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The 40-year old Sydney-based National Institute of Dramatic Arts has just moved into its gleaming new home. The new NIDA building was funded by an AUS$25 million grant from the Australian government, bolstered by an AUS$10 million sponsorship programme to complete the complex. This latter fund was kick-started by donations from two of Australia’s best known exports - Mel Gibson and Rupert Murdoch.

The most prominent feature of the new building is the giant aluminium veil that encloses the auditorium of the Parade Theatre and juts skyward through the glass roof of the foyer. This veil reflects daylight into the expansive foyer space that currently houses examples of student costume design. At night, nine Griven Kolorado fixtures light up this aluminium veil in a sea of colour.

At the heart of NIDA is the Parade Theatre - a727-seater drum-shaped venue that is a far cry from the

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US-based video giants Nocturne Inc. recently approached their associates at PSL Concert Touring to support a major UK appearance by one of their long-standing clients - Guns ’N Roses. The group appeared at The London Arena on Bank Holiday Monday with PSL providing the complete LED and camera package.

Drawing on their new fleet of Barco DLite 7 LED screens, PSL provided the centre stage wall at 4.3m high and 3.6m wide with two PA walls both at 2.7m square. Lighting designer Gary Westcott added tremendous dramatic effect by having certain panels randomly removed and then blasting white light from behind through billowing smoke! PSL also provided a six-camera package with cameramen, along with the show graphics driven by DoReMi drives. Given the compatibility of the D-7 between PSL and Nocturne it means that systems can be easily duplicated for clients working between both the US a

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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L&SI has arranged an exclusive backstage tour of the Palladium Theatre where you can meet with those who worked on the production and see first-hand how some of the more complex effects in the Show have been achieved. Following the tour, you'll have a chance to network with industry colleagues at an L&SI-hosted reception where you can talk further with members of the creative teams, before sitting down to watch this much talked about show from some of the best seats in the house.

The event takes place on Thursday October 10, 2002 at the Palladium Theatre, London, running from 3.30pm onwards, and costs just £69.00 (which includes a full reception, the backstage tour and a £40.00 ticket for the Show).

To sign up contact Sheila Bartholomew at L&SI on +44 1323 418400 or e-mail sheila@plasa.org.

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Vertigo Rigging’s expertise and knowledge of the Royal Festival Hall came into its own when they transformed the famous concert hall venue into a full pros arch theatre for Raymond Gubbay’s popular, month-long production of Follies.

The project involved Vertigo undertaking an intense four-day working period during which time they installed large amounts of trussing and drapes. Follies - considered by many to be one of the greatest musicals of all time - was directed by Paul Kerryson and designed by Paul Farnsworth, and this was the first time the Sondheim classic has featured on a London stage for 15 years.

Follies’ scenic style transposes the audience to the crumbling Weissman Theatre, as memories from its glorious past reunite and are remembered one more time. The fact that the RFH needed to resemble a dilapidated venue at the end of the day didn’t make the

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Fourth Phase, part of the Production Resource Group, has acquired both the US and Toronto lighting assets of Westsun from Richter & Partners, Inc - the interim receiver appointed to liquidate the assets of Westsun. The deal was concluded on 14 August, 2002.

In addition to the assets acquired, contracts for existing shows were also purchased and will now be serviced by Fourth Phase. Neither Fourth Phase nor PRG have assumed any of the liabilities of the former Westsun operations, which are being addressed by the interim receiver through the receivership process.

The assets acquired in Las Vegas and New Jersey are now being consolidated into existing Fourth Phase operations in those two locations. Meanwhile, those acquired in Toronto have resulted in the creation of a new business unit - Fourth Phase LTD. Beni Kantorovich, the general manager of Westsun Toronto will now continue in

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The Media Show - the biggest out-of-London trade exhibition and conference for media professionals, will take place in Cardiff in October. The Media Show will focus mainly on television and video production with a eye on developments on the current big issues affecting the industry such as DVD production, conference presentation systems, the Internet, broadband and new media.

Attending the show will be a wide cross section of UK media professionals including production companies, TV and video producers, feature film companies, companies involved in broadband delivery, internet companies, conference organisers, new media producers, web designers, cameramen, lighting directors, sound recordists, editors of all types, videographers, people working for the studios, facility houses and the broadcasters - from senior executives to freelance film crews.

Representatives form the television i

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Entec Sound and Light, the leading live music lighting and sound rental company, is supplying a complete lighting system for London’s world-famous Marquee club. The high profile live music venue - now located in Islington, London N1 - re-opened last week with a star-studded event headlined by top rock ‘n’ rollers Primal Scream. This installation marks an historic continuation of Entec’s association with the Marquee club. The Marquee brand name is now owned by former Eurythmics pop star Dave Stewart of the Artists Network, and entrepreneur Mark Fuller (behind London’s trendy Sugar Reef and Embassy Club). The strength and driving force behind the new Marquee is Artist Network director and Group CEO Tony Quinn. The club’s day-to-day running is headed by the club’s general manager Matt Talbot.

The new Marquee reopens complete with a £4 million fit

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Surrey-based Delta Inc, one of the leading audio supply and design specialists serving the corporate and live events market, has recently purchased two Radiocom BTR 700 wireless intercom systems from UK distributor Orbital Sound. Specified by Delta's Jonathan Bell, the BTR 700 is a revolutionary duplex intercom system, which allows for seamless on-site communications between all members of any production team.

Over the summer the BTR 700 has been deployed on many high profile events including The Commonwealth Games, The Edinburgh Festival and The Golden Jubilee Weekend celebrations. At the latter, Orbital supplied one of the largest BTR 700 systems to date. Deployed for stage management, and sound teams on-site, it also played a vital role as the official cue mechanism for the Queen when the Jubilee Beacons were ignited, setting off a chain of beacons across the UK and the sensational

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At the PLASA Show last week, Canegreen’s Yan Stile acquired a Yamaha PM1D digital desk from Yamaha commercial audio dealer, Marquee Audio, in time for the Toploader tour, which kicks off in early October. Stile, who heads one of the UK’s leading and longest-established rental companies, said he was happy to be using the PM1D given its popularity elsewhere at the top end of the touring circuit. In particular, he praised the support given to the sale by Yamaha’s Mike Case and Marquee Audio’s Glen Smith. "We have a long association with Yamaha products through the PM3000 and PM4000, and now the digital desk," he said. "It’s surprisingly cost-effective, with all the onboard digital effects, and frees up a lot of analogue space."

Andrew Thornton will be mixing Toploader’s sound at front-of-house, while a second PM1D will also be used f

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In line with the increasing use of video projection in theatrical productions, together with the development of products such as High End’s Catalyst, DHA has put its vast knowledge and experience behind a new company, Scene Change.

Officially launched at this year’s PLASA, Scene Change has been a year in development: housed in a purpose-built studio at Waterloo Road in London, the company will employ state-of-the-art equipment in the design and creation of original digital video content specifically for projection. As a market leader in gobo and slide projection, DHA’s expertise in this area will prove invaluable.

Scene Change unites two market sectors - entertainment technology and video projection, but developments in these sectors are by no means in sync. The video industry has developed at a faster rate than entertainment technology and video clips are being u

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SSE Hire Ltd has been appointed an approved supplier of audio equipment and services to the National Union of Students Ents divisions. SSE Audio projects executive Malcolm Mellows commented: "We are delighted that the company has been awarded this recognized status. We have already been active in the NUS market - indeed we’ve commissioned large installed PA systems at Warwick and Sheffield Universities over the last year - but it’s good to be recognized to have achieved the standards required to be an approved supplier."

(Ruth Rossington)

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Edwin Shirley Staging (ESS), the international staging and structures specialist, made a welcome return to London’s Hyde Park for the 2002 BBC Proms in the Park series. The event took place over the middle weekend of September.

After the successful completion of last year’s event ESS were commissioned to provide an ESS Orbit staging solution with PA wings and screen supports. In advance of the event the organizers were predicting that this year’s concerts expected to attract record numbers due to a popular repertoire choice and good weather prospects. This event marks the second major event in the park that ESS has attended to during the summer of 2002 the former being the five stage arrangement implemented during the Golden Jubilee celebrations.

Tim Norman, managing director for ESS, said: "It’s extremely good for us to be able to return to the Proms ser

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Creative Technology joined Pump House Productions International to assist mobile telecom giants MMO2 with the staging of their recent AGM at the Hilton Metropole in Birmingham’s NEC complex. Spread across three suites (configured as main auditorium, overspill and an exhibition area), Creative Technology rear-projected Powerpoint data in 16 x 9 aspect ratio using a Christie Roadster X10 DLP projector. They also provided Digibeta playback and Sony D30 fixed-point cameras with long lenses. The TX to screen was mixed through an Extron SGS 408 Data Vision Mixer to maintain picture quality.

In addition, CT was called on to look after the board members on the top table. The board desk was equipped with Sharp 10" TFT monitors for a variety of sources including live camera and graphic images. A further four 50" plasma screens were flown in the main auditorium to provide show rel

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Lamba added some star quality at this year’s PLASA Show, when recent chart act XPress 2 made a date to visit the company’s stand. The dance trio - Rocky, Diesel and Ashley Beedle, who recently hit the number two spot with Lazy (a collaboration with Talking Heads’ David Byrne) - took the opportunity to confirm an endorsement deal with Stanton Trackmaster II cartridges. Much of the considerable time spent by the three musicians at Lamba was devoted to a demonstration of Final Scratch, where they stood in rapt awe as Stanton demonstrator, B-Side, put it through its paces. Diesel said that the record’s success had greatly enlarged their audiences (they had just returned from a major festival in Japan). "Sometimes people expect you to spend two hours sounding like Lazy - all dark, druggy and tribal."

The story began some years ago when Byrne got hold of a p

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Never known to turn down a challenge, the White Light Group chose one of the busiest weeks of the year - immediately after supplying 10 stands-worth of equipment to the PLASA Show, running its own stand at PLASA and loading out the rigs for several West End shows including Contact and Our House - to hold an Open Day at their headquarters in Wimbledon, south-west London. The reason? To mark the first anniversary of the move to the new building.

For visitors who hadn’t previously made it to Wimbledon, the Open Day allowed White Light to demonstrate its greatly expanded facilities and improved access; those who had already been were able to see how the office and warehouse facilities had been fine-tuned over the first year, and to inspect the newly-finished demonstration area. Visitors were also able to play with the very latest lighting products, many making their fir

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MoonBurst Structures Ltd, the Sheffield, UK-based company has supplied equipment and services to the World Summit On Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa through their technology partner, Gearhouse South Africa Pty. JOWSCO, the organizer of the world environmental summit in Johannesburg, used Tensile 1 to house the Ubuntu Village Exhibition. Tensile 1 is the UK designed and manufactured structure, which holds the Guinness world record for 'World’s Largest Portable Event Venue'. The exhibition runs alongside the summit, which is staged 10 years after the Rio earth summit. The structure has a surface area of 14,500sq.m and houses the whole of the exhibition which includes many national pavilions. The exhibition runs for three weeks and has had an average attendance of 20,000 people per day. The structure is floored throughout and the 18m internal height allows the u

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Pro audio specialist Audient has sold an ASP-8024-24 recording console to Latvia's only Radio Station for use in its new Outside Broadcast Van. The sale, via Amptown Sound & Communication Baltic division, Audient's dealer in Latvia, represents the first sale of an Audient console in the Baltic States. The purchase also signals a change in concept for the radio station from digital to the Audient analogue console. Andris Uze, managing director for ASC Baltic Division says: "I first saw the ASP console two years ago at an AES exhibition and I immediately realized its potential in terms of price and good design."

He continues: "I decided to recommend the ASP console for the OB-Van because I have not found anything comparable on the current market as most analogue consoles of this quality are much more expensive. The ASP is able to fit in a limited cabin space without losin

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Digigram, the digital audio network solutions specialist and French national broadcaster Radio France, a pioneer in radio digitalization, have announced at IBC 2002 a technological partnership to implement innovative audio networking solutions as part of Radio France’s digitalization program. Digigram's expertise in digital audio networking, especially it's mpX Platform launched at IBC 2002, will help in the design of new IP-based architectures for Radio France stations France Inter, France Info, France Bleu and Le MOUV' radio stations.

"We are proud to join a pioneer like Radio France in its efforts to build a new kind of network centric broadcasting infrastructure," said Digigram managing director Philippe Delacroix. "Radio France’s selection of the new mpX Platform as a cornerstone of their IP architecture proves that Digigram has the vision to provide the

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Since taking delivery of the first six Klark Teknik DN9340 ‘Helix’ digital equalizers in early July, EFX Audio of Edinburgh have been busy putting the new units to use. The most recent outing was at Scotland’s answer to the Reading and Leeds festivals, the Mean Fiddler’s Gig on the Green in Glasgow. Like their southern counterparts, Gig on the Green was a two-day festival with headliners Prodigy, The Offspring and Slipknot on Saturday and Pulp, the Strokes and Jane’s Addiction on Sunday.

EFX managing director John Ramsay chose to use the Helix units on the monitor system on the main stage where he had two Midas Heritage 3000 consoles complementing the Midas XL4 and Heritage 3000 out front. "The DN9340s performed fantastically well," said Ramsay. "This was the first big gig we’ve used them on and we’ve been patting ourselves on th

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The theatrical sound design and rental specialist, Autograph Sound Recording, was recently asked to join the UK's most prolific producer, Raymond Gubbay and his creative team, at London's Royal Festival Hall for the staging of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. A breathtaking neoclassic production, not seen on a West End stage for more than 15 years.

Terry Jardine, sound designer for Follies and Autograph's managing director, chose a new and unique loudspeaker product for this show, the Insider 665. A line source product from Sweden, manufactured by LLW, the Insider 665 was being used for the first time in the UK, typical of Autograph's innovative approach to new products. This new Swedish loudspeaker has been designed to handle wide and long distance coverage in large indoor venues, synchronized with pure sound reproduction. Six cabinets a side were used at the Royal Festival H

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At the PLASA Show on Tuesday 10 September, EAW’s '2002 Installation Company of the Year' Award was presented to Light Sound FX of Coleraine, Northern Ireland. On hand to accept the award from Phil Price was LSFX’s managing director Darren Gardener. He said in accepting the award: "This is a great tribute, not only to us at LSFX, but to the products and the back-up we receive from the EAW team." Phil Price added: "This has been a great year for EAW contracting products and obviously there can only be one winner - Darren and his team have done a great job."

(Lee Baldock)

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When Presentation Service Providers (PSP) were asked to provide AV reinforcement for a British Gas employee motivational roadshow, they sensed that Screenco’s Mini Mobile 2 would be the ideal display medium to reinforce the action. Easy to rig, and with the high brightness offered by the 10sq.m, 15mm LED display, PSP provided a three-camera (D35) PPU, with component vision mixing - augmented by the PPU which is inherent to the Mini Mobile 2 truck.

With audio reinforcement from a Nexo rig, this enabled them to capture the audience response - in the live outside auditorium. Here, small teams gathered to answer questions via a keypad driven audience response unit and participate in a game constructed within a Crystal Dome-type building under the production control of Triple A. The show itself visited British Gas car parks in Northampton, Birmingham and Manchester, and at each venue

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Producer Harley Medcalf and the Australian production team responsible for ‘Barry Humphries: A Night With Dame Edna’ was interested in creating a very special effect for this latest comedy tour. The production, which opened in Miami on 10 September, required a 30ft x 30ft backdrop, which was completely white for the purposes of the lighting designer. An assortment of coloured lighting, automated lighting and projections were to be directed at the drop. The drop also had to be durable, lightweight and manageable for extensive touring and ease of set-up and strike. In addition to these standards, the production team wanted the white backdrop to transform to a photo-realistic portrait of Dame Edna on cue! Realizing that there is only one studio that could deliver all of these effects, Harley contacted LA-based UV/FX Scenic Productions. The result proved to be breathtaking.

Acc

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A new state-of-the-art ‘IBBISS’ Help Point system, designed for use within the London Underground tube network, has just had its ‘Development Progress Demonstration’ functionality tests by leading integrators/installers and London Underground Infracos. This latest Help Point system comes from a new manufacturer, IBBISS Ltd (Interalia Baldwin Boxall Integrated Security Systems). IBBISS is a joint venture between two leading communications manufacturers, Interalia and Baldwin Boxall, who believe that the system will soon become the first choice for many Help Point installers.

In late 2001, various parties approached Interalia and Baldwin Boxall and requested that the two companies join forces to design and manufacture Help Point systems. Of course, they listened with great interest and in November 2001 three presentations were hosted by IBBISS Ltd to London Underg

  1. Avesco & Mercury Music Prize
  2. A.C.T wins Zero 88 International Dealer Award . . . Again
  3. Final Scratch picks up two Awards
  4. ARB - investing in the future
  5. Pulsar on the move!
  6. Smart Sound Direct open day
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