as a result, the New Millennium Experience Company has reviewed plans to postpone indefinitely the £10m auction, which is scheduled to start at the end of February. We understand that they may, however, proceed with the sale of some of the site’s assets. If the Legacy bid does fall through, it will mean that other potential bidders, including the Dome's chief executive, Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, who has struck an alliance with James Palumbo, property firm Pilton Group and the pop impresario Harvey Goldsmith, may have their wish to keep the venue entertainment-based rather than the business park proposal that was at the heart of the Legacy plan.

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A disused soap factory formerly owned by Kone Ab lies in the heart of the old city of Helsinki. Not unattractive, the factory building, though squat and angular, is made from softly textured sandstone. It is barely a hundred years old, yet has just recently undergone extensive renovation.

The reason? It’s been taken over as the new home for the State Theatre School. A major project, the fifth floor of the North Wing is home to 11 large dance studios, while downstairs, surrounding two sides of a roofed courtyard, are five separate, though admittedly small, theatres. Other facilities include lecture halls, a gym, make-up room - just about every possible theatrical discipline is catered for - as well as admin functions being contained within the factory’s ample interior. The funding is all from the government, as is the full digital TV studio just installed at the Helsinki Uni

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A 15-year old girl has died in Sydney’s Concorde Hospital, following a crush at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, Australia, last Friday. The girl is reported to have suffered a cardiac arrest at the time of the crush, and died peacefully in hospital on Wednesday. Friday’s crush occurred when the crowd surged forward during a performance by Limp Bizkit. The band’s lead singer Fred Durst pleaded for calm, and wanted to stop the show altogether, but was later persuaded to continue with the set in the light of police fears of a riot if the show were stopped. Limp Bizkit later pulled out of the touring festival, saying they had no confidence in its organisers. Other acts on the bill included Coldplay, PJ Harvey, At The Drive In and Queens of The Stone Age.

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February’s complete website re-design ushers in a new phase of PLASA’s online development.

At the start of February 2001, PLASA’s brand new website went online at www.plasa.org. The new site, developed over the past three months, represents the latest phase of PLASA’s online presence and continues the organisation’s aim to provide the premier online resource for the entertainment, presentation, event and installation technology industry worldwide.

The new site has been re-designed and re-built from the ground up, taking into account the changing face of PLASA as a diverse organisation, encompassing the trade association, the leading trade show, a successful publishing division, a busy technical standards office, and a wealth of industry-related information resources.

The greater part of the site remains committed to providing useful information, free

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The venue for the Professional Lighting and Sound Association’s 2001 AGM and Industry Dinner has been confirmed as Coombe Abbey, near Birmingham. This beautiful 12th century Cistercian Abbey, set in 500 acres of parkland, is now a stunning hotel and conference venue which promises to provide ‘no ordinary experience’.

The AGM and Industry Dinner will both take place on Thursday 14th June - allowing members to attend both events without taking two days out of the office - and offer the ideal opportunity to discover more about the Association and to meet with other members. Details of the guest speaker for the dinner will be revealed nearer the time.

This will be the fifth annual Industry Dinner, and the evening has always proved highly popular in the past, with guest speakers including Sir Ranulph Fiennes, Richard Noble and Frances Edmonds. We would like to urge all P

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Britain’s first free database of business grants has gone on-line - with the aim of putting the country’s businesses in touch with more than £100 million going begging because of lack of awareness and red tape.

The cash is part of a potential annual multi-million pound grants’ pot, designed to help Britain’s 3.7 million companies flourish. But many businesses which could benefit from the money simply don’t know they can claim it, or are put off by the confusion, complexity and time involved in finding out what is available.

The new website offers a free grant search service that gives results in seconds. Sophisticated technology means a search takes just seconds to complete and searchers can link immediately through to grants providers with applications.

The site contains information on around 5,000 capital (‘hard cash’) grants. These ran

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On 1st February 2001, PLASA went online with its brand new website at www.plasa.org. The new site is the latest development in the six-year history of PLASA’s online presence, and continues the organisation’s aim to provide the premier online resource for the entertainment, presentation and event technology industry worldwide.

The new site further develops the extensive and freely-available information resources offered to the industry by PLASA. Now available are fully-searchable databases allowing fast, easy and flexible access to the full listing of 450+ PLASA members; 1,500 industry news items in the online news archive; a comprehensive calendar of industry events, and over 100 titles in PLASA’s Technical Book Service.

PLASA’s Managing Director Matthew Griffiths comments: "Aside from the great new look of the site, I’m especially pleased with the

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According to new research just published, half of all the companies in the sound equipment industry increased their level of debt last year, suggesting that companies are more confident than before. The findings come from the latest Plimsoll Portfolio Analysis.

The research on 230 companies, who range from loudspeaker manufacturers through audio consultants to distributors and contractors, also revealed that most companies are using their debt in their day-to-day business. 86% of those surveyed had some form of debt last year. Only 17 showed no debt at all. Adding debt takes confidence, not only in the future ability of the company to pay the debt back, but also to generate extra profits to justify the risk.Why would almost 50% of the industry add debt last year? Two key reasons seem to be increasing their formal lending. 1) Companies are financing losses in a bold attempt to keep aflo

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Weston Super Mare’s Grand Pier will be reopening in 2001 with a brand new Bose sound system to improve the quality of public address announcements along the pier. Bose field engineers undertook a series of audio tests and measurements to establish the best solution for the pier’s acoustic problems. They came up with a series of Bose 402 full range speakers positioned throughout the amusement arcade on the pier and angled directly towards the listeners so that sound reaches them without distortion or reverberation. On the exterior walkway, Bose 151 environmental speakers have been specified which are designed to be weather resistant for outdoor use.

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Andrew Williams has been appointed NXT's new group marketing director, reporting to CEO David Pearson. His prime responsibility will be co-ordinating the global marketing strategy of NXT's SurfaceSound, SoundVu, TouchSound and 20/20 Speech technologies. He replaces Jon Vizor, who will now concentrate full time on his business development role as head of venture sales and also leading the commercial audio sales teams. Williams joins NXT from iXL, the internet and business consultancy based in San Francisco. Prior to iXL, he was director of marketing at Chiltern Group plc, the London-based financial and business consultancy.

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Macclesfield-based Federal Signal has won a major contract to provide state-of-the-art VA equipment for the new multi-million pound Belfast City Airport development. The company will be supplying its broadcast VA system Verifire to Oxford-based systems integrators and project contractors Installation Technologies who will integrate it with hard disc-based background music equipment to provide an advanced multi-featured VA and audio communications system. The contract also involves Federal Signal specifying speakers for the column, corridor and ceiling mounting.
  1. Total Production Moves to Mondiale
  2. Pro Audio Theatre at Event 2001
  3. CO2 Cannon System
  4. City Theatrical
  5. PSA Announces New Benefits for Members
  6. TiLE is Official European Show of the TEA
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