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Stereophonics, with special guests Feeder, have just successfully completed a tour of European arenas employing a vast array of Shure microphones, with support from long standing UK sole distributor HW International.

London Arena was the penultimate venue for the extended UK leg of the tour where Welsh wonder boys Stereophonics and Feeder played yet another sell-out gig. Shure microphones were extensively used to capture the performances: Shure Beta58As handled all the Stereophonics’ vocals, with Kelly Jones (lead vocals, guitar), Richard Jones (vocals, bass), Scott James (vocals, guitar) and Tony Kirkham (keyboards, vocals) choosing this particular microphone due to its tight response pattern and crisp sound. Meanwhile, Stuart Cable’s drum kit was no stranger to Shure product with a Shure Beta52 being employed on kick drum, a Shure Beta57A on snare top and Shure KSM32&rsqu

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Lightfactor Sales has supplied Hertfordshire-based Smart Light & Sound with eight High End Systems Studio Spot 250 and four HES Studio Color 250 wash fixtures for their hire/loan stock. Smart Light & Sound is an innovative, non-profit making organisation set up to help support schools, drama clubs, churches and societies in Hertfordshire - and beyond - with the loan of cutting-edge stage lighting and sound equipment for amateur use.

After in depth research and comparisons between all available intelligent fixtures, Smart Light & Sound’s Bill Parker decided to go with the High End fixtures and Lightfactor. The deciding issues for fixture choice included the benefit of the different lens options on the Spot 250 - ideal for dealing with the short throw distances of many school halls and theatres. Fixture weight was also crucial, together with reliability.

Lightfactor also supplied

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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Frequently referred to as Boston Theatre District’s ‘Little Princess’, the 90-year-old, 1,600-seat Shubert Theatre recently capped off its house sound reinforcement system with the addition of a 32-channel Soundcraft Series FOUR mixing console. Local dealer Boston Light & Sound provided the sale.

The Shubert underwent a $6m restoration back in 1996, at which time an all-EAW/QSC system was installed. A 24-channel Soundcraft 800B desk that had previously been used next door at the Wang since the early 1980s was brought over at the tail end of the renovation to run the Shubert’s house system. Now, almost six years later, the theatre has finally retired its 800B, nearly 20 years old, in favor of a new Series FOUR, which is located ‘rear orchestra’ in typical Broadway fashion.

James R. McCartney, the Shubert’s union sound man for the past three ye

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Leading pro entertainment industry lighting sales specialist TMB Associates has changed its name to TMB. The decision to drop ‘Associates’ from the title was taken last month. "At first we were quite embarrassed about losing our Associates, we couldn’t figure out where they’d gone," stated California-based CEO Colin Waters, "but once we got used to it, we decided we really liked it. Everyone knows us as simply TMB, so now we’ve made it official."

With offices spanning three continents and over 100 full time employees, TMB felt that the term ‘Associates’ was no longer appropriate for its global commercial operations. The company has also launched a new logo, reflecting its growth as a worldwide, high-tech company. The name-change and new logo give TMB a more consolidated approach to international trading and marketing. It al

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The beautiful 325m long Millennium Bridge, which spans the Thames between St. Paul's Cathedral on the north bank and the Tate Modern on the south, opened on 10 June 2000 as London’s first new Thames crossing in more than 100 years. Unbelievably, it remained open for just two days before being closed to the public completely after the bridge started to sway alarmingly as large numbers of pedestrians made the crossing. Engineers to the Millennium Bridge, Arup, have since installed giant dampers to act as shock absorbers for the structure and are now in the final stages of testing the bridge prior to its long-awaited re-opening.

The biggest concern during any test is the safety of those involved. For this particular project the challenge was to devise a communications system which would allow engineers to communicate from one side of the bridge to the other in both directions as wel

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The third of White Light North's Let's Talk Arts meetings took place recently at the studios of Yorkshire Television in Leeds. Visitors were offered a guided tour of YTV's main and regional studios by Neil Salmon, YTV's resident head of lighting, and also received an insight into the complexities of switching the ITV network between main, regional and even sub-regional areas at YTV's principal transmission control area. More importantly, the visitors also enjoyed the buffet lunch with wine - and the chance to 'talk arts'.

Created by White Light North, Let's Talk Arts is a forum run to allow people working in the arts to get together on the first Thursday of every month for what White Light North's John Anderton describes as "lunch and a good gossip!" The forum is open to anyone influential in the arts in Yorkshire, including theatre managers, directors, technica

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Last week DHA Lighting treated members of the ABTT to a backstage tour of My Fair Lady at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. Organised by Louise Tester, DHA's UK sales manager, the event attracted over 70 guests, including David Chivers who had employed David Hersey as an electrician at Theatre Projects when he first arrived in the UK! "It's fascinating seeing what David has achieved," said Chivers. Another ABTT member, Dick Walsingham added: "It's always interesting to see what other people have done."

Howard Bird, executive director of the ABTT, opened the session and introduced a number of speakers, plus front of house demonstrations. Bryan Raven of White Light, Steve McAndrew, chief electrician at the Theatre Royal, and My Fair Lady's production electrician Alistair Grant together described the workings of the variety of equipment used on the show. The

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Clay Paky and its Mexican distributor Vector 10, in collaboration with Miller Mix, Grupo Communica and Ingenieria Electrodigital, recently organised a professional lighting seminar in Mexico City, held at the Flamingo Plasa Hotel from 31 January to 2 February and attended by almost 300 people. This, say Clay Paky, is the first meeting between the most important Lighting Designers and lighting operators ever to be held in Mexico.

Over the course of the three days, Francesco Romagnoli, Clay Paky sales manager for the Americas, and Jorge Aguirre, president of Vector 10, demonstrated Mexican market trends which are providing some very interesting indications: indeed all sectors are in constant growth, from discotheques, to touring, TV and the architectural sector.

One of the highlights of the seminar was the session conducted by Patrick Woodroffe. During his career, Woodroffe has designe

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Proel S.p.A. has established the Proel Lighting division. The operation started with the merging of the lighting manufacturing company M&L s.r.l. of Bellusco (Milan) with Proel S.p.A. This new venture expands the commercial and strategic relations with existing Proel divisions, such as the Sound Reinforcement and the Installation divisions: increased integration with these divisions will allow the company to offer a more comprehensive range of products to the pro audio and lighting market. Product manager of the new Lighting division is Roberto Meggiolaro, major shareholder and founder of M&L.

The official launch of the new division will take place at the Frankfurt Prolight+Sound (13-17 March), Hall 4.1 Stand F31. Following this, the company will be further promoting its Lighting division at SIB International in Rimini (24-27 March). Proel Lighting will feature a Lighting Master Catalo

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SoundField has built a large 5.1 reference and demo room, fully equipped with Genelec monitors at its Wakefield headquarters. The five 1030 monitors and a 1092 sub bass speaker will mainly be used for research, development and the testing of new SoundField ‘MAP’ (Microphone Array Pattern) cards, to be installed in the SP451 Surround Processor. Each MAP card can create an array up to eight microphones from the B-Format information generated by SoundField microphones.

Development engineer Pieter Schillebeeckx rigorously tested many different 5.1 systems before deciding to go with Genelec. He told us: "We are developing MAP cards for both two dimensional and three dimensional multi-channel playback. The accurate localization of sound sources is vital in our development process and after listening to a wide variety of program material the Genelec’s came out on top.&q

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Jands Australia, in cooperation with Stage Technologies, has been awarded an A$5m (£1.8m) contract for Sydney's new Walsh Bay Theatre. The Walsh Bay redevelopment project, to be completed by early 2003, comprises over 250 prestige apartments and a new theatre on the harbour foreshore in the historic Rocks area of Sydney. In partnership with Stage Technologies PLC, Jands will supply and install stage machinery, power flying equipment and theatre infrastructure services including paging, closed circuit televisions and the stage manager'sconsole. Jands is also supplying and installing Jands HP series dimmers, wired lighting bars and cable reelers, curtains and decorative proscenium surrounds.

Working with French company Serapid, Jands will also supply and install Linklift 100 machines, which eliminate the need for screw jacks and caissons for orchestra pits. The 850-seat theatre will be

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Multi-talented Canadian singer Bryan Adams was recently accompanied by three of EST’s familiar purple and yellow trucks for a show in Stockholm as part of his UK and European tour. As well as entertaining fans in his distinctive, gravelly voice, Adams is a highly sought after portrait photographer and was recently commissioned to produce a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II for her Golden Jubilee. Keen EST spotters may recently have seen one of their trucks at Buckingham Palace. Delivering rolls of film perhaps?

Staying on a Canadian theme, French Canadian rock star, Garou is currently utilizing five EST trucks to entertain our French cousins on a tour which runs through to April 14. Meanwhile, the inexhaustible cast of Riverdance has now legged it up to Scotland, hotly pursued by as many as 10 EST trucks. The show runs in Edinburgh until the end of March.

Transport fans will be we

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Crest Audio, the US-based manufacturer of professional audio equipment, has announced new distribution arrangements for its products in the United Kingdom.

Crest Audio UK is a newly formed division of Peavey Electronics Ltd, joining MediaMatrix and Architectural Acoustics. Group marketing manager Dave Bearman welcomes Crest as a perfect fit with the other products. He has also announced the appointment of Andy Simmons as sales manager for Crest Audio UK. Andy has a wealth of experience with Crest products and will strengthen the brand’s position as a leader in the industry.

Crest manufacture a high end range of power amplifiers and professional mixing consoles, together with the Crest Performance series of power amplifiers, speaker systems and audio equipment. The entire range will be available through the new distribution channel. Although Crest Audio UK will be a separate ope

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Marking 10 years of in-depth industry training courses, another successful Hoist and Rigging Workshop was recently hosted by Tomcat USA in Midland, Texas. Leading instructors were joined by nearly 50 industry professional participants from all over the United States and Mexico.

Instructor, Don Dimitroff from Columbus McKinnon, as well as Tomcat’s own Dave Beard, worked participants through the Lodestar electric chain hoist. Rocky Paulson of Stage Rigging and Morgan Neff of Mine Safety Appliances stressed safety in rigging techniques and fall protection equipment while Keith Bohn, Tomcat design manager, wrapped up with truss theory and design. Participants were treated to not only four days of informative classes, but also four nights of fun and the traditional factory night at Tomcat USA with extensive tours, demonstrations, contests and a graduation ceremony.

(Ruth Rossington)

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The official laying of the foundation stone for Martin Professional’s new ultra modern manufacturing facility took place at noon on Friday 15 February 15 in Frederikshavn, Denmark, with a host of top Martin personnel and local dignitaries taking part.

Both Frederikshavn mayor Erik Sørensen and Martin President and CEO Kristian Kolding addressed the large crowd, which numbered nearly 300. Kolding told us: "This ceremony marks an important milestone in our expansion programme and confirms that our new facility will be up and running on schedule later this summer." Geared towards the production of Martin’s most advanced lighting products, the $20 million 12,500sq.m factory is slated for completion in August. Upon completion, Martin will effectively double its production capacity for the manufacture of automated lighting; its current production facility, also located

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Just a few days remain before the Institute of Sound & Communication Engineers (ISCE) ISCEx 2002 - an event designed to address those who work in the installed sound sector. The event, which takes place at the Alexander Stadium, Perry Barr, Birmingham this Wednesday (27th February), will combine a one-day seminar programme and a small exhibition. It will also feature the first ever Warren-Barnett Memorial Lecture given by Peter Mapp.

In addition to the Memorial Lecture, the main seminar programme will feature presentations on Audio for Video Conferencing by Jon Raper; Getting the Measure of Intelligibility by Peter Mapp and Helen Goddard; The Future of the VA Standards by Phil Pratt and Teaching an Old Bear Tricks by Helen Goddard and Robert Thornton.

Exhibitors at the event include AMS-Mapp Acoustics, Baldwin Boxall Communications Ltd, CIE Group Ltd, Communication Technology Ltd, D

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Hels Australia Pty Ltd will now be handling the transtechnik Lichtsysteme range of professional lighting systems for television studios and theatres in Australia. The appointment is recognition of the increasing importance of the markets in the Pacific region. Hels, which is based in Templestowe (a town in Victoria, not far from Melbourne, the state capital), will handle both the Australian market and the entire south-east Asia region. In addition to sales, the company will also work with companies in the planning stages.

Hels is run by Zoltan Seles and Tomas Bardos. The two businessmen have been working together since 1998, supplying technical equipment and services to the television and theatre markets.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Central Theatre Supplies in Birmingham were the hosts of a Lighting & Sound Workshop held at Solihull Arts Complex in Solihull on 2 February. Almost 250 people from amateur theatres, drama groups and schools attended the day and were given a full insight into stage lighting and sound. Exhibitors including Zero 88, Selecon, Audio Technica, Strand Lighting, Celestion, HW International, Doughty Engineering, Stonewood Audio and Prolyte were in attendance to demonstrate their latest products and services.

The first session of the day - entitled ‘Lighting from Scratch’ - was led by Jason Larcombe of the White Light Group. This was later followed by a demonstration of effects by Ian Knight, hire manager for Central Theatre Supplies. This offered those in attendance an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the recommended practices when working with pyro. Ian also demonstrated

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XL Video UK, the touring and live event video specialist, has just completed a purchase that makes it the owner of the biggest and brightest fleet of Barco DLP projectors in the UK. The order gives XL 16 of the new ultra-bright Barco ELM R18 17,500 lumen projectors and four of the new, smaller, SLM R8 projectors (7,500 lumens) which will be added to their rental fleet.

It’s the first order for ELM R18s in the UK and adds to XL’s already extensive stock of Barco projectors which currently includes Barco ELM G10s ELM G12s and SLM G5s, plus assorted smaller projectors. XL Video’s Lee Spencer comments: "Having access to such a diverse fleet of projectors allows us to offer our clients the latest in projection equipment. It also means that we can be highly competitive and still give our clients the best service whether the event is large or small, conventional or lef

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Vertigo Rigging - specialist in the art of events and entertainment rigging – has now completed on its new, larger, high-tech premises in Deptford, London. Sited between Surrey Quays and Greenwich, Deptford is ideal for accessing central London and the West End. The premises consist of 14,500sq.ft of purpose-built warehousing. Vertigo has specially designed offices for project management and administration, and staff amenities have been given a priority, to account for the ever-increasing requirement for the provision of out-of-hours rigging services.

Vertigo Rigging director Rebecca Loughran is delighted with the new premises, and comments: "We now have the capacity to expand our equipment inventory and hold the largest stock of quality truss, motors and associated rigging in the UK. This will allow us to offer clients more choice and flexibility in the world of increasingl

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Screenco provided high-brightness LED displays, including a vast centre stage screen backdrop, enabling a star-studded cast at the Royal Albert Hall to be seen by a packed audience at the 2002 Grand Prix Party. The VIP evening - A Gala Evening of Stars, Cars & Guitars - kicked off the new Formula One season and saw Ferrari, McLaren, Jordan and the other F1 teams shelving their on-track rivalry for one night only, in aid of Professor Sid Watkins’ Brain & Spine Foundation.

Promoted by Chas Cole for CMP Entetainment, guests were treated to the guitar playing of Damon Hill and Eddie Jordan’s V10 Band from the motor racing world, as well as performances from Marc Almond, Atomic Kitten, Sam Brown, Ruby Turner, Edwin Starr, Mick Hucknall and Ronnie Wood - all to the backdrop of Jules Holland’s Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. Presenters were Carol Vorderman MBE and Tony Jar

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Stagetec is supplying a custom-built show relay and paging system for the prestigious new state-of-the-art Laban contemporary dance centre on Deptford Creek. The £22 million project is due for completion in autumn this year, and will be the largest purpose-built contemporary dance centre in the world. The huge 7,800sq.m building, designed by architects Herzog & de Meuron, includes 12 dance studios and a 300-seat theatre. There’s also a community studio/meeting room for local schools and community groups - a media information resource centre, 100-seat lecture theatre, café and public gardens.

The project specification was put together by theatre consultants Carr & Angier, with whom Stagetec have worked on numerous other projects around the country. For Stagetec, the Laban project involves the supply and installation of the equipment, plus the design of the system and project man

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John ‘Brad’ Bradshaw, formerly of Triflite Cases (Trifibre Containers), has started a new Flightcase business called Dragon Cases based in Cwmbran, South Wales. Brad - a well-known face in the industry - started his career in flightcases at Autopia some 15 years ago. After being made redundant after five years from Trifibre in December of last year, he returned to Autopia (then renamed as Encaseit) for a couple of weeks until again being made redundant after the receivers were called in on 16 January.

Brad will be working in partnership with Nomad Cases, a manufacturer of custom-built flightcases, polypropylene cases and padded bags, based in Market Harborough, Leicestershire.

(Lee Baldock)

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XL Video supplied a full digital SDI video package for the just-completed S Club 7 UK arena tour. Video director Blue Leach mixed the show using a Grass Valley GVG4000 desk, complete with a Magic DaVE digital video effects unit, amalgamating live camera feeds from five Sony D35 sources plus pre-recorded material. Slick live video editing was the dominant feature of the high energy show, and Leach worked collaboratively with LD Pete Barnes to ensure the band’s enthusiastic fans had a memorable night.

A massive 70sq.m LED screen dominated centre stage, made up of Generale Location 25 mm modules. This spit in two, with each half moving sideways to form a dramatic upstage entrance. The stage was flanked each side by two 20 x 15 metre ‘soft’ screens, with projected sources from Barco ELMs. Each of the 18 songs in the set featured video. Some involved abstract footage, much

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