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UK - The third meeting of PLASA's Manufacturers Forum takes place next week on the afternoon of Tuesday 18 July at the DTI Conference Centre in central London. First established 12 months ago, the Forum has proved a catalyst in bringing the concerns of manufacturers to the fore and is open to any member of PLASA who wishes to attend. Companies interested in joining the Association are also invited to attend as observers.

The guest speaker at next week's meeting is Steve Andrews from the DTI's Office of Science & Innovation who will update members on the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances Regulations) Directive which passed into UK law on Saturday 1 July. The agenda will also address PLASA's recent lobbying activities and its appointment of a political & parliamentary

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Over a 12-year period, Lancaster-based Lee Engineering has proven to be one of the UK's most dependable technical resource groups. The company's scope of work extends from offering support to large industrial and architectural lighting projects (including power stations on the Isle of Man to lighting the toll booths of the Forth Road Bridge) to providing regular services to the BBC.

Lee Engineering also has a reputation for thoroughly scrutinising each new piece of equipment before it goes out. "The kit goes straight into the workshop," says director Phil Leedal. "We are a sales rep's worst nightmare as we won't sell anything that we know will give us grief."

One of the company's major accounts is right on its doorstep - Lancaster University's nine colleges and Student Union nightclub, The Sugar House. In the past, each of the colleges had operated its own indepen

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UK - Showsec dealt with all sorts of characters whilst managing the crowds and security for the series of shows held this year at Hyde Park (London). None stranger than when escorting three Storm Troopers from the main stage pit before Roger Waters took to the stage at the Hyde Park Calling concert.

Promoter Live Nation's production director for the shows, John Probyn says: "Showsec mixed well with crowds, production teams and artists and maintained a good, safe atmosphere for all of the shows at Hyde Park this summer."

Showsec's Simon Battersby and Steve Reynolds managed up to 400 staff for the Foo Fighters and Hyde Park Calling concerts, headlined by Roger Waters and the Who, when they looked after the pit, backstage and artists areas. They also managed crowds and security for the whole site for the five nights of the Wireless Festival.

(Chri

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UK - UK distributor John Hornby Skewes & Co has been appointed as the new and exclusive UK and Eire distributor for the LA Audio range of professional signal processors and accessories, with effect from 1 September 2006. The forthcoming PLASA show at London's Earls Court (10-13 September) will mark the public launch of the LA Audio/JHS association.

"Designed for sound reinforcement, fixed install and studio applications, the UK-manufactured LA Audio range brings fresh thinking to every application, adding functionality, reducing complexity and optimising sound quality throughout," say JHS.

"Sound quality is our first principle," says LA Audio's founding designer, Steve Buchanan. "All of our products are are designed to deliver maximum headroom, minimum noise and distortion, with the most intuitive user interface possible."

LA Audio's product ran

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UK - Lighting director Martyn Rourke used over 30 Robe moving lights in the main arena at the 2006 International Musical Eisteddfod in Llangollen. These and a large generic lighting rig were supplied by Blackburn based HSL and it was the first time moving light technology has featured at the Eisteddfod.

The opening ceremony included rousing performances by Welsh bass-baritone opera star Bryn Terfel and impresario pianist Llyr Williams, and was enjoyed by an audience of 6,500 and broadcast live on Welsh TV channel S4C, with highlights shown on BBC Wales. It was the second year that Rourke has been in the lighting hot seat. He worked closely with director Hefin Owen to a brief from independent producers Opus TV.

With this also being the 60th anniversary of the Eisteddfod, Rourke decided that the lighting production values needed upping, and this was the perf

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USA - Country music stars and husband and wife duo, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, have launched their Soul 2 Soul II tour, out across the US this summer.

Lighting designer is Roy Bennett who specified a large Mac rig that includes Mac 700 profiles, Mac 2000 profiles and Mac 2000 washes, more than 150 Mac units in all, supplied by Upstaging, Inc.

Country's hottest couple is playing in-the-round, a concert that lasts nearly three hours and features the two singers - who carry separate bands - performing on their own and together. The stage features a round central platform with four protruding wings. Above hangs the rig of automated and conventional luminaires. "There is a lot of gear on this show," Roy exclaims. "You could literally run across the top of the grid and it would be hard to fall through!

"But because the show is in-the-round the whole idea

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USA - Lynyrd Skynyrd and 3 Doors Down are currently together on the Double Trouble Tour - with the show on 23 June at Trump Taj Mahal being filmed for broadcast on VH-1. Bandit Lites is supplying the lighting for this pairing. The lighting design is a collaboration between long time Skynyrd LD Steve Owens and 3 Doors Down LD Matt Mills.

Each band has a distinct look due to clever masking, drapes and truss movement between sets. While Skynyrd is more of a theatrical, old-school look, 3 Doors Down is a straight ahead 2006 rock look. Both Owens and Mills have also programmed their shows to give the audience the most bang for their buck from a shared system.

The tour spent a week at Starwood in Nashville fine-tuning the show before they hit theroad. The equipment utilised includes three grandMA consoles, A.C. Lighting's Chroma-Q Color Web, High End Systems' Turbo Cyberlights and S

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UK - With clients including the BBC, Channel 4, ITV Carlton, Air Studios and Lipsync Post, as well as noted audio engineers such as Marcel Van Limbeek and Barry Sage, Alchemea has established itself as a leading audio engineering and music production college since opening in central London in 1992.

Offering a range of study options from specialised short courses and workshops through to full time audio and post courses, Alchemea has a policy of using only the best equipment in its classrooms, and has equipped itself with DPA microphones.

"We chose DPA because we believe in giving our students the best mics available, so that when they go out into the real world they have realistic, high quality benchmarks to base their choices and opinions on," says Alchemea lecturer and certified Pro Tools instructor Neil Pickles. "Put simply, you can't tell if a microphone is

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Spain / Denmark - DPA Microphones has awarded Barcelona-based Seesound with its Distributor of the Year award, recognising the huge contribution to sales and service that the company has provided over the past 12 months. Seesound's Nacho Alberdi attributes the Spanish distribution company's success to two major factors. "Firstly, we have a very well qualified sales team which is not only familiar with DPA products, but also the competition," he says. "This means that they can emphasise the added value of DPA products.

"Secondly, we offer a very flexible service and are quick to respond. We provide the best possible pre- and post-sale service, offering personalised advice, turning repairs around quickly, loaning replacement mics if necessary and always trying to find the best solution for any situation."

A large part of DPA's marketing activity is worki

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UK - May 2006 saw Sting presented with an honorary Doctorate of Music by the University of Newcastle. The 17 times Grammy award winner accepted the award from the university's chancellor, Lord Patten, after which he celebrated with an exclusive private party at the Baltic Centre For Contemporary Art, just across the River Tyne in Gateshead.

Entertainment for the 300 guests was provided by The Gerry Richardson Trio and various members of The Newcastle Big Band, an outfit whom Sting often played with before being catapulted to fame with The Police.

Providing the audio system for the party was Yorkshire-based Viking Sound & Light Ltd whose proprietor Steve Williams has worked with Sting on a number of occasions. "We needed to supply a compact FOH system that would give maximum clarity but, due to the very limited electrical supply in the venue, be simple to power," says

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USA - Aviom has announced the appointment of Sound Marketing West as the company's newest sales representative for Southern California and Las Vegas.

"Sound Marketing West has a great history in commitment and support and market development in the pro audio industry," says Aviom Western regional sales manager Loren Molinare. "They serve everyone from music stores to A/V rental, commercial and industrial contractors and consultants, data products distributors and broadcasters. We're looking forward to a long and prosperous relationship with SMW."

The Canoga Park, CA-based manufacturer's representative adds Aviom's full range of personal monitor mixing systems and audio networking technologies to its impressive lineup of audio, video, data, lighting and production lines. SMW's client roster also includes Amek, TASCAM, Polycom, LG and Harman companies AKG, Cro

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Worldwide - Sales of Midas large format analogue consoles have doubled in volume over this time last year, the company reports. Part of the boom in worldwide sales is represented by a strong contingent of European PA companies who continue to bolster their inventories with the industry's favourite live consoles for leading summer events, they say.

"Our analogue sales dispute the general impression that digital consoles appear to have conquered the live performance market," says Midas and Klark Teknik sales and marketing director David Cooper. "The ease of use, sonic quality, long-term reliability and safe return on investment offered by Midas consoles are still proving the all-important factors for many live applications. It's also apparent that the recent release of our XL8 live performance system, rather than shifting emphasis from our analogue range, has reinfo

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UK - National WiseUp2Work Day will be held on Wednesday 30 August 2006. WiseUp2Work is a major initiative by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) to address head-on the issue of safety for the under 21s when they are starting work, apprenticeships or work experience. On average, 10 young people are killed and 2,500 badly injured every year.

The aim is to make employers, trainers, youth workers and teachers, and young people themselves, aware of the risks they face in the workplace and what they should be doing to mitigate them. WiseUp2Work is sponsored by the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) and supported by the National Youth Agency and the British Chambers of Commerce.

National WiseUp2Work Day is being staged at a time when many young people are embarking upon their careers or starting work experience placements, and are at the highe

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USA - Loud Technologies has announced that Mackie is using the NAMM show to introduce a new flagship Active subwoofer into its growing family of Active sound reinforcement speakers. The Mackie SWA2801z combines dual 18" drivers, a built-in 800W FR Series power amplifier. Designed to outperform traditional 2 x 18" systems, the Mackie SWA2801z benefits from Mackie's award-winning Active electronics, which provide much greater integration of all components in the system than tradition 'powered' loudspeakers, say the company. Mackie Active electronics are customized for each driver/cabinet/amplifier combination and provide complete, real-time control over critical functions such as crossover filters, equalization, as well as protection for both transducer and electronics. Active electronics also allow for integration with full-range loudspeakers, which can be stacked or pole

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Serbia - The European Agency for Reconstruction has delegated ETC to furnish the lighting systems for Radio Television Serbia in Belgrade.

Radio Television Serbia (RTS) has had an eventful past. Established in 1929 as Radio Belgrade, RTS was expanded to a television institution in 1956 by the Serbian government. In the following decades, RTS acquired an excellent reputation with the production of documentaries, sitcoms and quiz shows.

Under the regime of Slobadan Miloševic, the broadcast station entered dark times. Journalists who did not want to be utilised as instruments of the regime were fired, and RTS devolved into the megaphone of Miloševic's propaganda. The tragic climax came when 16 people were killed during the bombing of the studio headquarters on 23 April 1999, by NATO troops.

Since then, Serbian television has been privatised. Thanks to support from the Europea

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UK - HSL is again supplying a complete stage lighting and sound system to the high profile nine-week Opera Holland Park season, together with site-wide lighting and electrics, power distribution and full public address and announcement audio.

The completely sold out event features six full-scale productions, each run two at a time in repertory for three weeks, and is promoted by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea.

This year's shows includes: The Merry Widow, Fedora, Manon Lescaut, Cosi Fan Tutte, Rigoletto and The Queen of Spades, all accompanied by the Grammy Award winning City of London Sinfonia.

The technical production is overseen and co-ordinated by the Council's operations manager Mike Harth, working closely with his team of technical staff including chief LX Gary Cooper, deputy chief LX Andreas Atkinson and master carpenter Brendan McEvoy.<

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USA - Indiana-based Apollo Design Technology has introduces the Smart Move Vertical, its latest addition to the Smart Move family of gobo movement products. Featuring motion, time, and speed presets that create vertical movement of patterns or text, the Vertical's special gobo offers multiple image areas that, when combined with the vertical movement, allows one image at a time to be placed in the focal path of the fixture. While fitting conveniently into the iris slot of an ETC Source Four and Altman Shakespeare, additional effects can be created by placing another gobo in the fixture's gobo slot.

Ideal for subtle movement of corporate logos and other retail, architectural, and theatrical applications, the Smart Move Vertical offers designers new creative opportunities, say Apollo. A DMX model is also available.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Crystal Clear Audio, a specialist in high quality AV installations for churches and schools, has installed a new sound system at St. Meryl's Primary School, Watford, on behalf of Carpenter's Park Church. The Church regularly uses the school's main hall for its services, but was frustrated by the poor quality of their old sound system - and Crystal Audio's experts were called in to sort it out.

"Our brief was to install a new system that was compact, simple to put together and very easy to use," says Crystal Clear's managing director, Nick Fatkin. "The main components of the system are Van Damme Black Series multicore cable and VDM connectors, all of which was supplied by VDC Trading. We also specified stage boxes and an Allen & Heath mixer, along with Shermann speakers that are permanently mounted on RSJs."

Client response to the new sound system has b

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UK - United Visual Artists has used 240 Chroma-Q Color Blocks to provide a curving LED screen of lighting and video effects for Massive Attack's Collected 2006 international tour. The Color Blocks have been bought by Blackburn-based rental company HSL, main lighting contractor for the tour.

The group, currently touring Europe to promote their tenth anniversary 'Best Of' compilation, recently returned to the UK to play high-profile headline slots at the Wireless Festival 2006 in London and Leeds. For this, the third successive tour collaboration between the band and lighting designer Vince Foster, UVA wanted to create an entirely new, more organic and audio-responsive show for their onstage visuals, whilst still retaining the essence of the last two tours.

UVA had discussed the idea of surrounding the group with LEDs capable of displaying images and text, but which also doubled

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UK - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light is continuing its close and successful working relationship with both European Events and Private Drama supplying the lighting for European Events' latest series of events and parties at the Honourable Artillery Company grounds in the City of London. The rig was also expanded on for one particular event organised within the HAC Marquee by Private Drama.

White Light have been working with European Events on their HAC Summer events for a number of years; White Light's Jason Larcombe says: "Every year we have built upon the design to offer more dynamic and stylised lighting, keeping a fresh appearance to the marquee interiors. This year our theme was 'summer in the city', and we made use of the latest automated and colour changing technology."

These changes have been well received by European Events, with the company's Ad

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UK - Rigging, drape and starcloth specialist Blackout, supplied and fitted out Earls Court 1 for the recent Give it a Name 06 festival held at the London venue in late April, 2006.

The idea was to create a festival style atmosphere with two different stages, but all within an indoor environment. To achieve this, Blackout worked closely with Andy Redhead, the main production manager for SJM Concerts, who was responsible for the overall design and layout. The main area which featured the stages and the catering points was deliberately left open to create an atmosphere where people could sit at the bars and watchthe bands. The event was visited by 26,000 people over the weekend, and among the acts appearing was My Chemical Romance, and Lost Prophets.

Kevin Monks, Blackout's project manager said that attention to detail was important. "We enclosed the stage areas, and

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