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Video and AV

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USA - In the Summer of 2002, the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame moved to a brand new building near the location of its previous home in Springfield, Massachusetts. The attraction serves as a monument to the leading figures of the game, as well as a museum. The main objectives from the outset were to provide a unique, educational and enjoyable visitor experience for fans of all ages.

The creative team included design architect Gwathmey Siegel, architects BH+A who carried the architectural development through, and exhibit designers Scenic Technologies, who worked with the venue's curatorial staff to design the exhibition. Electrosonic won the contract for the audio-visual system integration and installation by bid on a system designed by Thoughtful Designs. Electrosonic then partnered with Cortina Productions and NBA Entertainment to provide a complete hardware and prod

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USA - If you've spent the last two years quietly dismissing the High End/WWG Catalyst as 'just a video projector with a mirror on the front', further proof that you were wrong, or had at least missed the point, came at New York's Grand Central Station over the 2002 Christmas period.

There, two Catalysts ran a series of specially-created animations, replacing the laser system which has formed the Christmas lightshow for the last few years. Creative Time, the New York arts association responsible for, amongst many other projects, the Tribute in Light (see L&SI May 2002), were approached by Grand Central Station to create a new entertainment for New York's most famous rail terminal. They approached New York AV specialists ScharffWeisberg for ideas. "We've worked with them in the past on outdoor projects, art projects - the fun projects," explains Peter Scharff. "In t

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UK - Screenco have enjoyed a whirlwind winter, providing image magnification for three major televised awards presentations, as part of a workload that also embraced the Royal Variety Performance at the Hammersmith Apollo and the BBC televised final of Great Britons.

The most imaginative display was at BBC Television Centre, where for the third year running Screenco were equal to Christopher George's design for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, sending video constantly streaming around the studio in a liquid pelmet. Screenco provided three screens in widescreen format to take the long camera shots, hiring in Barco i8 and i10 high-brightness modules from sister company Creative Technology, which they configured respectively into a single 7.2m x 4m, and two 4.9m x 2.7m walls.

Screenco then supplied four long 1.2m deep panel strips - two in 13.8m lengths, one at 9.7m and th

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UK - Leading sound, lighting and AV designer and installer Metropolis AV and FX has completed the design, supply and install of an entire lighting, sound and AV system at the new Sports Café in Manchester.

The £1.2 million project sees the conversion of a utilitarian 1960's office block in Quay Street, central Manchester, into an 1600-capacity sports-themed environment on two levels. Facilities include bar/dining areas with a large dancefloor, a mezzanine chill-out/games area with 16 pool tables, a Team Room used for private functions and, behind a laminated glass wall but clearly visible from the street, a basketball practice area - for those wanting a bit of physical exertion mixed with their energy drinks.

The Sports Café's technical infrastructure was designed by Metropolis's Simon Harris, working directly for Sports Café. The client specifically

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UK - Live video exponent XL Video and large format projection specialist E//T//C UK worked together to create an exciting, fast-moving backdrop for the Live Arena at the 2003 Autosports Show at the NEC. They were working for event producers The PMi Partnership on this popular autosports show. Staged in the NEC's Hall 4, Autosports Live featured a breathtaking, action packed, auto stunts show highlighting the most technologically advanced racing machines in the world. Five hour-long shows a day were attended by approximately 22,500 visitors over four days.

With the arena in landscape format, and the audience placed along one of the long sides, the visual requirement was to create a dramatic 250ft wide backdrop that changed scenes and locations opposite the seating stands. Screens for XL's live video camera shoot also had to be located in optimum positions for public viewing.

PM

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UK - CSS Stellar Plc has successfully acquired the specialist audio-visual suppliers BackPorch Ltd. They have incorporated them into the event services division of the group, which also includes ARB. The CSS Stellar Group, Britain's largest independently owned sports and entertainment, events and management company, has made a few carefully targeted acquisitions as they expand their portfolio of companies. The addition of BackPorch into ARB will significantly strengthen its existing event services division; in particular, it will add both specialized equipment and staff to key areas as part of the restructuring of the company.

BackPorch, a specialist AV supplier, whose services included signal distribution, sound, and vision systems for an impressive client and event list, including Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship, Stella Artois Tennis, MTV European Music Awards and the Open

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UK - Last February, A.C. Lighting Projects Divison were awarded the contract to design, supply, and install state-of-the-art production facilities into a major new educational venue. The ultra-modern facilities include a 300-seat theatre, main hall, lecture theatre, sound studio, media centre and dance studio, fitted out with industry standard products.

The entire installation involved more than 200 product lines from industry leading manufacturers, including ETC, Strand, Aldo Ianiro, Manfrotto, Audio-Technica, Sennheiser, Soundcraft, Allen & Heath, Denon and Martin. The company provided not only the complete lighting, audio and AV systems but also bespoke solutions, by the design and installation of three multimedia control lecterns, tailored for each facility's specific requirements.

Each lectern has an integrated LCD touch-screen, offering the user access to a comprehensive

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UK - The Blue Room is a brand new web discussion forum, set up by two keen, dedicated industry professionals, where advice may be sought and offered by anybody working in, entering or just plain interested in any aspect of life behind the scenes in the Entertainments Industry. All are welcome to visit and browse, and register as members should they wish to take part in discussions and debates about industry issues.

Forums have been created for all major industry disciplines, as well as for students, health & safety and useful outside sources of information, all alongside a place to just chat with other like-minded people. There is also a private messaging facility, where members may communicate with each other personally. Up-to-date security measures, together with sensitive, responsive moderation of the forums, help to maintain a relaxed and friendly atmosphere in which people

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UK - Badly Drawn Boy gained recognition with 'The Hour of the Bewilderbeast' and for creating the entire film soundtrack for About a Boy." Recently, the group has been touring to support their newest CD, 'Have You Fed the Fish?' For the 2002/early 2003 run in small theatres and clubs, the band recreated their album graphics onto a backdrop. Several circular screens provide space for High End Systems' Catalyst system projection.

Badly Drawn Boy's LD David Farmer wanted to use two Catalyst systems, but decided on just one for a variety of reasons. Because the group is relatively new, and because shows were in a small 2,000-3,000 venue capacity, Farmer needed to keep costs down. To save where he could, he specified and programmed the Catalyst system himself, and persuaded a few of his colleagues into generating special video and still footage.

Says Farmer: "To ma

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South Africa - The recent Miss South Africa contest, held at the Sun City Superbowl on 8 December, provided a unique opportunity for Gearhouse South Africa to utilize a first-ever five split cube wall set-up. In total, a massive 80 cubes were used, split into five 4 x 4 cube walls. "This offered the show's director the unique ability to either display five separate images or one large landscape image," explains John McDermott. "Images to the cube walls were cut out of the outside broadcast van, by director Gavin Wratten who did an excellent job of utilizing the five split cube walls to their maximum."

Gearhouse SA was contracted by Sun International in association with M-Net and Blue Moon Productions, with Deana Hislop of Blue Moon Productions taking the role of production manager and providing the key liaison point for Gearhouse SA. The cube walls formed an

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USA - Switchcraft Inc, the US manufacturer of connectors, audio and video patchbays and cable assemblies, has strengthened its international distribution by appointing Orbitec to distribute its products to the French broadcast and pro audio markets.

Stephen Waldron, Switchcraft's director of international sales, said: "Orbitec is an established stocking distributor of our products and we are very pleased to enter this enhanced relationship that will provide our audio and broadcast customers with improved product availability, service and support."

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Event services supplier ARB and international temporary utility supplier Aggreko announced a strategic alliance at the 2003 Event Show in London. Since being acquired by the CSS Stellar Group Plc, ARB has implemented significant restructuring and expansion plans, focusing its various services into specialist divisions to offer clients improved service in all areas.

Aggreko is a world leader in the supply of temporary power, temperature control and oil-free compressed air services and has a track-record of successfully supporting events such as the FIFA 2002 World cup, numerous winter and summer Olympic Games and the 2003 Ski Championship in St Moritz.

This exclusive partnership will see the complementary strengths of both combined to deliver total power, cooling and technical solutions to events of all sizes and type throughout Europe. "The opportunity this link pres

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UK - To mark the start of the New Year, Navigator Systems has released a free upgrade to its best-selling rental management software HireTrack Eclipse.

The upgrade - which consists of more than 70 new features - comes in response to customer feedback, and demand for the new version has already been high, with the system now a regular feature of many company's business plans. One such client, Saville Audio Visual, winners of the AV Rental Company of the Year at the AV Awards 2002, has grown its rental turnover by 26% - an achievement "based around the use of HireTrack Eclipse", which is now installed in all 14 outlets. Navigator will be showing the new release at this year's Frankfurt Pro Light+Sound/MusikMesse in March.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Spain - Barco last week hosted what has become an annual networking event to the events and Rental & Staging industries - its annual Rental Partner Meeting - in Marbella, Spain. Held at the Meridien Los Monteros Hotel in Marbella from 26-29 January, the three-day event was attended by 120 key commercial and technical representatives from 50 rental and staging companies from across Europe.

Due to the overwhelming response, attendance was strictly by invitation only for Barco's key European Rental Partners, who in line with Barco's Golden Account Strategy, were treated to a carefully-constructed agenda which included hands-on workshops with Barco's proprietary Events Controller and ViewScape, as well as demonstrations of the brand-new SLite 10 and SLite14 LED displays and workshops on the SLM R10 Performer and RLM G5 Performer projectors. As a finale to the three-day event, the Ba

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Austria - Five giant Lighthouse LED video screens are greeting visitors to the Austrian Tyrol this winter in a networked advertising project by Munich-based advertising specialists City Channel. City Channel run LED advertising billboard sites in a number of European cities, and for this year's ski season decided on five prime locations at leading ski resorts for semi-permanent screen installations, showing a mixture of advertising and TV and satellite broadcasts.

The locations are in the Tyrol region, in the Kitzbuhel area at the Fleckalmbahn ski-lift (800 metres), the top of the Pengelstein ski-lift (1939 metres), by a popular bar in Mayerhofen at the foot of the Penkenbahn ski-lift, nearby at the bottom of the Horbergbahn ski-lift, and at Haus near Schladming at the foot of the Hauser Kaibling ski-lift.

The screens were installed between 11-13 December and will be used thro

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UK - Blitz Birmingham was recently commissioned to add the audio-visual elements to the biggest dating party the UK has ever seen. The first ever 'Chemistry' event, held at London's Vinopolis from 29-30 January, offered the 3,000 people who attended the chance to find Mr or Miss Right. It was managed by Brand Events, who commissioned Blitz.

A number of different zones were created to help break down barriers and encourage mingling. 'The Ocean' was the centre of the action with Capital FM DJs Martin Collins and Justin Wilkes getting the party started. A 10k d&b audiotechnik sound rig was provided for the DJs, and Blitz supplied a network of Sony plasma screens to provide ongoing images of the crowded dance floor switching to vox pops carried out during the evening, which gave participants a few minutes of fame and a chance for some self-promotion.

Speed dating, an adult version

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UK - When publishing and exhibition giants CMP Information held their Business for Excellence awards recently they were set on presenting a stage backdrop that everyone would remember. Hired by production company Reality Ltd, Creative Technology dressed the stage in Grosvenor House Hotel's Great Room with an array of plasma screens, together with crisp and powerful images on two motorised projection screens - supplied by Reality - to enable the 900 attendees a clear view of the activity at the event.

A white gauze created a 72ft x 20ft backdrop, behind the stage, to create a blank canvas for the intelligent lighting to wash ever-moving colours behind the guest MC, Jack Dee. An avi file was transferred to a Doremi hard disk, which looped a continuous flame rising above the CMP logo. CT drew exclusively from their pool of Christie DLP projectors, providing Christie S6 SXGA DLP pro

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UK - The optical precision of Christie digital projection has helped Immedia (the newly-formed AV division of Northern Light) to provide a lecture theatre solution for the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, Surrey. Operating in partnership with the Royal Marsden NHS Trust, The Institute of Cancer Research is one of the world's leading cancer research organizations.

The new Brookes Lawley Building is designed to implement several exciting new scientific initiatives, particularly relating to the Cancer Genome Project. It was in the new 197-seat tiered lecture theatre on the facility's first floor that Immedia installed a projection system - as part of a complete AV fit-out - based around Christie's digital Vista X3, front-projected onto a roll-down screen.

Immedia project manager, Dave Pritchard, says: "The origins of this project go back four years. We urged the Insti

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UK - The Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA) has warned its members in the past about scams in which companies are approached by organizations claiming to be 'collectors' for Data Protection Act registration. The approaches are often in the form of a letter, and carry demands for a registration fee (often £95 +VAT) along with erroneous 'reminders' that failure to register could result in a fine of up to £5,000. Other 'collectors' have even visited companies in person, and displayed convincing-looking ID tags.

It seems that the practice is still continuing, with up to 18 bogus agencies known to be engaged in the scam - for a full list, visit the web address below. Anyone being approached with a similar request is asked not to make any payments, and to contact their local police.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Avesco plc has announced that it plans to converge Screenco with its Creative Technology London business. Explaining the move, Graham Andrews, chief executive of the Creative Technology Group, stated: "We really started this process nearly a year ago. Our plans will be to provide an integrated CT and Screenco service from a single site and we are currently looking for a new building, since none of our existing premises are large enough."

He added: "Screenco remains extremely successful - largely as a specialist screen operation - and in our changing market, we think it makes better sense to consolidate it with CT. Until we are able to centralize our workforce and equipment within a single building, we intend to establish a combined CT and Screenco structure, with single sales, project management and operations teams - and one combined group of technicians. Th

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UK - Le Mark has developed a new fire retardant gaffer tape. Manufactured from high quality, waterproof, vinyl-coated cloth tape, with a natural rubber based adhesive, it has a special flame retardant coating. Offering high tensile strength, it conforms to Ford specifications - ESB-M3G71-B and S95GG14K024CA.

On a separate note, Le Mark's custom printing division had an incredibly busy start to 2003. January saw the production, for the first time, of a uniquely complicated multi-text identification label system for the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Le Mark adapted its heavy-duty PAL Label identification system to meet the Philharmonic's requirement that every single piece of flight-cased equipment be uniquely named and identified with a reusable label. This required a total of 73 individual stencils to be produced and then screen printed.

(Ruth Rossington)

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UK - Nocturne Productions & Vidicon are providing Barco high-performance display technology for Paul McCartney's 2003 'Back in the World' European Tour, which kicks off in France on March 25th. Nocturne and Vidicon are supplying approximately 149sq.m of Barco's LED video displays and 16 of its high brightness ELM Series DLP projectors for McCartney's World Tour in Europe. The Barco LED displays are located on both sides of the stage, each in a spectacular separate display. 16 Barco ELM R12 projectors are rear-projected, side-by-side, onto eight projection screens left and right of the stage. The configuration is used to show live image magnification and video playback during the show.

Following his successful North American tour, McCartney toured Mexico City and Japan for concerts in November. His 2003 European tour kicks off in France at the end of March, after which it proceed

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UK - Creative Technology has again joined forces with the Walt Disney Company to develop the Playhouse Disney Live! Roadshow, which has been entertaining visitors to some of the UK's leading shopping malls. Designed to promote the Playhouse Disney Channel, the six-week tour was organized by director Kathleen Gearhart and production manager Jonathan Stott of Walt Disney Special Events.

The set was designed by Idea Design Europe and this year the live backdrop was constructed around the Barco 8mm iLite 8 indoor LED screen in a 6 x 2 configuration, provided by Creative Technology and set between the 'house' frontage and start of the roof. Displayed on the screen is a series of graphics and pictures of the puppets, which is designed to encourage the children's audience to interact with the live entertainment.

The audio playback was provided by CT's sister company, Dimension Audio,

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UK - Award-winning Saville Audio Visual has further strengthened its position as one of the UK's largest AV firms by acquiring Edinburgh-based conference specialists, The Media Facilities Company. The deal means that Saville will be the only professional AV company operating from all four UK capitals.

The Media Facilities Company was established by John Dick in 1990 and has its headquarters in Leith, Edinburgh, where the latest developments in digital projection, plasma screens, digital editing, lighting, sound and video-conferencing technologies are available. One of Scotland's fastest growing AV companies, it has seen its turnover soar by 42% in the last 12 months, despite widespread trading difficulties faced by the Scottish tourism industry in the same period.

In recent months, the company has worked on events and conferences with a number of Scotland's blue-chip companies

  1. New additions to Neutrik UK range
  2. PLASA Show takes on a new image
  3. Metropolis AV & FX at LA Fitness
  4. SPS take LEDs corporate
  5. Keyteq welcomes Viewscape
  6. Avesco companies combine for Microsoft Xbox Roadshow
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