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Following ever increasing attendances over its four year history, the dates for John Hornby Skewes’ Event 2001 have been confirmed as June 17-19. One major new feature of Event 2001, which takes place at JHS’s premises in Garforth, Leeds, will be the provision of a dedicated pro audio demo theatre on-site. This will feature the HK Audio range of pro audio, including the HX active systems, LUCAS, ELIAS and ACTOR, and the most recent addition to the range, the powerful 3.6kW PROJECTOR. Other pro audio products on show include The Scanner radio system, the Get Yourself Connected series of cabling, JHS pro audio components and Kustom PA systems and cabinets.

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In a launch event spanning three days, Imagination has opened the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin, a brand experience on which the company has been working since 1997. The Guinness Storehouse, which replaces the Hopstore, the brewery’s existing visitor attraction, is set to become one of Ireland’s biggest draws, with a million Irish and overseas visitors anticipated annually.

The six-storey Guinness Storehouse sits at the heart of the St James’ Gate brewery complex. Originally built in 1904, the former fermentation plant was the first steel-framed building in Ireland. Imagination has converted the 170,000 sq.ft building into a state-of-the-art visitor attraction featuring an immersive Guinness Experience as well as three bars and a retail store. The Irish business community, as well as Guinness’ own staff, are able to use the Guinness Storehouse’s extensive

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Following on from the success of the Opus microphone range introduced last year at the Frankfurt Music Messe, beyerdynamic is releasing a further five new Opus models. Opus 53, 67 and 87 are all optimised for percussion, Opus 82 is for high output level wind instruments and Opus 54 is a high specification neckworn vocal microphone. A ‘light’ version of the popular MCS conference system will also be launched. This is configured for smaller conference situations with a maximum capacity of 30 delegates. New additions to the MCW wireless range include new stations suitable for simultaneous translation applications, as well as conference functions.

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Armstrong World Industries Inc, NXT's latest Licensee, has launched the i-ceiling Sound System incorporating NXT's SurfaceSound flat panel loudspeaker technology. The complete system includes Sound Panel ceiling speakers and pre-packaged electronics units (including both processors and amplifiers) to drive the panels and custom tune the system for the space. One of the first applications of the new i-ceiling is in Temple, Texas, where Nextel is installing nearly 300 Sound panels in its new call centre. The Sound Panels will be used to provide sound masking in the 108,000 square foot facility, most of which is open plan.

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On the first of this month, TC Electronic took over the exclusive distribution of TC Works products for the UK and Ireland. TC Electronic picked up the contract after TC Works and previous distributor the Arbiter Group agreed to go their separate ways. In the TC Electronic UK team, Jim Motley, will be the man responsible for TC Works sales, while Filip Saelen from the TC Electronic Customer Support team will be taking care of support issues.

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A couple of new developments on the performing arts front. Ballast Construction has won a £14m contract to build the Laban Centre in Deptford, including 13 dance studios and a 300-seat theatre, whilst Newcastle City Council is currently reviewing plans with Newcastle University to develop a £60m arts and heritage complex at the Playhouse theatre site at Barras Bridge. Leisure development continues apace: Government approval has been given for a £30m leisure development at Gloucester Docks which will include a multiplex cinema, restaurants and retail units. Associated British Ports, meanwhile, has submitted plans for a new leisure and retail development at Alexandra Dock in Grimsby, including shops, a restaurant, pub and possibly a hotel. Isle of Wight Council is considering plans from Godshill Park Developments for the creation of a 60-bedroom hotel and conference centre in Wootton a

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HHB Communications celebrates its 25th anniversary this month. The company, founded by Ian Jones, has grown to become one of the UK's leading pro audio suppliers and a major international manufacturer of digital audio equipment and recording media. With offices in London, Los Angeles and Toronto, and distribution partners in more than 30 countries throughout the world, HHB now employs a staff of 70. During its history, HHB has played a pivotal role in establishing the professional acceptance of many digital recording technologies, notably DAT, CD-R and Minidisc and today HHB's own products encompass all these formats. To date, almost three million HHB DAT tapes have been sold, the new Portadisc MD portable looks set to become an industry-standard broadcast recorder and the new HHB BurnIT is the latest in a line of CD recorders which have had a high profile in the market. Looking to the f

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Alberdi Pro in Barcelona has taken on exclusive distributorship of HK Audio sound reinforcement products in Spain. According to Hans Stamer, HK’s MD of music and sales: "Spain is one of the most important markets for audio equipment in Europe. To be successful in this market we need a strong, capable distribution partner, and Alberdi Pro is that partner." The company already has all major HK Audio products in stock.

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Sennheiser UK threw a spectacular party before Christmas at London's Café Royal to celebrate the company's tenth anniversary. In addition to 250 customers, suppliers and staff, special guests for the evening included Professor Jorg Sennheiser, chairman of Sennheiser GmbH and Rolf Meyer, president of sales and marketing in Germany. Presentations to mark the occasion were made to Sennheiser UK managing director Paul Whiting, sales and marketing manager Rob Piddington, financial controller Lesley Alaway, field sales manager Nigel Mann and technical applications manager John Willett, all of whom have been with the UK company since it was formed. During the evening, the company hosted a raffle which raised sufficient funds to bring the total of Sennheiser UK's annual fund raising activities for Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital to £13,000. Additional presentations were also made to Ge

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Federal Signal has won its first contract from Romania's national oil company Petromar. The £150,000 contract involves the design, manufacture and supply of an Akusta-based duplicated PA and general alarm system for Petromar's offshore oil production facility in the Black Sea. The system installation will be carried out by Petromar's own engineers. The system has been designed and engineered to operate in harsh offshore conditions while still complying with BS5588 and BS5839: Part 8. It will provide an extensive range of emergency notifications - from fire and toxic gas alert to abandon platform alarm, as well as full audio communications and paging facilities.

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MAVCO has been awarded the contract to install the audio equipment for all public areas on Carnival Cruise Lines' Carnival Spirit. The 960-foot, 84,000-tonnes Carnival Spirit is destined to go into service from Miami in the spring of 2001. Onboard, MAVCO is involved with designing and installing audio systems in a total of 23 venues, headed by onsite project manager, Nick Gibson. Work on the project started in Turku last October, where he and his team built 56 racks within six weeks, which are now being installed on Carnival Spirit in Helsinki. In the main theatre, MAVCO is installing two LCS LD88 audio processors to provide room surround effects, and 90 EAW loudspeakers, together with 60 Renkus Heinz and Macpherson loudspeakers. Processing will be via a Peavey Mediamatrix digital sound processor, and 54 Crest CKS amplifiers will be controlled by Crest's NexSys computer control system.

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London-based rental company, Dobson Sound Productions recently provided all the audio requirements for What Car? Magazine’s Car of the Year Awards, held at Grosvenor House in London. The event consisted of a sit-down dinner for 950 people from throughout the automotive industry including a significant number of journalists from the motoring press. This was followed by awards presentations for each of the 18 categories hosted by Jonathon Ross, culminating with a spectacular reveal of the winner of the Car of the Year award, won by the new Ford Mondeo. Dobson’s Tone Ferne explained that due to the nature of the reveal, they were required to provide a far more powerful audio system than a standard awards dinner might merit. "We provided a distributed system throughout the ceiling of the Great Room in the Grosvenor consisting of 18 d&b E9 cabinets. There were also two big s

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Total Audio Solutions has recruited Canadian David Anthony Otañez, formerly of Yamaha Commercial Audio and Denmark Street Studios, London, to spearhead the company’s sales into the UK post-production and studio markets. Otañez, who has been closely involved with computer-based recording systems for the last 10 years, brings to the company a wealth of experience with digital mixing consoles, which will prove useful in advising potential customers for the Sony DMX-R100, rapidly becoming one of Total Audio Solutions’ most sought-after products. Otañez also has an in-depth knowledge of Pro Tools and other hard-disk-based recording systems.

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massAV, of Burlington, Massachusetts, has officially become the first company in the world to purchase the new Line Array 760 series speaker from EAW. CEO and owner of massAV, Patricia Basteri, recently ordered a speaker and monitor system, which includes 24 x 760 speakers, 12 x SB 1000s and 8 x SM-15 monitors from EAW. The new order will upgrade the capabilities of the company, whose current system of 16 x KF 650s and 8 x 850s will complement the new system. "This new Line Array product will bring great versatility to the venues and facilities that our top clients are currently using," Basteri said. As the exclusive AV provider for The Bayside Expo Center, The Rhode Island Convention Center and Microsoft New England, massAV plans to maintain its firm grip on event services in the Northeast region. Senior audio engineer for massAV, Jason Geshelin, said of the system: "The

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On February 1st AEI Music held a launch party for ProFusion, featuring renowned Ibiza and Ministry of Sound DJ Brandon Block. Hosted at London’s Institute of Contemporary Arts, the launch was attended by many of the UK’s leading retail and leisure operators. Attendees were treated to a champagne reception and demonstrations of the software that supports ProFusion, blending all the benefits of Hard Disc storage with the know-how of experienced professional music programmers. Capable of running 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year, the system is able to store 400 hours of digital music or eight hours of video. Up to four separate zones from a single unit give businesses the opportunity to segment their sites into specific areas. Pre Launch trials have proved a great success, with operators including Whitbread, AMF Bowl and Scottish and Newcastle signing up for fur

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The International Live Music Conference takes place from 9 - 11 March 2001 at the Royal Garden Hotel, Kensington High Street, London. It pulls together key figures involved in the presentation of live entertainment around the globe. Attendance is ‘by invitation only’ and the ILMC includes among its members some 35 different professions from nearly 40 countries. The Main Room debates will kick off as usual on Friday afternoon at the Talking Shop, where a variety of the subjects will be covered, and the rest of the weekend's talks previewed. Taking centre stage in Saturday afternoon's main forum will an investigation of the urgent issues surrounding crowd safety, made more relevant in the last few days by the terrible events at Australia's Big Day Out and Brazil's Planet Atlantido. In a major session set to span the entire afternoon under the banner 'Safety in Numbers', chaire

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"It’s the first time a show’s sound has been all-digital on Broadway," says sound designer Jonathan Deans. "As revolutionary as Tharon Musser putting memory lighting control on A Chorus Line."

Deans is speaking at the back of the Richard Rodgers Theatre in New York, home to Seussical: The Musical, the slightly troubled new show (half the creative team replaced before opening!) by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, the writers responsible for Once On This Island and Ragtime. He can make the claim because of what looks like a tiny mixing desk shoe-horned into the space next to him: CueConsole, a hands-on control surface to LCS’ Matrix3 and SuperNova range of digital signal processing sound equipment. Why choose to take a chance on a new piece of equipment? Firstly, size is an important consideration in theatre where on a sold-out show each full price

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Stuart Fenwick has joined the audio facilities company Envo-Tech to head up its expanding leisure division. Envo-Tech’s MD Brian Puckey commented on the appointment: "With our business in the leisure sector growing and the opening of our new dedicated professional audio showrooms based in London, it became obvious that we needed someone with Stuart’s industry experience". Fenwick, formerly with Martin Professional, joins Envo-Tech after a spell with G-E-T.com.

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A new company has been formed that will continue to manufacture the Reflekta and Spektra brands, previously manufactured by Acoustic Sound Systems. Universal Audio will add its own range of cinema speakers, whilst also offering an OEM facility to other manufacturers. A brand new touring system is going through development at the moment and should be in production by mid-summer.

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International Leisure Industry Week (LIW - 2-4 October 2001, NEC, Birmingham) has appointed Neil Felton as show director. Felton, previously manager for fitness, health and sport at LIW, is now responsible for overseeing the entire exhibition, as well as dealing with the show’s sponsorships and liaising closely with trade associations.

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Elissa Getto has joined Theatre Projects Consultants as senior theatre consultant in the Norwalk, Connecticut office. She will be a principal member of the team conducting performing arts feasibility studies and advising on a wide range of administration issues. Currently she is working on major studies for the Lincoln Centers in both New York and Dallas. Prior to joining TPC, Getto served as CEO and President of the Westport Country Playhouse, Connecticut and was also president of the Cincinnati Arts Association and an executive director of PACT Inc.

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Following the announcement of the new administration and management set-up of the PSA, a substantial package of new benefits for members has been unveiled. A new membership pack has been produced which includes a personal membership identity card, pre-paid subscriptions to appropriate magazines, training information and course dates, training booking forms, a diary section, book list and contacts, plus a new, truly interactive web site which is updated daily. Birmingham-based Business Media Services Ltd (BMS) recently took over the role of administrative and membership operations of the PSA office. Bob Fox, the head of BSM, told PLASA Media: "It is our aim to ensure that members of the PSA get the maximum possible from their association with us. We have put together this new package to increase the benefits that membership brings."

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DPA Microphones has appointed its first distributor in Ireland, Big Bear Sound of Dublin. Founded seven years ago by Julian Douglas, Big Bear has become one of Ireland's leading pro audio equipment resellers, representing DigiDesign, Apple and HHB, as well as supplying top-end brands such as Focusrite, TC Electronic and Tube Tech. Strengthened by products like Pro Tools, Big Bear takes most of its business from the recording sector, and the company also designs and builds studios. According to sales director Michael Browne: "We have a substantial client base in recording, including a lot of clients doing classical work, and DPA Microphones has a world-class selection of mics which we can recommend to them . . . The DPA range fits in extremely well with our portfolio profile at the high end of professional audio. I'm particularly confident about the compact and miniature mics, and I

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Pro Audio Systems have launched their new web site, www.pasystems.co.uk. It includes lots of useful industry links, an on line pro audio store and a members' area. Membership allows access to special deals and free used equipment ads. The site is a good information centre, provides a service to existing and new customers as well as being a comprehensive on line store for a full range of pro audio equipment.
  1. Marquee Becomes Sony Dealer
  2. All Change at L-Acoustics
  3. TiLE is Official European Show of the TEA
  4. New Academy
  5. Underground Role for A-T’s Pro42
  6. East Anglia to get its own Superclub
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