Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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UK - PLASA Focus, Leeds - the first regional trade show event from the PLASA Events portfolio - opened its doors at 10am this morning at the start of what promises to be two valuable days of business and networking opportunities. In total across the two filled halls of Leeds Royal Armouries, 100 of the industry's leading manufacturers and suppliers are exhibiting at this inaugural PLASA Focus event.

Aside from the genuinely strong exhibitor commitment to the show, organisers PLASA Events say that the response from potential visitors has also been very satisfying, with almost 2,500 online pre-registrations received prior to the closure of pre-registration facility last week. If you haven't already registered for the event but would like to visit, don't be put off - you can simply r

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Denmark - The Martin MAC 301 Wash is an LED moving head washlight with a powerfully fast zoom and impressive zoom range. Designed for a variety of settings including rental applications, television use and night-time venues, it is capable of producing a wide range of exceptional colours from rich saturated shades to uniform pastels through the entire zoom range, says the company.

The MAC 301 Wash's zoom provides beam angle control from 13 - 36° for more accurate and flexible design possibilities, and the fixture's RGB colour mixing is maintained through the entire zoom range.

The fixture's 108 LEDs produce a bright and well-defined beam. With LEDs arrayed in a high density design, a more even blending of colours is achieved.

A principal feature of the MAC 301 Wash is its RGB colour mixing system. The full spectrum system combines with the optical system to produce a wide

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South Africa - ETC's Eos lighting control desk has had its first outing in South Africa, with Prosound/T&A Lighting supplying one for use on the theatrical production of High School Musical.

Lighting director Declan Randall says, "This is a user-friendly but powerful desk which was able to do everything that I needed. I was sceptical at first, but very quickly learned my way around it and was able to program all 768 lighting cues without any problem. I am very impressed. It is a new system and as ETC is frequently issuing software updates, it is improving all the time. I would not hesitate to specify it for any other show in the future."

ETC's senior programmer Luke Delwiche went over to South Africa to help with the programming, where T&A Lighting also made him available to others who were interested in learning more about the desk.

Ian Blair, T&A Lighting'

Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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UK - Peavey has announced that it has again been asked to provide the sound system for the main stage at the London International Music Show (LIMS) from 11-14 June 2009. A Peavey system was also used last year for the inaugural LIMS, when Yngwie Malmsteen and Joe Satriani headed the list of artists performing (along with The Blockheads, who made a special appearance at the exclusive Peavey-sponsored exhibitor party).

This year's line-up includes Jan Akkerman, Albert Lee with Hogan's Heroes, and The Swans.

"This is a fantastic showcase for music, musicians and the equipment that goes with it, and Peavey is proud to be playing its part in presenting such a talented line-up - including many of my personal idols - to the visitors at LIMS", said Clive Roberts, managing director of Peavey Europe. "Last year's show was a fantastic advertisement for the UK music scene,

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UK - British Harlequin's Hi-Shine floor will be to the fore when the company exhibits at the ABTT Theatre Show 2009 to be held at London's Royal Horticultural Halls next month.

Also on show will be a wide range of examples from Harlequin's extensive catalogue of floors for the performing arts. Visitors will able to examine many different floor types with expert support on hand to provide guidance and advice.

Although widely known for their floors for dance and the performing arts, Harlequin also provides special flooring for theatre stages, television studios, exhibitions and display. Harlequin manufactures a comprehensive range from portable, roll-out floors to cushioned, heavy duty permanent floors, plus permanent and touring sprung floor systems. These are complemented by a range of accessories including tapes and cleaning products, roll straps, storage bags and an extensiv

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UK - Proteus Displays is running two open days to demonstrate its new Mezzanine Imaging system. Mezzanine combines a tracking system to calculate the beam and footprint positions of moving lights alongside a media player with unique image controls. The system provides a facility for integrating lighting with video enabling conventional moving lights to project digital imagery on to the reflective display surface.

Paul Silsby CTO comments, "After all the interest we received at PLASA 08 we have been keen to develop this system further. The Mezzanine effect provides lighting designers with a new canvas which enables a level of integration between lighting and display technologies that has not been possible previously."

The demonstrations are taking place at LED Screenhire in Littlehampton on 7 and 8 May.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Vice president of Pyrotek Special Effects, Lorenzo Cornacchia, worked alongside production designer Daunte Kenner and production manager MaceoPrice to help create an explosive show for Lil Wayne's I Am Music World Tour.

Kenner and Price collaborated with Cornacchia to integrate a series of effects for the tour. Cornacchia was introduced to Kenner during the 2007 BET awards, where Cornacchia designed a barrage of custom flame effects, including a flaming microphone stand for Lil Wayne's performance of Gossip.Cornacchia, who has worked on numerous occasions with Kenner, enjoys doing so because "He's innovative and brings fresh ideas to the table". The Lil Wayne I Am Music World Tour consists of an array of various special effects. One of the custom effects designed for the tour resembles a gatling gun which acts as a flame thrower, shooting an

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Singapore - Chingay is a regional festival in South East Asia celebrating the upcoming spring. Tracing its roots back to the middle of the last century, it is now a parade with floats running along major streets in various cities throughout Malaysia and Singapore. Celebrated for the 37th time in Singapore, Chingay Singapore is today Asia's grandest street parade. Two grandMA full-size consoles running in full-tracking backup mode, plus four MA NSPs (Network Signal Processor) running 16 DMX universes were placed at front of house to run the show's lighting.

Emphasising the multicultural history of Singapore and themed Project Wonderland, this year's parade featured 13 floats, with over 4,000 performers from 40 organisations from Singapore and seven other countries including Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia, India, South Korea and The Philippines. An estimated 150.000 visitors j

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UK - When the new Westfield London shopping centre opened in west London last October, it became the largest inner city shopping destination in Europe - and an immediate hit with shoppers, who thronged to the venue to visit retailers ranging from Marks & Spencer and Debenhams to Apple, Louis Vuiton, Dior, Prada and Tiffany.

The retail outlets are gathered in malls and a village area around a central atrium the size of a football pitch with a spectacular undulating glass roof. To bring life to the atrium, and to offer support to the entertainment events which will often be staged there, Westfield is equipped with some of the very latest lighting technology, all supplied by leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light.

"We started with a brief to support the events, shows and experiential marketing that was planned in the first year to seed the space, and I also look

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AC/DC's Black Ice world tour has crashed into the UK, accompanied by vintage and state-of-the-art Midas technology. Front of house engineer Paul 'Pab' Boothroyd is using a refurbished eighties PRO40 console to mix the band, with a PRO6 live audio system alongside to run the Klark Teknik DN9696 hard disc recorder and mix support band The Answer. A Midas Heritage 4000 is the monitor console for AC/DC, with a second PRO6 being used to monitor support bands.

"I've always enjoyed analogue consoles, and I'll use whatever suits the job," says Boothroyd. "A band like AC/DC warrants using a good old analogue desk because they're a good old analogue band. It's not like I have masses of processing, FX sends or over-EQing going on, just a little bit of compression. Nothing fancy as it doesn't need to be, and I'm having a great time using it."

The 25-year-old PRO40 was

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Germany - The Sommer Cable main catalogue has been revised and added to once again. Across 400 pages the cable manufacturer is presenting an even bigger comprehensive and well-structered product range that offers everything from cable bulkware for the audio, video and network technology sectors including the appropriate hybrid cables to matching connectors and ready-made cables to complex routing systems, various active components and the corresponding accessories.

In addition to the comprehensive product information, the catalogue covers several informative subjects like including a crash course in cable production and cable characteristics plus a brief introduction to general audio technology.

As before, it is available in German, English and French., and for the first time in Spanish and Russian.

(Jim Evans)

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Croatia - Adris Group, one of the leading companies in Croatia's tourist and travel sector, chose a Klotz Digital Varizone PA system for its new five star hotel Monte Mulini in Rovinj/Istria. Varizone has been installed by Dicroic, Klotz's Croatian sales and service partner.

Since working with the new PA system, Adris Group has secured a long term contract with Dicroic for the design, projecting, installation and maintenance in the field of audio, video & multimedia solutions and has named Klotz Digital as one of its official suppliers.

"Klotz Digital's remarkable technology allows a fast and individual assignment of zones without rewiring, which is an extraordinary advantage in the SPA. Separate areas and rooms are used for different events over a specific time period and need to be rearranged, both physically and acoustically, every few weeks," says Dicroic's proje

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Germany - At the beginning of March 2009, the 100,000th Dynacord PowerMate was delivered.

In the mid 1990s, Dynacord presented the first generation of the powered mixer, PowerMate. Unlike conventional all-in-one solutions, the PowerMate was designed to exhibit no compromises whatsoever. "Our mission was clear," says Josef Taffner, who as developer played an important role in shaping the design and history of the PowerMate. "We wanted to offer the discerning musician a compact system capable of being used intuitively at the highest performance level.

"Almost all the engineers and technicians in the PowerMate development team are musicians themselves. We knew from our own experience what qualities, in an ideal world, a power mixer ought to possess and were also able to meet the requirements of our customers in a logical way."

The PowerMate was intended

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UK - Landmark London venue The Scala, has upgraded its front-of-house console, replacing its old mixing desk with a new 32-channel Soundcraft MH3 analogue, multi-mode console.

The board was specified by the venue's experienced head of sound, George Gregori, on recommendation from Soundcraft dealer, Pete Brotzman of Crystal Pro Audio, who provided the venue with much of its audio support.

The desk is also used by day to run live sound training courses run by Gregori for his company Live Sound Courses. With many alumni having progressed to great achievements in the professional world of live sound mixing, he believes that the physicality of the analogue surface is much more forgiving than the digital equivalents.

"The MH3 is perfect for our needs - unlike our previous desk which was being repaired so often that it became uneconomical to maintain," observes Gregori.

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Macau - Having renovated the small auditorium at the Macao Cultural Centre in 2006 with an ARCS system, L-Acoustics' Chinese distributor, Rightway Audio has now installed a new Kudo Line Source System into the venue's Grand Auditorium. One of the first theatre systems to be installed in South East Asia, it will primarily be used for classical and orchestral concerts and was supplied by Rightway to systems integrator, J K Brothers Audio Engineering Co.

The Grand Auditorium, a two-storey space with a capacity of 1,114, has been installed with 18 Kudo cabinets configured in three equal hangs at left, centre and right positions. These are supplemented with four SB28 subwoofers which can be positioned as required, four 115XT HiQ monitors for front-fill, four 112P self-powered stage monitors and four 8XT compact oaxial as rear surround. This system is driven by 10 LA8 and two LA4 ampl

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UK - Ultravox are back on the road 30 years after the release of the iconic Vienna. Keeping the crew, production teams and artists sustained on tour are caterers Eat To The Beat, also approaching their own milestone of 25 years tour catering.

The Return To Eden tour, promoted by Live Nation, plays 17 dates across the UK throughout April and May. Two Eat To The Beat chefs, Rachel Collins and Ali Matthew, are travelling with the tour, carrying their own flight cased equipment and utilising each venue facilities to prepare and serve three meals a day.

Production Manager Dave Claxton observes, "Midge [Ure] was recently a finalist on Celebrity Masterchef so he understands how pressurised the life of a chef can be. It always amazes me how they manage to produce such a varied spread at high standards in a wide range of conditions. They do it with humour and

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Indonesia - The Music Républicain Performance Hall is a part of Music Républicain, the new school for music and image founded by Ivonne Atmojo and Ivana Atmojo in August 2008. Located in South Jakarta, Indonesia, the Music Républicain Performance Hall is a multi-purpose facility, which can be used for different settings including small ensemble, orchestra, theatre, opera, Broadway show and music concert. The Performance Hall was completed at the end of 2008 and is now open for public events. With an area of 126sq.m, it has a seating capacity of 140.

Ivonne Atmojo, the owner, said that there are not many performance halls in Indonesia that have good acoustics. At the end of 2007, she and Hadi Sumoro, a member of Community Professional Loudspeaker's Technical Application Group (TAG), worked together planning the school's performance hall. Her main concern was

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UK - Orbital Sound reports that its annual Sound Fundamentals Training Course for theatre sound technicians was fully subscribed, with 24 students attending, from 14-17 April. Now in its eighth year, the course was held at Orbital's purpose-built 225m2 seminar facility in Brixton, south London, presenting students with the full range of technical disciplines across show control, radio microphones, video, communications and networking.

Tutored by Orbital's training manager Theo Holloway, the course is designed to combine theatre sound theory with extensive hands-on practice.

"A technical career in theatre sound requires a broad range of skills, from understanding the specialist technologies to the interpersonal qualities required in a tightly-knit team environment," says Holloway. "This year has probably been the most successful course to date - we had a great bu

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UK - Live performers looking for a compact and cost-effective route to recording their shows are increasingly turning to RSS, and its implementation of the Cakewalk Sonar recording software as part of the M-400 V-Mixing System.

At opposite ends of the UK, and indeed opposite ends of the musical spectrum, two artists have recently been using the RSS V-Mixing digital 40-track package to record concerts, one for a live album release later in the year and the other for archive purposes. Both AC/DC tribute band Live/Wire and Sheila Jordan, one of the stars of the Sage Gateshead International Jazz Festival, were using RSS digital audio technology to provide front-of-house and stage sound control for their shows.

The 'grandmother of bebop', Sheila Jordan is still performing in her eighties. For her concert at the Sage Centre in Gateshead, Simon Kenning from RSS was on hand to support

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UK - The Curve Theatre in Leicester's visuals may have grabbed the media headlines, but the venue's audio virtues are just as impressive. These include eight Yamaha mixing consoles and two digital mix engines. A vast amount of planning went into every facet of the venue, with Capital Project Director Graham Lister bringing together a wide variety of specialists in an 'end user consultation team' to ensure that every department offered the optimum end product for the theatre's most important users - the ticket-buying public.

Ben Harrison and John Owens were two high profile names invited to the committee to oversee the design of the audio systems.

"The brief was that the sound equipment had to be state of the art and able to cater for every kind of production that Curve might be likely to stage, with minimal extra hire costs," says Harrison. "We knew the producti

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Australia - Enttec has announced the release of its new MIDIwing control software. MIDIwing, in conjunction with Enttec's already well-established playback, shortcut, and programming wings, gives users the ability to define midi note or ASCII triggers for any lighting or media control device that will listen to the protocol.

The software, which uses TCP network packets to send midi notes over an Ethernet based network, can trigger up to 408 unique commands through a maximum of six wings, which can each handle between 54 and 68 individual single note triggers. The software is also capable of easily importing or exporting any of the wing configurations, and running quietly in the background processes of the PC.

MIDIwing's user customisable nature allows for endless adaptation to countless controllers. The programme can be successfully integrated with many widely used lighting co

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