Installation

Details
UK - Northern Light has recently won the tender to install state-of-the-art AV equipment in 12 of the University of Stirling's teaching rooms. Working directly for the main contactor, Hadden Construction, Northern Light's AV team will complete the installation in mid-September 2006.

Stephen Dishon, AV manager at Northern Light, said: "Northern Light has had a long working partnership with the University of Stirling. As well as carrying out this current project, we were previously responsible for kitting out 20 other lecture theatres, including the Pathfoot and Logie, with capacity for 210 and 350 respectively."

This project utilises the most up to date technology. Each teaching room, which can hold up to 50 students or corporate delegates, will be equipped with a data projector, sound system and IR system. These will be controlled via a Crestron system which interfac

Details
UK - Baldwin Boxall's CommuniCare Advance disabled refuge communication system has been installed in one of London's largest universities - London South Bank University. Installed by Trinity Protection Systems, the system comprises 12 networked buildings and is the largest CommuniCare Advance installation to date.

Each of the 12 buildings has its own local control panel, there is also a single point master unit for site-wide control, allowing fire officers/building management to communicate with any refuge area. Due to the nature and size of the project, Baldwin Boxall produced bespoke software to enable the multiple control panels to be networked. One of the key benefits of CommuniCare Advance is that it is linked to the building's fire panel and, therefore, remains 'dormant' whilst not required - avoiding misuse by a building's occupiers - in this case some 20,000 students!

Details
UK - When Manchester's Mint Lounge found they were utilizing their Turbosound speaker system for live performance more than they originally envisaged, they needed a flexible arrangement to help them achieve their goal - and called on Kelco to design and install a quick and easy method of repositioning their TQ loudspeakers for 'live mode' that could be just as easily re-set for dancing.

After an extensive site survey and discussions with the client, Kelco's Dave Kelland proposed a custom fixing arrangement that perfectly fitted the brief. The transition is made by a clever utilization of Turbosound's standard stirrup bracket attached to a superstructure of custom made pre-fabricated steelwork; the innovative solution is interconnected with standard half couplers to further speed up the process, say Kelco.

Mint Lounge is well situated in Manchester's busy Northern Quarter, oper

Details
UK - Carfin Lourdes Grotto in the Diocese of Motherwell is Scotland's National Shrine to Our Blessed Lady. It was founded by Canon Thomas Taylor who was inspired by a visit that he and a number of parishioners made to Lourdes around 1920 and his dream was to build a replica of the Lourdes Grotto for the people of Scotland. The shrine is one of the oldest in the world in honour of Our Lady of Lourdes and today welcomes some 35,000 pilgrims annually from throughout the British Isles. From May to October the open-air Grotto is used for Mass and other services.

For such an extensive outdoor site, sound reinforcement is essential. The original sound system consisted of ageing re-entrant horns and the sound quality was poor so Father Thomas Millar of the adjoining St. Francis Xavier church, approached Tony Kennedy of Glasgow-based Teknique Systems to upgrade the system. Kennedy and Da

Details
Finland - Since 1887, the Hotel Kämp has been an integral part of Finnish history, blending eastern and western Europe with art, politics and business life. Faithfully restored a while back, this Helsinki hotel today is as genuine and elegant as in the past.

Earlier this year the hotel's restaurants were renovated, with Ideafix, LSC Lighting's Finnish distributor, chosen to supply and install the sound and lighting, and so for Kämp Club, the hotel's cosmopolitan late hour upscale club, an LSC 24-channel EKO system was installed.

The EKO is an ideal choice for venues such as Kämp Club for a variety of reasons, say. Firstly it is one of the most compact dimmers for its capacity (24 x 3kW channels) on the market and often available space in venues is extremely limited. Secondly the availability of the LSCnet option allows the EKO to be controlled via DMX when the venue is in c

Details
UK - CGA Integration has completed the installation of a new audio system using Electro-Voice loudspeakers at one of London's most prestigious hotels, The Crystal Bar at The Dorchester.

The Crystal Bar manifests all the Dorchester's themes of luxury, quality and high service standards; opening directly onto Park Lane, the venue is compact and opulent, and finished to a high degree of craftsmanship. The Hotel asked Chris Gunton of CGA Integration to provide an audio system that reflected the Dorchester's signature values through high quality, attention to detail and intuitive operation.

The installation had to fit with the design brief, be invisible and yet provide a dynamic audio range and usage flexibility for many different occasions. Interfacing with the hotel fire alarm and procedures was also essential.

The brief from the Dorchester identified an extremely varied scope

Details
UK - A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division has supplied and installed the background audio system for the newly refurbished Wembley Arena. The world famous Wembley Arena is London's must play venue, attracting the most legendary artists in the music industry. The venue re-opened to a sell-out concert on 2 April following a fifteen-month, £35 million refurbishment programme.Improvements to the new look Arena's interior include new auditorium seating, promoter hospitality facilities for up to 200 people, crew catering for up to 60 people, a backstage bar and a 200 seater public restaurant and bar.

A.C. Lighting was contracted by Wembley London Limited through Stace Project Management to provide the background audio system for the building's five separate sound zones, including specification and supply of all equipment, custom built AV racks, electrical power and data cab

Details
UK - blackbox-av provides standard and bespoke AV equipment, and multimedia installations to the museum, heritage and attraction industries. The company's skill base enables them to fulfil project requirements right through from design to delivery, including creative consultancy, product development and final installation.

July 2006 saw television gardener Alan Titchmarsh host the Gala Opening of their latest prestige project, 'The Experience TV' gallery at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (NMPFT) in Bradford. This £3 million project was funded by a mixture of public and private sector finance and was heavily supported by the BBC. The museum's brief was to design and build a series of custom interactive exhibits that would guide visitors around the past, present and future of television.

blackbox-av began work in February, with their research and d

Details
UK - After more than two years of careful planning, Harrods has unveiled what is believed to be the largest advertising projection screen in department store retailing - above one of the famous Knightsbridge store's main entrances.

To enable the two Christie S+16K 16,0000 lumen DLP projectors to deliver edge-blended, razor-sharp images onto a vast 4.7 x 3.5 metre portrait canvas, required numerous calculations and a leap of faith on the part of the retailer.

Harrods have long adopted a progressive policy towards digital technology, largely due to the enthusiasm shown by Harrods chairman, Mohamed Al-Fayed himself, and the store's 'Door 5' represented a significant opportunity for them to set a new benchmark for the way retailers communicate to their customers. As a result, trials were successfully conducted by consultants, Wow Factor.

"We always thought this was a very

Details
USA - In the Philadelphia suburb of Phoenixville, the Valley Forge Christian College's theatre recently underwent a major renovation, including installation of a state-of-the-art audio/video system based around loudspeakers from Community Professional in nearby Chester.

Pottstown-based systems providers Audiobahn worked closely with the school and the architects in designing and installing the theatre's audio, video and lighting systems. "The architects wanted to keep a very open, somewhat industrial look, maintaining the original brick walls, as well as exposed ductwork along the hall's high ceilings. We added light bars and theatrical fixtures as down-firing lighting to wash the brick walls in primary colours, which really creates a great visual feel," says Audiobahn's president Tony Hersch.

The 300-seat theatre is a multi-purpose venue, accommodating everything fr

Details
UK - The recent upgrades to Butlins' three UK sites include half a million pounds' worth of new Robe moving light fixtures installed in the three separate venues (Centre Stage, Reds and Skyline) within all three of Butlins' UK holiday resort sites - at Minehead, Skegness and Bognor Regis.

The ball started rolling when Bourne Leisure's technical director Mike Godolphin visited the Robe stand at PLASA 2005 and spoke with Robe UK's Bill Jones. Jones then visited Godolphin and Minehead technical manager Dirk Peace at the group HQ in Bognor Regis, and a lighting spec was drawn up by Peace and Woodrow 'Woody' Peterkin, head of lighting at Minehead - to cover the three separate venues at each site. The installation contract went out to tender and was won by Birmingham-based sound and lighting installation specialist, Cloud One.

Minehead Centre Stage is typical of all the sites. The 2

Details
USA - Founded in 1867, Howard University is better known for academics than athletics, sports are still a prominent aspect of student life.The university's homecoming football game and accompanying celebration is considered one of the capital's more notable annual events, with thousands of local residents joining the 11,000-plus student body to partake in the week-long gala, which features a cornucopia of musical entertainment and special celebrity guests.

With another year fast approaching, Athletic Department facility manager Isaac Darden knew it was time to upgrade Greene Memorial Stadium's aging sound system, and sought the advice of Beltsville, MD-based RCI Sound Systems, the firm behind other local high-profile jobs including Kennedy Center Concert Hall and the Washington Redskins' FedEx Field.

"We knew the stadium needed an audio system that could withstand the Was

Details
Hawaii - The Maui Arts & Cultural Center's (MACC) was founded in 1994and hosts over 1,700 events a year in nine facilities.

Two of the MACC's premier venues, the 1,200-seat Harold K.L. Castle Theater and the 250-seat McCoy Studio Theater, have just been given major audio upgrades with the installation of new self-powered Meyer Sound systems. The Castle Theater's new MICA compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers, 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers, UPJ-1P compact VariO, UPA-2P compact narrow coverage, M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array, and CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers, are put to use with the aid of Meyer Sound's RMS remote monitoring system and a SIM 3 audio analyzer.

The system was installed by Docktrdave Audio, specialists in theatre sound system retrofits. Company president Dave Lawler and his partners, Craig Doubet and Eric Laliberte, saw the opportunity

Details
UK - UK cable specialist VDC Trading supplied a large amount of cabling to A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division, which recently installed a background audio system for the newly refurbished Wembley Arena. A.C. Lighting was contracted by Wembley London Limited through Stace Project Management to provide the background audio system for the Arena's five separate sound zones, including specification and supply of all equipment, custom-built AV racks, electrical power and data cabling, trunking, routing and programming.

The installation of the system was scheduled to take place during the final stages of the building works, so A.C. was under both budget and deadline pressure to complete all work in time for the re-opening. A.C. chose VDC because the characteristics of its cables were ideal for their requirements, plus the company was able to respond quickly to their brief, which

Details
UK - The Birmingham Conservatoire, a faculty within The University of Central England, selected the summer break to undertake a major refurbishment of The Adrian Boult Hall - a refurbishment which included the first UK installation of the RCF TTL33A line array.

The hall, built in the 1970s was designed and equipped for recording orchestral concert works having a technical control room, but as an acoustic concert platform had only very limited public address equipment. The largest element of work involved sound system infrastructure and equipment. The shortcomings with the public address have now been resolved with the help of the new RCF TTL33A line array loudspeakers. Two arrays with five TTL33A segments in each and two TTS 18A sub-bass units were floor mounted rather than flown with the arrays.

The TTL33A is a compact active box with 1250W of amplification (2 x 500W + 1 x 25

Details
UK - When the Rose Bowl was constructed at the start of the millennium, offering a new headquarters for Hampshire County Cricket Club, it offered all the facilities expected of a modern stadium. Shaped like a circular amphitheatre, its flexible capacity of 9,000-plus rose to over 19,000 for the 2006 Twenty20 International between England and Sri Lanka. In addition to offering cricket at the highest level, the stadium also hosts rock concerts and numerous functions and conferences.

But five years after Hampshire played their first county match at the Rose Bowl, there were signs that the public address system was leaving a lot to be desired - particularly in terms of speech intelligibility and even distribution. This is vital, not only for voice evacuation purposes, but for spectators to keep up with the commentaries from the scorer's boxes.

Rose Bowl plc, the owner of Hampshire

Details
Baldwin Boxall Communications Limited will be displaying the new Vigil Eclipse2 stand-alone voice alarm/public address system at Firex North, 17-18 October, Harrogate - stand A27.

Visitors to the stand will be able to witness a demonstration of the increasingly popular Vigil CommuniCare Advance (disabled refuge system) and VIGIL FireCare (fire telephone system).The cost-effective, wall-mountable Vigil Eclipse2 voice alarm (VA) (or public address (PA)) system has the ability to handle up to seven single or four dual circuit zones. Eclipse2 contains the EVAS DSP controlled routeing matrix at its heart and, as a result, has many features. The unit, which is smaller than its predecessor (480mm x 200mm x 680mm), houses one 2U amplifier mainframe providing space for the power supply and up to two amplifiers from Baldwin Boxall's Vigil2 Class D range. Up to 128 Eclipse2s can be linked togethe

Details
UK - Somerset-based Opus Audio recently designed and specified a complete audio revamp of the Monkey Club club, bar and restaurant venue in Swansea. Monkey - founded eight years ago by Paul Dyke and Annabel Davey, has a relaxed, Bohemian atmosphere and a busy live entertainment programme embracing a wide range of music and styles from around the world.

The 400-capacity venue is spread across three storeys and includes two dancefloors, a chill-out room and a roof terrace bar. Monkey has become a hugely popular off-high street phenomena in the city. Opus Audio's Andy Fox worked closely with owner Paul Dyke and sound engineer Paul Cunningham to devise the right audio package for the friendly, lively and multi-layered environment at Monkey, consulting with Leisuretec Distribution's Andy Duffield.

Duffield assisted with the specification of the front end equipment, which included u

Details
UK - With its broadest agenda in the show's history, the seminar programme at this year's PLASA '06 (September 10-13 at Earls Court One) will offer an insight into technical developments, as well as addressing some of the key issues facing businesses today.

New technologies lead the way with Sunday's opening seminar - Out of Home Leisure Entertainment - considering the application of interactive and 4D technologies and the growing crossover between the themed attraction and theatre sectors.

This trend continues throughout the four days, with a range of technical seminars providing the core of the programme: sound system designers and operators of public spaces and transport networks will be interested in Intelligible Intelligibility - how to make PA and VA systems understandable and meet intelligibility standards, whilst those more focused on lighting can attend

Details
Luxembourg - For a long time the large area around Luxembourg, Saarland-Lorraine, has lacked one thing, a multi-functional hall designed primarily for music events and concerts. With its technical, acoustic and logistic facilities the new 'Rockhal' fills this hole, catering for any show from international artists to local music events.

The opening concert featured The Prodigy and Korn, attracting sell-out audiences. Since opening, many acts have featured at the Rockhal including Simply Red, Michael Bublé, Duran Duran, Clawfinger, Soulfly, Fish, Marillion and Chris Rea. Apart from live performances 'Rockhal' was also the venue for the MTV-produced iDance.

The 'Rockhal' has two venues, the Club Hall which holds up to 1,200, and the Main Hall which can accommodate 6,500 people. There are also six extra rooms for rehearsals, a ballroom and a recording studio. A uniqu

Details
UK - Among the notable features of the new Big Chill House, spread across four floors at London's Kings Cross, is the signature sound system of Funktion One. Co-designed by installation company, Marquee Audio, and Funktion One dealers, Production Hire, the reconfigurable Res4/F-218 ground floor system is a favourite of Chillfest's Pete Lawrence.

Marquee Audio were introduced to the project as a result of installing the sound infrastructure at the original Peacock in Brick Lane, upgrading the venue when it was later taken over and converted into The Big Chill Bar. The festival promoters had started to get serious about venue development after merging with the Cantaloupe Group at the end of 2002, for whom Marquee Audio had also installed the high profile Cargo in Shoreditch.

The new venue occupies a large footprint on the Pentonville Road, giving them 1,246sq.m of net operating

Details
UK - Since opening in 1983, Bradford's National Museum of Photography, Film & Television (NMPFT) has gained international recognition for its work as well as becoming the most popular national museum outside London with visitor figures regularly exceeding 800,000 per year.

Part of the National Museum of Science and Industry, The NMPFT has an eclectic mix of interactive displays covering the three media subjects of its title and a busy calendar of special events such as film festivals and temporary exhibitions. It also has an IMAX cinema and the World's only publicly accessible Cinerama cinema.

In 1996, the museum embarked on an ambitious program of expansion and refurbishment; the sixteen million pound project lasted almost three years and actor Pierce Brosnan opened the new larger museum in the spring of 1999.

Originally built as a theatre by Bradford City Council, but neve

Details
Italy - Rome-based multimedia systems integrators, Edisco - which has devised bespoke solutions for many industrial projects - has carried out a major upgrade of the emergency system on Rome's "Line A" underground system, which travels 20km from east to west across the city (and vice versa).

In the era of global terrorism, clear messaging procedures and fast evacuation of underground facilities are paramount. Thus having won a tender, instigated two years ago and issued by the Comune di Roma (system operators), Edisco turned to a solution from BSS Audio, a Harman International Company (NYSE-HAR).

Realising that the new system had to comply with the EN 60849 emergency/voice alarm standard, Edisco's project manager Gino Fioravanti has deployed 30 x Soundweb London BLU-80 devices - one for each of the 27 networked stations on the line; the remaining three are situated 5

Details
Belgium - Plopsaland is the first of three 'Plopsa' amusement and attraction theme parks in Belgium equipped exclusively with Martin Audio speakers (involving more than 300 pieces of C115 and EM series). For the 2006 summer season a new attraction named 'Supersplash' was commissioned and installed. The ride involves 16 people being picked up in a boat, before travelling 16m by lift in 28 seconds; the boat then leaves the lift through a hatch and drops at high speed into the water, passing more bumps and bridges before arriving back at its start point.

The attraction only lacked some spectacular audio FX during those 28 seconds, and with that in mind Wouter Verhulst, technical director for the Plopsaland theme parks, contacted Ampco Belgium's sales manager Steven Kemland. Together with sound designer/producer and engineer Geert De Wit, they designed a surround set-up using 16 Mar

  1. Concept Programme in Wharfedale
  2. The PLASA Show is Open!
  3. PLASA Show to welcome Sir George Martin
  4. Awards contenders draw crowds at PLASA
  5. PLASA '06 - the Time is Now
  6. PLASA '06 - Innovation Award Winners
Page 130 of 198

Latest Issue. . .