Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
LSi 40 - Banner - July-Nov 2025

Details
UK - For companies involved in the sale, hire or use of radio microphones, in-ear monitoring systems, talkback systems or wireless links, then next week's PLASA '06 will be the place to be.

On the Tuesday of the Show (which runs from Sunday 10 through to Wednesday 13 at Earls Court One), BEIRG - the British Entertainment Industry Radio Group - will be hosting a Forum to inform attendees of the current situation with regards to the impending sell-off of the RF spectrum.

At present, it appears that if the industry doesn't act, the entire RF Spectrum from 470-862MHz will be auctioned to the highest bidder. The Forum is a chance for anyone affected to have their say and contribute to the debate about how the industry can preserve enough spectrum for it to continue to do what it does

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
Worldwide - Like floating cities, Carnival Cruise Lines offer their passengers a lot of variety. Now grandMA's play a key role in the line's entertainment show control. "The grandMA system is an important component for technical operations in the main showroom on our ships," says Preston Bircher, entertainment technical projects manager for Carnival. "Most ships have between two and seven production shows and although they're completely different, they utilise the same basic rig and light plot. The difference is in the programming with all the moving lights and colour changers. The flexibility of the grandMA system is fantastic," he continues.

Demfis Fyssicopulos of dfdesign served as grandMA lighting programmer for Carnival's 2,052-passenger Sensation, with the next installation scheduled for the line's 2,052-passenger Fascination. "These vessels are si

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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
UK - The Rizla Unleashed Music Festival delivered a weekend of music from a breath-taking cliff-top location overlooking Watergate Bay in Newquay, UK in early August. The sold-out event, Cornwall's largest music festival, attracted 14,500 people for the weekend. Friday's headliner Feeder were joined by The Automatic, Mystery Jets, Captain and others, while Starsailor and Graham Coxon headlined the Saturday show.

Concert Sound UK was in charge of sound production and provided their new Adamson enclosures to use. Concert Sound's new T-21 Subs garnered excitement from System Tech, Andy Walker, who commented: "They deliver all that was promised and more. What a stunning sounding, innovative product!"

The sound system design was perfected by Didier Del Fitto of DV2 - Adamson Europe, who chose 24 Adamson Y10s and six Adamson Spektrix as downfills for the main arrays. A tot

Details
France - SA Europe has announced the appointment of Eric Guillaumin as its new Senior Technician. His appointment follows the company's business expansion in Europe and its successful one-year partnership with Robert Juliat, say the company. Guillaumin holds a degree in Electronics Engineering and has gained extensive experience in dimming engineering and development working at Robert Juliat for almost 20 years.

"Eric's technical experience will be so valuable to our growing business here in Europe," said Bertrand Dauphant, SA Europe's director. "We now have many installations on the way which require Eric's skills and knowledge to ensure smooth operations."

Guillaumin's focus will be to provide in-depth technical trainings and supports to distributors and customers while working closely with installation contractors on projects.

(Lee Baldock)

Details
UK - Denon DJ have signed a sponsorship deal with MOBO Award-winning DJ Shortee Blitz. Nominated again for a MOBO in this year's Best DJ category Shortee remains one of the UK's most influential hip hop exponents, with two weekly radio shows on KISS FM. The DJ will be using a pair of Denon's flagship DN-S3500 CD/MP3 players on future dates around the world, and to premix his radio show.

An avowed devotee of vinyl, Shortee's signature skills of cutting and mixing have been honed over a long career. But in the new millennium he has had to face the reality of the market. "The fact is that less and less music is being pressed on vinyl these days and I needed something that would make the transition (to CD) easily. I have tried various vinyl emulation devices but they just don't have that feel."

He was urged to try Denon's flagship CD/MP3 player, the DN-S3500 by Simon Fra

Details
USA - Eat to the Beat flew 6 top catering crew from the UK over to Chicago to work alongside the 18 strong predominantly Chicago based team for Lollapalooza 2006. The event was produced by Capital Sports & Entertainment and Charles Attal Presents, with catering provided over 11 days on site.

For three days Grant Park was transformed into a celebration of music with fans gathering from around the world to enjoy one of the summer's most powerful line-ups including Red Hot Chili Peppers, Kanye West, The Raconteurs, The Flaming Lips and more than 120 other bands.

On show days, the Eat to the Beat team were catering for 850 people, three meals a day. Menus were planned in advance to take into consideration the hot weather and the many dietary requirements. Key favourites during the festival included the full Anglo-American breakfast to cater for varying tastes of the international

featured content

ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

Details
Worldwide - Marquee Audio have helped solve a logistical problem for Britannia Row Productions at the mixing desk on the current Robbie Williams Close Encounters European tour.

Faced with a large returns system, Brit Row had been amalgamating all sources at front-of-house and then running the signals via a digital matrix to create the various sends to the speaker system.

"The loudspeaker controllers were also digital input - which meant that a large number of digital channels were travelling from FOH to stage left and right," notes Marquee's digital manager, Andy Huffer. Seeking a more efficient solution, Britannia Row settled on an Optocore system, due to its simplicity and reliability.

Roly Oliver, the production company's equipment manager, says: "Optocore was always top of our list in terms of audio quality, history and configurability - and the fact that

Details
UK - Digidesign have completed an outstanding summer in spectacular fashion.The Reading Festival, which traditionally brings the curtain down on the UK festival season, saw the company's Venue live sound environment mixing each of the headline acts over the three nights of the Bank Holiday event.

Furthermore, Venue's D-Show console was the only digital desk used anywhere during the festival (SSE's main production system being a pair of analogue boards in the monitor and front-of-house positions).

The Friday night headliners were Scottish chart toppers Franz Ferdinand, where Parker was piloting the mix. The following night classical festival band Muse closed the show as a curtain raiser to their Autumn European tour. Marc Carolan, already a Venue veteran, was at FOH on a Skan PA-supplied D-Show while a second desk was at monitor city, under the command of Adam Taylor.

On Sund

Details
UK - There was something for everyone at this year's Global Gathering on the 28-29 July, and with acts such as Daft Punk and Fatboy Slim. Held at Long Marston Airfield, Stratford Upon Avon, there was a capacity crowd of 25,000 camping on Friday, and 45,000 on Saturday. Global Gathering boasted eight Primary stages (seven tents and 1 outdoor) as well as numerous sub stages, and was promoted by Angel Festivals (a joint venture by Angel Music Group and Live Nation).

Simon Barrington, production manager says: "As co-designer for the stages, and lighting designer for the site my concentration on the looks for all the stages was always going to be biased towards lighting. I have always had the belief that punters should walk away from the gig, having experienced the ultimate in audio and visual shows."

Barrington says: "My reasons for choice of fixtures were threefold

Details
USA / Czech Republic - Color Kinetics and Robe Show Lighting today announced a global licensing agreement whereby Robe will have access to Color Kinetics' complete patent portfolio, enabling the development and sale of its LED Series and Anolis product lines.

Robe is a 15-year manufacturer of moving light systems that are widely used in theatrical, touring, television and other entertainment applications. Its LED-based product lines apply Color Kinetics' proprietary control methods to generate millions of colours and colour-changing effects. The global license will apply to sales of Robe products in all markets covered by Color Kinetics' patent portfolio.

Bill Sims, president and CEO of Color Kinetics, says: "The entertainment lighting market was among the first to embrace intelligent LED lighting technology, and with ever-increasing LED performance, we believe that deman

Details
Germany - Angelo Kelly has been counting on the both compact and powerful HK Audio active PA systems, for quite some time.

Kelly recently published his first solo album I'm Ready which he is now on tour with. To make sure that the rock and pop songs reach the audience perfectly, Kelly has chosen HK Audio equipment again and this time, it's even two Actor DX systems. That's a total of 6.400 Watts out of twelve compact cabinets (four active subwoofers, four passive subwoofers, four mid/high units) which the company says, are filling up the halls with clarity and dynamics even under full load, thanks to HK Audio's DDO controller.

Kelly and his live band - as well as the quality of the Actor DX systems - can be experienced live on stage until 1 October, when final gig of the tour will take place in the Stollwerk venue in Cologne/Germany.

(Chris Henry)

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
USA - XL Touring Video is video contractor for the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards on Sunday 27 September. Ken Ehrlich of Ken Ehrlich Productions brought his production team to XL in early August to work with XL's Bob Magee, Chris Mitchell, Dave Hyslop and Matt Pearson to ascertain what LED technology would be used to create a new look for this year's Awards.

Production designers John Shaffner and Joe Stewart looked at all of XL's current technologies with show producers, Renato 'Ron' Basile and Michael Seligman before deciding on three Barco I6 LED Screens for the award intro graphics and two Barco MiPix Screens that presented the supporting graphics.

John Shaffner says: "The scenic metaphor for television was pixilation. The concept of pixellation was illustrated by the MiPix which gave us 5" on centre format. It takes many pixels to make a big picture just as th

Details
Russia - G8 Summits, annual meetings of the leaders of eight of the world's leading industrial nations, which are hosted by the country holding the rotating year-long presidency, require an enormous logistical and technological expenditure.

The mere task of translating the numerous speeches, press conferences and communiqués into the requisite number of languages involves a huge team of translators and interpreters working under considerable time pressure for long hours.

For this year's summit in St Petersburg, the decision was taken to employ a Voice-Over-IP system - the first time one had been used at a G8. Two of the Advanced Digital Audio Matrices (ADAMs) in Moscow were expanded with the addition of RVON-8 cards, and translation stations, connected by intercom systems, established by VGTRK in various parts of St. Petersburg to ensure that live interviews, press conf

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
Sweden / UK - Wireless Solution Sweden AB is gearing up for its third consecutive year exhibiting at the PLASA Show in London, where all visitors to the stand can enter a draw to win a W-DMX system valued at 1200 Euros.

A complete new range of W-DMX products will be on display, including W-DMX T-512 Outdoor Transceiver, W-DMX Micro, and W-DMX D-512, the world's first wireless 3-way truss splitter. Two of these products have been entered for the PLASA Awards for Innovation - the D-512 and W-DMX Micro, a mini DMX receiver with built-in battery backup of 6-8 hours use, signal display indication and battery lifetime. As a bonus preview, the RDM specification on W-DMX will be shown for the first time at PLASA.

The company reports that 2006 has been a great year for W-DMX: in just eight months, over 5,000 units of W-DMX products have been shipped worldwide. The demand for safe plug-

Details
USA - Aviom, Inc., manufacturer of the Pro16 Monitor Mixing System, is announcing that the company is now shipping the new AN-16SBR System Bridge, which will be featured at AES 2006 (Booth 123).

All Pro16 Series products are compatible with the AN-16SBR System Bridge, which is designed to be used with Pro16 Series products when digital snake and audio distribution systems larger than 32 channels are required. One AN-16SBR is used at each end of every 48- or 64-channel run. The AN-16SBR supports the configurations of 64x0, 48X16, 32x32 or smaller.

Features of the new System Bridge include two identical 1U rack-mount modules, each with four Neutrik EtherCon connectors (16 channels each) and one Neutrik EtherCon connector for Bridge output (up to 64 channels).

Multiple AN-16SBR units can be used to create complex systems and, at each end of a main run, one AN-16SBR is used to c

Details
UK / Bulgaria - Switchcraft has strengthened its international representation by appointing Sofia based AT Company to stock and supply its connectors, patchbays and cable assemblies to the broadcast and professional audio markets in Bulgaria.

Stephen Waldron, Switchcraft's director of international sales, says: '"AT Company is a well established supplier within its market place and we are very pleased to enter this new relationship that will increase the availability of our products and introduce the Switchcraft range to new customers."

(Chris Henry)

Details
UK - Epic Dickens tales have been the name of the game recently for the in-house designers at Autograph. They have been involved in the new productions of Nicholas Nickleby and Two Cities at Chichester Festival Theatre and Salisbury Playhouse respectively.

Nick Lidster and Matt Mckenzie designed the David Edgar version of one of Charles Dickens' greatest novels, which formed part of the 2006 Season at The Chichester Festival Theatre. Broken down into two parts, the captivating story was told in a marathon six and a half hours of wonderful ensemble theatre, accompanied by new music written by Matthew Scott.

Not content with this ample workload, Nick Lidster also found time to design Noel Coward's Tonight at 8:30 in the Minerva Theatre, the studio space at the Festival Theatre. Meanwhile in Salisbury, Chris Full has designed The Playhouse's new musical produ

Page 1928 of 3426
LSi 40th sponsors - Large MPU - July-Aug

Latest Issue. . .