UK - Tower Productions has recently added a number of machines to its highly-spec'd generator stock based in Edinburgh. The new machines are all FG Wilson XD series with super-hushed canopies and long-running fuel tanks, ideal for event work.

New control panels are being fitted to allow on-board; AMF, sequencing and synchronised load-sharing, on all machines from 60kva - 275kva. This negates the need for any separate remote AMF/Synch panels and makes for very quick and very simple deployment on site, says the company.

The new machines complement the existing stock of similarly specified machines all of which have on-board synch panels and have proved popular in the event power market, particularly where 100% redundancy is required for power-critical applications.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Polar Audio has announced the release of two new ranges of Dynacord amplifiers to the UK market - The DSA and SL Series.

The DSA series comprises three models - the DSA8405 (4x 500Watts), DSA8410 (4x 1000Watts), DSA8805 (8x 500Watts). Designed for fixed installations these amplifiers offer high efficiency, stable output power and outstanding performance. Each multi-channel amplifier offers flexibility owing to their Variable Load Drive (VLD) technology. The amplifiers' Variable Load Drive technology provides the ability to switch the mode of each power-amp channel and can be individually configured to deliver a maximum power of 500Watts or 1000Watts into any load from 2 to 10 ohms.

The competitively priced SL series is aimed at the mobile and fixed installation markets and offers the complete package of reliability, high-output, high-efficiency and Dynacord performance. T

Denmark - Available now is the LC Plus Series from Martin Professional, a modular system of LED video panels with new generation technology that closely integrates light, video and set design for new possibilities in indoor and outdoor staging. Designed for the demanding rental and staging market, yet equally suitable for fixed installations such as retail environments and outdoor architecture, the LC Plus is an easy-to-use, all-in-one video solution, says the company.

The LC Plus is built around Martin's new P3 technology platform (Pixel Push Protocol) for video signal processing and distribution. Based on Gigabit Ethernet and Ca t5e wiring, the P3 technology removes the inherent limitations of video-type protocols for easy connectivity and speed of set-up.

The Ethernet based system is true plug and play, eliminating the limitations of DVI, fibre optic and coax (SDI) cable co

UAE - The recently-opened Dubai Mall is one of the largest malls in the world, boasting 1,200 retail outlets, two department stores and more than 160 food and beverage vendors. The mall's 220-store Gold Souk is an elaborately decorated area used for special events by the UAE Royal Family and other dignitaries, in addition to serving as an impressive entertainment area for mall visitors.

The Gold Souk features a 75ft diameter domed super high-resolution projection screen (designed by Salt Lake City-based Evans and Sutherland Digital Theaters Group) raised 40ft above the floor, which necessitated powerful and clear audio. The design of the area presented acoustical challenges, all of which were met with a custom system featuring EAW AX Series Loudspeakers and some architectural solutions. The system was designed by Indianapolis, IN-based firm Bowen Technovation.

Because of the v

UK - Speed is a dangerous imperative where rigging is concerned, yet there is an ever-growing demand for fast efficient turnover of productions. Echo Arena Liverpool, part of Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool (ACC Liverpool), the most recent addition to the UK's circuit of large-scale indoor events venues, has addressed this demand head on.

"The rigging grid system installed over the stage, and repeated above the centre of the arena floor, is second to none in terms of sheer utility and speed of operation," says David Bond of Star Events Group. "It has the reduction of Working at Height hours at its core."

The grid system was installed and is operated on behalf of the Echo Arena by Star Events Group; the control and hoist system used to move it comes from Lift Turn Move (LTM), a specialist entertainment rigging hardware supplier based close by in the Wi

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

UK - When the Bird College in Sidcup, a leading training centre for dance and theatre performance, needed to adapt one of their dance studios to allow it to be easily transformed into a performance space and back, it was to entertainment lighting supplier White Light that they turned.

"The college required us to provide a versatile rig that would allow the space to be transformed from a dance studio into a theatre space and back again" notes Matt Stridgen, White Light's projects co-ordinator responsible for the Bird College installation. "This required the installation of a new lighting grid and lighting infrastructure together with tracking and drapes to allow the space itself to be varied."

The new installation is based around an 8m by 7.5m internally-wired lighting grid featuring 20 15A sockets as well as a DMX outlet for control of automated lighting or

UK - A.C. Audio has recently supplied a sound and control system to Blackpool Pleasure Beach for their latest outdoor display, the Spectacular Dancing Water Show. The new high energy, interactive water display is situated at the heart of the beach complex, providing various theatrical showers of shooting fountains over 100ft high. It is choreographed to a wide repertoire of music including classical, pop and even rugby anthems.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach approached A.C. to specify and supply a powerful, durable sound system for the water show. The system needed to be able to withstand both the wet environment and high ambient noise levels emanating from the surrounding restaurant district. Knowing KV2 Audio had previously manufactured loudspeakers to such high levels of durability, A.C. Audio sales manager Peter Butler turned to KV2 with the brief.

"The reliability o

featured content

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

Germany - Peavey has added two new, feature-laden mixers to its long-running PV Series, including the compact mixers, the PV 6 USB, and PV 8 USB.

The PV 6 USB and PV 8 USB feature built-in effects, send on every channel with stereo return, zero latency record monitoring capabilities, and h more, while a USB port allows direct connection to a USB-equipped computer for recording from the mixer or playing back digital audio (compatible with Windows XP, ME & 2000). Both of these models also include pre-fader monitor sends; inserts on all channels; and dual switchable line inputs on the two stereo channels.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - Meyer Sound has announced the introduction of the D-Mitri digital audio platform, which provides the foundation of the company's next generation of digital products, beginning with the LCS audio show control system and Constellation electroacoustic architecture. D-Mitri is a powerful network-based system that encompasses the entire audio chain, from microphone input to loudspeaker output, incorporating multichannel distribution, multichannel recording and playback, and show control automation.

Inherently scalable to virtually any size, D-Mitri systems can be tailored to the unique requirements of theme parks, spectacle shows, theatrical productions, museums, planetariums, performing arts centers, stadiums and arenas, and retail environments.

"D-Mitri builds on years of our experience in creating uniquely flexible digital audio systems which serve applications ra

The Netherlands/New Zealand - Royal Philips has announced today that it has acquired New Zealand-based Selecon. Under the terms of the agreement, Philips will acquire the business assets of Selecon New Zealand Limited, Selecon UK Limited, Selecon North America LLC and Aureol Lighting Limited. No financial details on the transaction were disclosed.

"Selecon's highly acclaimed luminaires for the theatrical and architectural markets will further strengthen the breadth of solutions Philips can offer to important professional customers such as performing arts centres, churches, convention centres and hotels," said Rudy Provoost, chief executive of Philips' Lighting sector. "Today we are further strengthening the product portfolio of our globally leading entertainment lighting business, building on the foundation provided by the acquisition of Genlyte in 2008."

H

Germany - Distributor of HHB professional audio products in Germany and Austria, Innoton is celebrating its second anniversary at Musikmesse 2009.

As Innoton¹s business continues to grow, the company has announced the appointment of Manfred Kintzel as sales & marketing manager. Kintzel comes to Innoton with a considerable knowledge of audio technologies, and 15 years¹ experience working in the industry.

Coinciding with the expansion of the team, Innoton is also launching a new website at www.innoton.de with detailed information, pictures and downloads for all products, and an on-line store for selected products including HHB Professional Recording Media.

Central to Innoton¹s dramatic growth is the success achieved with the HHB FlashMic Digital Recording Microphone, with 1,000 units already sold in Germany and Austria.

In addition to the distribution of HHB products, Inn

UK - Ateis UK is making its International FIREX debut this year to showcase its voice alarm (VA) and sound installation equipment. Already an established manufacturer of VA and audio reproduction systems for the public address sector, Ateis is looking to raise its profile in the British marketplace and will be promoting its DIVA8M alarm technology, network systems and Messenger line array loudspeakers.

Ateis is sharing a stand with ICS, suppliers of high technology detection products, who were recently appointed distributors for the DIVA8M range of compact, eight zone VA systems. A full system will be running during the show to demonstrate the DIVA8M's capabilities, including audio digital signal processing, matrixing of signals, digital message play-out, a fully monitored fireman microphone and amplifier and loudspeaker line monitoring, all with complete backup for the amplifie

Germany - QSC this week launched its K Series product group of lightweight, high-performance powered loudspeakers.

QSC director of entertainer solutions Ray van Straten states, "The K Series has been designed entirely without compromise, from the ground up. QSC has departed from convention and at the same time exploded a myth that smaller woofers must equate to lower performance.

"Competitors will typically use the highest power amplifier and the best quality drivers in the largest format model, while designing their smaller format models with lower power amplification and lesser performing components. This allows them to reduce the price of the smaller models, further propagating the myth that a smaller woofer enclosure necessitates lower performance."

He continues, "Apart from using the same amp module across the line, we are also using the same quality

UK - EasyDaq has launched a new low-cost, 8-channel wireless relay card and USB-connected transceiver set for use in cable-free lighting control. Its XBee transceivers provide an RF connection with a secure and rugged transmission protocol over a minimum 100m range.

The card will switch 120/240VAC at 10 amps. All (uncommitted) relay contacts are taken to two-part (male/female) screw terminal connectors allowing rapid connect/disconnect of the card. Its USB-connected and powered XBee transceiver module is housed in a small fully-potted ABS enclosure, while the relay card is available with a perspex cover and DIN rail mount option.

The USB relay card uses simple ASCII/text commands to initialise and control. It is Windows, Mac OSX and Linux compatible and existing EasyDAq serial/USB relay card users can easily port their code to it.

The product joins EasyDaq's existing range

UK - Wonderworks has created a ghostly hologram within the new £1m permanent exhibition, Uncovering Origins, at Charles Darwin's Down House In Kent. Forming part of the bicentennial celebrations of the great scientist's birth, it was created in conjunction with Paradigm AV.

Wonderworks was contracted by design consultancy, Designmap, who created the exhibition for English Heritage. The Darwin hologram is set in faithful recreation of his cabin on the Beagle. MDM Props (Designmap's build partner on the project) realised the cabin interior. Having partnered Wonderworks many times in the past, Paradigm AV was brought in to work on the elaborate fabrication.

It was at Down House that Darwin lived with his devoted family for 40 years, and it was here that he researched and wrote his most famous and seminal work, On the Origin of Species.

The new exhibition cha

USA Full Sail University has invested in 13 Audient ASP8024 desks in its Recording Arts department. 12 24-channel Audient consoles have been installed in what is known as the Analogue Mix Lab and the thirteenth is set up in the lecture room.

Greg Griffith, sound foundations course director at Full Sail University, reports, "Each station, including the one in the lecture room has a full patchbay, is loaded with time-based and dynamics processors and a hard disk based multi-track, enabling class demonstrations to be shown on the same equipment that the students will use in the lab."

Eric Abraham, console department chair at Full Sail University, says, "The ASP8024 consoles are being used in the Sound Foundations course, which is the first course in which the students get to deal with a true inline recording console. The students learn signal flow and the recording

USA - Rosco Laboratories and The ESTA Foundation have announced the presentation by Mark Engel, president of Rosco, of a cheque for the first annual royalty payment to Behind the Scenes from sales of the colour Roscolux 359 Medium Violet. Engel presented the cheque for $2,876 in front of a large gathering on the show floor at USITT in Cincinnati just prior to the annual Behind the Scenes / Long Reach Long Rider raffle.

Engel stated, "These challenging economic times require both imaginative solutions -- and compassion for those in need. That's one of the reasons Rosco is so pleased to be involved in The ESTA Foundation's Behind The Scenes programme. We contribute a part of the proceeds from sales of one of the most popular colours in Roscolux, 359 Medium Violet, to Behind The Scenes. More and more people throughout the industries we serve are choosing this colour both for m

Germany - Lighting manufacturer OSRAM now offers two high-performance HMI metal halide lamps. The stars on the set - OSRAM HMI 24000W/DXS and OSRAM HMI 1800W/SE XS - are being shown at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt this week.

The new HMI 24000W/DXS displays its strengths especially in large-scale location shots. The double-base HMI 24000W/DXS owes its high performance of more than two million lumens to the recently developed sealing foil system with four molybdenum foils, which is also implemented in the current HMI 18000W/DXS. Together with OSRAM's eXtreme Seal technology the lamp's thermal resistance is especially impressive: the maximum permitted pinch temperature in the lamp is 450?C. The average lifespan of the HMI 24000W/DXS is around 375 hours.

The Single-base OSRAM HMI 1800W/SE XS are suitable for use as spotlights in TV and photo studios as well as in stagecraft. With

Germany - This week's Frankfurt Pro Light + Sound show marks the launch of Adamson's Point Series that includes five new models complete with EASE Data; the Point 8, Point 12 and Point 15 two-way enclosures, with companion single and double 15" subwoofers; the Point115 Sub and Point 215 Sub. A new 4 x 8 DSP, The Point Control, is also available for optimal speaker management.

The Point Series incorporates Adamson's Advanced Cone Architecture in all 12" and 15"cabinets. These low-mid transducers have Kevlar cone geometries that reduce modal behaviour, providing an improved and linearised pass-band.

The Point 8, Point 12 and Point 15 are all available in both, active and passive versions. The Point 15 and Point 12 are equipped with either a 40 x 20, 60 x 40 or 90 x 60 rotatable Waveguide, for maximum flexibility. The smaller Point 8 is available with a 90 x 60 rot

Germany - Two key announcements were made by the Roland Systems Group (RSG) at Frankfurt: first, the restructuring of the RSS team in the UK following the promotion of Peter Heath to the board of Roland UK, and secondly, the arrival of the new RSS M-48 Live Personal Mixer.

Roland UK has announced key changes to its executive team, with commercial director Tim Walter taking on the role of Chief Operating Officer, and Peter Heath stepping onto the board of directors in the newly-created position of sales director.

Signalling a show of solidarity with its dealer network, the board of Roland UK has, for the first time in several years, two directors involved in shaping sales strategies and relationships. Tim Walter remains in charge of all sales and marketing, and adds responsibility for operations to his remit; he will now be supported by Peter Heath, who has a dedicated sales ma

USA - Smokey Robinson performed at this year's Grammy Awards as part of a Four Tops tribute, including Jamie Foxx, Ne-Yo, and Duke Fakir, the only surviving Four Tops member. Onstage, the singer was a longtime believer in floor wedges when it came to meeting his monitoring needs, this until a meeting with the late Luther Vandross prompted his switch to Shure in-ear monitors.

"My production manager is this guy named Brian French, and Brian had tried to get me to switch to ear monitors for probably eight years," Robinson says. "I went to see Luther Vandross - who was a really good friend of mine - and he was at the Hollywood Bowl. Afterwards I went backstage, and he said, 'Smoke, let me tell you, the ear monitors, they are really what's happening. It's like singing to yourself in the studio. When you saw me, when I came on, I was barely singing, because I could hear

Latest Issue. . .