Laser Studio, part of the I-Vision group, has recently completed three club installations in the Irish Republic: Maximus, a 700-capacity venue in Nenagh, County Tipperary, is part of the independent hotel group KDR Hotels. The musical policy of ‘everything goes’ caters for a mix of people and includes live bands on Thursdays. Manager Paul Ryan explained that they wanted a laser to offer something different and exciting and to distinguish themselves from their competitors in the area, ensuring that the visuals at Maximus are the best in the locale. This has further-fuelled their already healthy business.

The audience reactions to the laser have been incredible. "I would never have believed it would make such a difference, but it has," states Ryan. He chose Laser Studio for the installation because of the "Reliability and cost-effectiveness" of the gear, a

Mackie Designs Inc has launched a new division - Mackie Broadcast Professional - dedicated to serving the needs of the expanding broadcast/post production market. The announcement comes on the back of the recent integration of Soundscape International, following Mackie’s acquisition of Sydec BV, a company with a strong reputation in the fields of broadcasting and post production. Mackie believes it will put them in pole position in this competitive market and further enlarge their customer base. The company has long acknowledged that the world of broadcast, post production and pro-audio have particular needs and issues that differ from those of Mackie’s traditional studio market, and so justify a specialist team to serve them.

Keith Olsen, corporate director, global recording market and product development at Mackie Designs Inc, told us: "Soundscape has earned a great

More than 40 eminent theatre sound designers from all over the globe will be gathering in mid-June for the London Theatre Sound Design Colloquium, to discuss the artistic underpinnings of sound design and its rapidly increasing importance in modern theatre production. "Few people outside of the profession understand the unique combination of technical expertise and creative artistry required to conceptualize, realize and execute a quality sound design. Theatre sound design is, or should be, on a par professionally and artistically with the other creative design disciplines," says Ross Brown, sound designer, Sound Design Tutor at The Central School of Speech and Drama and lead organizer of the Colloquium. "This is the first time that an international group of professional sound designers will assemble to discuss these important issues."

The Colloquium, co-sponsored b

Employees of PLASA member companies can benefit from reduced fees at PA/VA 2002, a two-day programme, co-sponsored by the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), for everyone who wants to know all about what is involved in specifying, designing, installing or certifying Public Address and Voice Alarm systems for safe public evacuation. The programme will run on 9 - 10 July 2002 at Regent's Park, London.

(Lee Baldock)

MTV Europe recently brought to life 40 years of James Bond movies at an exclusive party at the Cannes Film Festival, co-hosted with MGM and billed as ‘one of the hottest tickets in the Cannes calendar’. With 1,200 celebrity guests and film executives attending, stunning video effects were required to bring to life an amphitheatre venue complete with snow, Bond's Aston Martin Vanquish and a 10-metre martini ice bar. To achieve this, event organisers GSP - working to MTV Europe's brief - turned to London based AV specialist Blitz.

Blitz was briefed to create a technically sophisticated visual ambience synonymous with MTV's edgy, innovative style and suitable for celebrating the 40th anniversary of James Bond and showcasing the 19 Bond movies. The venue for the party was the Palais Bulles (bubble palace), a submarine-shaped structure complete with portholes and rounded viewing

Forum Meyrin, a superbly appointed cultural center on the outskirts of Geneva in Switzerland, has commenced a two-year refurbishment of its technical systems, including the upgrading of the NEXO PS Series sound reinforcement systems for its theatre and live music venue.

Opened in 1995, the Forum Meyrin is a multipurpose arts and exhibition centre, incorporating exhibition halls, banqueting rooms, restaurants and the city library. Beneath the facility, in the basement, is the Undertown club, a live music venue which hosts dance nights and live gigs. Since the end of last year, the Forum has been expanding its technical capacity, installing new lighting, staging and audio equipment. The next stage will see the installation of new seats and other improvements in comfort and security.

Known as Forum-Meyrin, the 800-seater auditorium has been upgraded to an impressive technical standard,

In response to increasing conference and event business in the Watford area, Salisbury-based Stagecraft has recently opened a satellite office for its Live Events division. Jackie Chambers, who has extensive experience in conference production and event management, will manage the Watford office, which will offer Stagecraft’s complete production service to companies in and around the area.

Growing business at the company’s Salisbury office has led to internal promotion for two key staff members - Fiona Clayton and Martin Palmer. New technical sales advisor Fiona Clayton originally started with the company as a hire assistant nearly five years ago and is now working closely with the five-strong sales team. She joins Martin Palmer, who has recently been appointed head of sales and projects. Stagecraft has also recently adapted its four units in Salisbury to house new staging

Switchcraft Inc, the US manufacturer of a broad range of products for audio and broadcast professionals, has appointed Connection Technologies Limited as its new authorized distributor for New Zealand. Connection Technologies is run by Lewis Woodward, who has a wealth of experience in the connector and patch panel markets, and the company can be contacted at the e-mail address given below.

Bandit Lites UK recently supplied WWE (formerly WWF) Wrestling’s sold out ‘Insurrextion’ Tour in the UK with full lighting production. The tour visited the SECC and the NEC before culminating in a major show at Wembley Arena.

Bandit has serviced this dramatic event for some 10 years, and WWE’s current production and lighting designer, Jason Robinson, has been in the hot seat for six of those, designing sets and lighting for all WWE shows worldwide. It’s a completely different lighting concept to a conventional show. As the show is broadcast live on Sky television, the whole arena and audience has to be lit for television, as well as the live performance.

The Bandit team, led by Mark Powell, pooled considerable resources to pull off the Wembley show - effectively a one-off - which left the Bandit warehouse spectacularly devoid of gear - with six other maj

Entertainment Lighting Services (ELS), Los Angeles' largest full-service lighting, rigging and staging company is moving to an even bigger facility this summer. The company will make the move from its former North Hollywood headquarters to a newly renovated 70,000sq.ft Sun Valley location boasting the largest lighting and rigging inventory in the West.

The new ELS facility has a 58,000sq.ft warehouse with six truck docks, ample parking, a 12,000sq.ft office space and an impressive 1,200sq.ft showroom. Also included in the expansion is a state-of-the-art computer-aided design lab, with future plans for an instructional classroom. "In the last decade alone, we've experienced incredible growth - quadrupling the company revenue - and we're tapping into more markets every day," comments Tammie Richards, director of marketing and sales. ELS has been in the forefront of the entertai

Pop artist Pink is on her first headlining tour with a stage full of colors - rich, pure dichroic colors - from High End Systems automated luminaires. LD Ethan Weber specified a mix of 45 Studio Color 575 and Studio Spot 575 automated luminaires to paint Pink's ‘Get the Party Started’ tour, which runs from 2 May to 2 September in North America.

"I was hoping to use some Studio Beam and x.Spot fixtures," Weber says. "But it's a budget-conscious tour and we decided to go with quantity at the expense of some effects, which has worked out very well. I ended up with 45 fixtures which gives some pretty big looks in the theaters we've been doing."

This is Weber's first time to design, program and tour with the Studio Series, and he says he's found some "pretty good and interesting effects" in the Studio Spots. All equipment is provided by lighting c

GAMProducts, the Hollywood-based theatrical lighting company, has launched a new website. The totally redesigned site offer many new features including almost 200 short videos depicting GAM products in application, along with complete pricing information, technical data and specification on most products. An online photo gallery from contributing designers around the world also shows GAM products in real applications.

There’s also a Virtual TwinSpin option to assist designers. Using this feature, designers can animate hundreds of GAM patterns; they can also conduct a Pattern Search and find patterns by number, name or subject. The Color Theory section offers tutorial information on colour and includes explanations of CIE Chromaticity charts, tri-colour mixing, Kelvin and the Black Body Radiator.

(Ruth Rossington)

To address a growing workload, Worcestershire-based M+D Design has split its operation into two new companies - Ikon AVS and Nebula Audio. The move is intended to create a more viable framework for the two key aspects of M+D’s operation - that of equipment manufacturer/supplier and that of installer. Ikon AVS will therefore concentrate on the manufacture and supply of products such as the company’s award-winning Podules and fault-monitoring systems, whilst Nebula Audio will be primarily a ‘systems house’ offering fully engineered solutions, including design, specification, procurement, installation and commissioning in audio visual and distributed digital audio systems for stadiums, shopping malls, exhibitions and conference halls.

(Ruth Rossington)

Shure Incorporated has now completed the purchase of the 267,000sq.ft building and accompanying 18.6 acres of land at 5800 Touhy Avenue in Niles, Illinois from CenterPoint Properties Trust for $28 million. The seven-storey steel-and-glass structure is an award-winning design by respected architect Helmut Jahn. As part of the purchase agreement, CenterPoint will acquire Shure's existing 206,000sq.ft facility in Evanston, which the company has agreed to lease back for a period of one year with options for extension, if necessary.

Shure, which has been based in the Chicago area throughout its 77-year history, will begin relocating its corporate headquarters to the Niles location later this year. Present plans for the land include the immediate construction of an attached two-storey annex with more than 40,000sq.ft of additional space. This building will house several special technology fu

HK Audio increases its presence in Southeast Asia. Sound & Vision Systems in Wellington, New Zealand, starts distributing the complete HK Audio product range in New Zealand with immediate effect. The corresponding agreement was made between Eric Jackson, general manager of Sound & Vision Systems and Andreas Mayerl, international sales and marketing director, during his recent visit to New Zealand.

Andreas Mayerl told us: "In Sound & Vision, we found the ideal partner for the distribution of our product range. Their huge experience and the well-adjusted team make sure that HK Audio is represented in every market segment and not only importing and sales but also the after sales service of HK Audio products in New Zealand is ensured excellently."

Sound & Vision Systems is a long-established distributor of pro audio equipment in New Zealand and its sales and marketing team enjo

After two years of writing, refinement and editing, authors John Eargle and Chris Foreman have introduced JBL Audio Engineering for Sound Reinforcement. With sections on audio basics, components, system design and various applications, this fills the need for a reference guide that covers the range from basic information to the latest technologies of line arrays and digital signal processing. The book, which is distributed by Hal Leonard Corporation, is now available.

"Following in the footsteps of classic audio books by Don Davis and Gary Davis, we feel this reference work by Chris and John will become the new standard for audio professionals, educators and enthusiasts," says Michael MacDonald, president of JBL Professional. "John and Chris have over 70 years of audio experience between them. They pass along their knowledge in a way that is very deep and technica

April in New York saw Fourth Phase projecting images onto two large columns in the main concourse at Grand Central Station for Earth Day New York's Earth Week Celebration. Projected for a week from 11am-8pm, the images reached an estimated audience of half a million people daily.

Designed and produced by Earth Day New York's executive director Pam Lippe, the show included works by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol and featured images chosen to portray the beauty of the earth and the importance of protecting it. Art Lavis of Fourth Phase USA explained that large format projection equipment lent itself well to one of the main themes of the show, which was the transitory nature of our world: "When pictures of endangered species slowly faded into nothing it really got the message across - this could not have been achieved with traditional signage or banners. Furthermore, as the di

A new star is rising just 15 miles north of Albuquerque at the Santa Ana Star Hotel Casino. The hotel’s facilities have been expanded and now include a major new Events Centre, which is equipped with a new lighting grid fabricated and supplied by Total Structures, Inc.

Billy Tubb of APAC, an Albuquerque theatrical consultant, teamed up with Eric Kennedy, a local freelance lighting designer, to design a modern lighting rig which would incorporate both static and modern moving light fixtures for the events centre. The upstage and downstage trusses were specified as conventional pre rig truss, whereas the grid over centre stage area comprises Intelligent Pre-Rig Truss (IPRT) with straight legs radiating from a central circular hub, to form the Zia, the state symbol of New Mexico.

The circular IPRT provides the support for a small projection screen for gobo images and the whole g

In early 1993, David Leggett, managing director of A.C. Lighting Ltd, called Bob Gordon in Los Angeles to arrange a meeting. At that meeting, in the Delta Crown Room at LAX, they agreed to explore the creation of A.C. Lighting Inc. Gordon came up with a business plan and A.C. Lighting Inc opened for business on July 1, 1993, starting out with no customers (just Gordon's database) and one North American exclusive product. In August of 2000, Bob acquired the controlling shareholding of A.C. Lighting, Inc.

Now, exactly nine years after the formation of A.C. Lighting, Inc their name is changing to A.C.T Lighting, Inc. This change in name does not represent any change in the way the business is run or in the ownership of the company, but is a recognition of the separate and distinct identity that A.C. Lighting, Inc. now holds in the US market.

The new name for A.C. Lighting in the U.S. is

Halo Live, the new live tours and events division of Halo Lighting, has kick-started a summer of Radio 1 dance music events, supplying an exciting lighting production to the Radio 1 arena at the Homelands England event 2002, which took place at Matterley Bowl near Winchester over the Jubilee weekend and was enjoyed by 50,000 people.

Halo Live's lighting scheme was co-designed by Steve Marley and Yann Guenancia, who utilized a diverse range of fixtures and programming techniques to fulfil Radio 1’s demanding brief, and to create a stunning visual show. With the Radio 1 Open Air Stage being purely a DJ environment, it was very much down to Marley and Guenancia to use their imaginative savvy - and plenty of artistic licence - to create a colourful lightshow with a full range of peaks and dramatic effects.

The core of the rig was Studio Due City Color fixtures, used to produce larg

Demand for PA systems for corporate events, conferences and product launches is bouncing back, reports professional audio systems specialist Shermann Pro-Audio. The internationally respected company, which is based in Newtown, mid-Wales, has noticed a definite upturn in business in the last few months as confidence slowly returns to the UK's corporate sector after a period of economic uncertainty.

Through a network of professional users, installers and dealerships across the country, Shermann's loudspeaker systems are in widespread use at major music festivals, rock concerts, conferences, product launches and publicity events at home and overseas. "I think a lot of companies are now playing catch-up after everything ground to halt following September 11," explained Ken Hughes, owner of Shermann. "They have realized the value of publicity campaigns and promotional events

As official communications partner of Manumission for the third year - Orange has teamed up with Vestax to provide a dramatic sonic makeover for Bar M. Their commitment to the Bar M faithful is plain to see, with the installation of a mighty full-range Turbosound rig. There are 14 TQ-310 two-way speakers fitted in three independently controllable zones, plus three THL-828.2 sub units. The BBS amp racks are accompanied by a Yamaha digital control unit.

But it’s not just the punters that Orange has thought about - in conjunction with numerous DJs and industry anoraks, they have designed, built and installed a DJ booth to rival all others. The ‘enjoymusic’ booth features three Vestax PDX 2000 turntables, a PMC-400 mixer, a DFG-X2 three-band isolator unit below each deck and a DCR-1200 isolator with anti-phase on the output below the mixer and all complimented by a pair o

BSS Audio’s new ProSys PS-8810C DSP device has past its first test - at the highest level - networking the world’s first all-digital tour for pop music icon Neil Diamond. Supported by Maryland Sound Industries, Diamond’s audio output boasts an exclusively digital signal path between its microphones and loudspeakers. The real triumph for BSS Audio’s fixed-path DSP, however, is that it is the first in a new generation of Harman Professional ‘partnership’ products, utilizing the IQ communication protocol from Crown and providing audio networking via CobraNet technology. One of the key components in this application was the use of Crown’s new IQ-PIP USP2/CN CobraNet module.

With the established IQ system, the PS-8810 has the ability to network with Crown amplifiers and other IQ-compliant devices. This means that systems with control and monitoring

Wolfgang Neumann extended an association with Soundcraft boards stretching back more than 20 years, when he purchased a 48-input SM20 touring monitor board to boost the rental stock of his company, Sirius Schalltechnik Service GmbH. He told us: "I was looking for a very small board that was packed with features. The SM20 offered precisely that, and the exceptional price convinced me."

Sirius Schalltechnik’s monitor engineers praised the desk’s ease of use. "They particularly liked the compact nature of the console and the inline BSS Varicurve control section, which is a nice-sounding EQ," said Wolfgang. Presently out with top German band, BAP (and their monitor engineer Dirk Happel), the SM20 is well-suited to deal with the growing trend towards personal in-ear monitoring.

Wolgang Neumann’s introduction to Soundcraft began in 1980 when he purchas

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