USA - The grandMA has hit the road with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers as the band celebrates its 30th anniversary with the national Highway Companion Tour. A pair of grandMA consoles, supplied by Ed & Ted, are currently in use on the third leg of the tour, which runs through the end of October.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers are selling out concerts and breaking house records across the country. The band has sold more than 50 million records since its formation, received 16 Grammy nominations and was inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame the first year of its eligibility.

The tour's production designer, Jim Lenahan's approach to lighting and video is "very much a combination of super new, and old school," reports programmer Stan Green. "There's no video direct

DNH Worldwide, the manufacturer of specialist industrial and commercial loudspeakers, showed the new Music Master range of high performance cabinets.

As reported in this month's news, it was announced at the show that two further licensees have been added to EtherSound's fast-growing stable - Peavey Electronics and Yamaha. Peavey says that Crest Audio amplifiers and mixing consoles are to be its first products with EtherSound capability. Yamaha, who told press that the EtherSound license is part of its mission to create "the future of music and sound", feels that EtherSound provides a reliable solution in integrating Yamaha digital consoles into a networked audio system which includes products from multiple manufacturers.

Ebsel Pro Audio is a London-based partnership between manufacturer Seltron Components and DJ promotion company Eclectic Breaks, who have come up with a new product - the Pro X Fade crossfader. After meeting at PLASA in 2003, they fused ideas and came up with this robust, long-lasting, high quality crossfader. Users can adjust the tension, lag time etc, and it plugs into all existing mixers. They enjoyed a busy show and invited top DJs to demonstrate the product, including DJ Roc Raida from the US, DJ 2Tall from the UK and others.

Getting the low-down of what's new in the world of flightcasing on the Amptown Cases stand, over a German beer, provided some respite from the bustle of the show. As it turns out, a lot is new in the world of cases, with Amptown showing a nifty box mechanism: for those cases with front and back removable lids (that someone takes to catering as a tea tray and never returns), the new mechanism has a slider whereby the lid remains attached and can slide into the case on both sides.

GSL Power Distribution were sharing a stand with Amptown, offering power racks, housed in sturdy Amptown cases, with one of GSL's distro' systems taking its place in the Awards for Innovation Gallery. Launched by Garry Lodge, GSL offers the entertainment industry and rental operations in particular a new approach to providing power solutions with its interchangeable power modules, unveiled at the

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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

The Dolby Lake Processor provides advanced control and flexibility over complex speaker systems for live events, fixed installations and studio settings. The processor is easy to integrate into any audio system and the software interface is intuitive, saving sound engineers' time in set-up and handling. Via its four front-panel portals and the wireless tablet, engineers have easy access to monitor the system and make adjustments in real time. The basic platform offers complete, native-digital signal-processing functionality, with support for up to 4-in by 12-out for loudspeaker applications and eight-in by eight-out for EQ applications.

Abstract AVR's main show focus was the CRX motorised LED strip light and their brand new LED helicopter light. The pitching LED strip is an 800mm long LED strip containing 1W emitters. Also highlighted were other AVR club and dancefloor lighting effects and their CRX AR 1-11 wall LED fixtures.
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Create new traditions – Cameo P6 - High Output Full-Spectrum Ellipsoidal

Cameo's P6 is a future-proof LED profiler with a powerful 600 W RGBACL engine and 16,000 lumens. It’s an energy-efficient replacement for 2.5 kW halogen profile lights in theatres and venues. With excellent light quality and natural colour rendering, it fits perfectly in theatres, musicals, TV studios, congresses, and live events.

With an LED life of 50,000 hours and low power use, the P6 cuts energy costs and supports the EU’s ‘Green Deal’ goals for climate neutrality by 2050. It also meets updated eco-design rules for lighting.

www.cameolight.com/p6profile

MC2 Audio were proudly showing a product previewed earlier in the year at Frankfurt. The E475 has just come into production and the company was happy to announce that it already has 100 units on back order. The4-channel amp can provide 750W per channel and is designed for touring monitor systems.

Tecpro2 - currently being Beta tested - is the new offering from Canford Audio, consisting of a Master Station and extender unit. It's more powerful than the original Tecpro unit and with additional extender units offers up to four individual full duplex comms circuits. Additional useful elements include remote mic kill and an 'announce' feature. It will be retro-compatible with previous Tecpro products.

Following the Genlyte Group's acquisition of Strand Lighting and the subsequent shut-down of the UK operation, Strand Lighting Inc was on stand to reassure existing customers of its continued commitment to the European market. The company also launched its new Palette lighting console. Strand's Ed Twentyman reported that the Palette was "superbly received and generated huge interest". Visitor numbers to the stand were excellent and the level of enquiries very good, said Strand.

Wango's were busy changing the face of staging. As UK distributor for American manufacturer Staging Concepts, Wango's can offer a range of staging that requires only one tool to put together. With no working under decks, risk of injury has been reduced; the system is quick to assemble and Wango's say they have saved on truck size. Their primary focus is sales, but Wango's do have some hire stock too.

Also sharing distributor White Light's stand LDDE displayed its 100% dimmable colour changing fluorescents - the SpectraConnect T5. LDDE also introduced its SpectraLed*144 - the first LED colour-mixing unit with an RGBAW configuration of 144x1W high-power LEDs. It offers flicker-free fades from 0-100% intensity and can be run inline with the SpectraConnect T5 units.

Yet another eclectic spread of products on the A.C. Lighting stand: in no particular order, a new 15A Grelko that cannot be cross/half-plugged; the new Chroma Q+ colour scroller which can now handle 20 frames; Cross Pole from Manfrotto - as the name implies, a gaffer's pole for horizontal mount between adjacent walls, to rig lights from, with a 75kg capacity at 6m; the DTS range of lamps from Italy - everything from Par cans to the new Delta range of colour mixing floodlight fittings rated IP65.

DTS had their own stand and were also exhibiting the new XR9 and XR8 moving head projectors. DTS's Pierluigi Gasperoni said: "Year after year we experience that PLASA is the best stage to show our news and to meet professionals from all over the world. PLASA is a top level event that attracts the best audience we could look for, that's why D.T.S. always introduces its new products d

German company All4Light BV prides itself on its almost indestructible LED fixtures. New products on show included: CrystalColor 5 (ColorMotion) - a DMX-controlled colour-changing IP68-rated fixture; CrystalColor 5 -a colour-changing IP68 fixture that simulates white light ranging from 2750°K to 8000°K; CrystalColor 7 - a small IP68 spot featuring multi-mirror precision lenses, supporting various beam angles from 12° to 120° x 140° - and WaterVision WV15 - a new underwater fixture which exceeds the light output of a 300W PAR 56 Halogen spotlight!

Renowned German laser production company Tarm Showlaser highlighted their range of services with a funky new brochure and DVD. This was their second PLASA Show, and reflects the growing international nature of their business. Major display projects for the company this year have included the opening of the Winter Olympics in Turin and a World Cup show at the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin.

Duran Audio were previewing an extension to its successful Intellivox system at PLASA. The updated versions now incorporate HF drivers, improving the steerable array's frequency response up to 18kHz.

In the last year, Duran Audio has enjoyed several high-profile installations with one of the latest being in London's King's Cross and the Berlin Hauptbahnhof in Germany, where AXYS Intellivox and AXYS IntelliDisc-DS90 were installed respectively. The latter was the first installation for the IntelliDisc product, the world's first fully integrated, digitally controlled, two-dimensional loudspeaker array. Joining the team on the stand was new marketing man, Ian Bowler, who is charged with overseeing the AXYS brand.

The latest thing at the TMB stand was Toplight, an integrated, hanging lighting system from FinnLight, run by noted US television lighting director Bruce Finn. Toplight provides high-output illumination from six PAR 64 lamps, with configurable diffusions for a variety of soft light looks.

TMB also showed products that build on existing product lines. The company's DecoPAR range of pinspots and floods now includes PAR 16 and PAR 20 versions. Also, the ColourPix range of large-scale LED video displays now features new high-resolution modules comprised of interlocking panels that are custom-configured for pixel-pitch and size. The ProPower HPS 24- and 48-way Hot Patch Systems allow the use of rackmount dimmers with flexible output options. Also, the ProPower RPD Rack Panel Distribution systems can be custom-configured for each customer or application. The ProTester DMX tool checks

USA - After spending eighteen years in the world of finance, Langston Holland finally fulfilled his lifelong passion for sound, and his dream of a professional audio career, when he founded Soundscapes almost three years ago. Located in Pace, Florida, just outside of Pensacola, the popular regional sound production company services the church market across the Southeastern United States. "About 95-percent of our work is done withchurches, Christian concerts and Christian youth outreach events," Holland explained.

Holland heard about a new company called Danley Sound Labs, founded by audio pioneer Tom Danley. "I read about Danley Sound Labs in the ProSoundWeb forums," he said. "I had always been interested in Tom Danley's ideas. Reputable people in the industry were writing positive things about the products, so I checked them out."

Danley Sound La

Italy's Goboservice announced the appointment of Projection Advertising as its exclusive UK distributor in July 2006. Goboservice is a totally bespoke service and does not offer standard gobos.

Seltron has been busy this year developing new faders specifically with Stanton and Pioneer in mind. The new Pro X-Fade cross fader is the latest development in the range, smaller than previous models but just as robust. In addition, Seltron's new line fader is being supplied to manufacturers including Soundcraft. These products add to the company's growing range of faders, connectors, switches and encoders.

Goboland's Vicky Fairall, who began heading the Belgian company's London branch last year, said the company was having a "brilliant" show. "I just can't tell you how good it's been," she said, "It seems that every visitor to the stand is a new customer." As usual, the company was also offering some traditional Belgian hospitality, in the form of very strong beer, and very nice chocolates.

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