Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

Business

Details
WS Steele of Glasgow has completed the installation of a sound reinforcement system in the Chapel of St Salvator at Scotland's oldest university, St Andrews. The Chapel, founded in 1450, is one of the finest examples of Scottish Gothic architecture, and is highly valued by the Church of Scotland.

Acoustic consultant John McDonald, who drew up the design brief, explained that "the objective was to make the sound as natural as possible. The chapel as a very pleasing acoustic, so we wanted to use natural reverb to enhance the sound. The main problem was the separation of noise source from the choir and organ, so that people sitting below the gallery could hear what was happening above." For this purpose, microphones have been centred in the choir area which are automatically activated when the choir begins to sing, and this sound is relayed to the speakers under the balcony.

S

Details
Linkin Park has had one of the most intense touring schedules of any band in recent years, playing a record number of 324 shows in 2001. Their debut CD, Hybrid Theory, was nominated for three Grammy Awards in 2002, and the group won the Best Hard Rock Performance Grammy for the single ‘Crawling.’ While out on tour, Linkin Park uses a wide array of Audio-Technica wired and wireless microphones to help capture their unique sound.

Front-of-house engineer Brad Divens and monitor engineer Roger Pigman are two of the key people responsible for engineering Linkin Park's sound and equipment choices while on the road. Divens, who has worked with such diverse acts as Cindy Lauper, Monster Magnet and Machine Head, says he was sold on Audio-Technica mics from his first time using them. "Our monitor engineer Roger Pigman brought out a pair of AT4050s for me to try on guitar and af

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

Details
Plimsoll Publishing has launched a new website aimed at owners/managers in the UK sound equipment industry looking to make an acquisition or to sell their own company. This unique service from Plimsoll helps companies gain a better understanding of what their own company is worth and presents company names and analysis of what companies would be their best options for buying or selling.

"The idea for the website and the buying or selling service came from a great deal of interest we were receiving from companies keen to go on the acquisition trail. Yet they did not have a simple, cost effective means of assessing what companies to go after. I knew we could offer a real insight into specific companies in the industry our clients could target. Now, prior to calling in the professionals, owners can take a good look at the possibilities for themselves," says David Pattison, acqui

Details
The three-year old sound engineering division of Raper & Wayman Pro-Audio under Jon Raper's leadership has now grown to such an extent that it is time to fly solo. With projects under its belt as diverse as the acoustic control system at the Barbican Theatre, a complete sound reinforcement system for Norwich Cathedral, six radio stations in Sierra Leone and many other systems, the operation is to become a separate company to be known as R&W Sound Engineering.

Jon Raper will run the venture with Peter Kenny from R&W. Trading out of new premises in St Albans, they will continue to use their existing team of engineers and installation staff. Of the expansion, Raper says: "In such interesting times we have been very pleased with our success over three short years. Rodney Wayman and I feel the new company will further strengthen our focus on what we have become known for - good, reliab

Details
The White Light Group - and its ever-popular bar - returns to its usual position on stand F4, just inside the main door to the exhibition.

For many, the main attraction will be the welcome return of the White Light bar featuring White Light’s own beer plus a selection of other drinks and snacks. This year the bar will be theatrically lit using Anycolour colour-mixing fluorescent units from Anytronics. For those looking beyond the bar, examples of the many equipment ranges now distributed in the UK by White Light Sales will be on show. First amongst these will be examples of lanterns and followspots from the Robert Juliat range, which have found many new homes in the UK over the last 12 months. White Light Sales will also be showing smoke machines from Look Solutions and The Smoke Factory, while an on-stand computer will allow visitors to try Lx Store.com, White Light’s new

Details
Rolling Stones fans will get a taste of High End Systems products on the Stones’ ‘Licks’ World Tour 2002-2003, which kicks off Sept. 3 at the Fleet Center in Boston, Mass. Lighting designer Patrick Woodroffe, video designer Willie Williams and set/stage designer Mark Fisher teamed up to create the look for ‘Licks’, which will be scaled for three different sized venues from stadiums to arenas to theatres/nightclubs - all on one tour.

More than 40 shows in 27 cities are set so far for the U S and Canada, with Europe, Australia, the Far East and perhaps China for the first time in 2003. For this ambitious project, HES fixtures specified include 40 x.Spot HO (High Output) and 24 Studio Beam automated luninaires, run off the Flying Pig Systems Wholehog II console. VLPS is the general lighting contractor, while LSD/Fourth Phase is providing the HES and FPS gear.

Details
L&SI was out and about in July and called in at the newly established UK offices of Coemar, based in Ashford, Kent. The new 6,000sq.ft office, warehouse and demonstration facility will incorporate a full inventory of stock and spares - as well as featuring the new product range from Coemar, which has been launched over the last 10 months. Pictured above is Coemar UK MD Ian Kirby (second left) with (from left to right) operations manager Julie Kirby, technical manager Chris Hale and Stacey Smith, office sales. Since our visit, it has been announced that Coemar UK will handle distribution of the Antari range of products in the UK (see separate news piece on page 14). Coemar UK can be contacted at Unit 4, KPC Business Centre, Canterbury Road, Ashford, Kent, TN24 0BP, UK. Tel: +44 (0)1233 636688.

Details
As part of its re-branding exercise, today UK distributor HW International, launched it's revamped website www.hwinternational.co.uk. The website boasts many new features including, the new online 2002/03 HW Product Catalogue, with the facility to browse through extensive product ranges from Shure, QSC Audio, Phonic and PreSonus. Another development is a Press Room, where you can keep up to date with any news relating to HW and the products it represents. Plus from the new Image Library, high-resolution images can be downloaded.

Regular competitions will also be a feature of the site; the first is to win a new Phonic MX202 DJ mixer. Another refreshed facility is the searchable Stockist List, where visitors can locate stockists in the UK and Ireland. HW has also updated its range of merchandising which now represents each distributed brand. All merchandising can be ordered securely onli

Details
As Vari-Lite Inc continues to expand its network of sales distributors worldwide, the automated lighting pioneer has entered into a partnership with TSP, granting the Moscow-based dealer exclusive rights to the sale of Vari*Lite products in Russia. Through the distribution agreement, Russian customers will, for the first time, have direct local access to first-class sales, service and support of Vari*Lite products, including the Series 2000M product line and the new VL1000 ellipsoidal reflector spotlight.

"The Russian market is very important. It is a sophisticated market and we are excited about it's potential," said Vari-Lite vice-president of sales and marketing, Bob Schacherl. "It is vital that we have well-known and financially sound partners to work with, which is where TSP comes in. TSP is deeply involved with both the theatre and rental markets, so they are an ex

Details
PLASA 2002 will be a much more comfortable show this year, thanks to a new R'n'R area in the Gallery, where visitors can have a 10 minutes massage to relieve those aching shoulders and tired feet!

The initiative is part of a fund-raising exercise by Light Relief: thanks to sponsor companies DHA Lighting, ETC, Forester Health, Harmer PR, Martin Professional, PLASA, Stage Electrics, Strand Light, Vari-Lite Europe and WWG, four trained masseurs will literally be dispensing light relief throughout the show. Each massage will cost £5 - but additional donations will be more than welcome! All the money raised goes straight to Light Relief, the industry charity that supports lighting designers with personal difficulties.

The Light Relief area can be found near the New Technology Gallery on the Top Deck.

Details
FX Rentals recently supplied a selection of recording equipment to sound recordist, Angus McPake, for use on a short graduation film that has already won an audience award and has been entered for a new talent BAFTA. Entitled Dead, the film was produced by Jamie Goldblatt and directed by Mark Henrichsen, both graduates from the Edinburgh College of Art. It tells the story of a mild-mannered businessman who returns home from work one evening to discover that he has been murdered. He soon realises that being dead is no laughing matter, especially as his family seem more inconvenienced than upset by his untimely demise."Graduation films have a reputation for being extremely original in their creative approach, thus gaining much recognition at home and abroad," Goldblatt says. "Our aim was to make a film that was both creatively and technically excellent, which is why w

Details
BSR E1.4, Entertainment Technology - Manual Rigging Systems, is available for public review through the end of the business day on 19 November 2002. This draft American National Standard describes the design and construction of manually powered rigging systems to enhance the safety of these system. These systems are used in theatres to raise and lower scenery, properties, lighting equipment, and similar loads over the stage. The standard does not apply to raising and lowering people, or to motorized systems.

Copies of the document may be obtained from the ESTA website at www.esta.org/tsp/ or by requesting a copy from ESTA's technical standards manager by writing via mail, fax, or e-mail. Comments on the document should be received at the ESTA office before 17:00 Eastern Time on November 19. Comments submitted after the deadline may not b

Details
So here’s the thing. I’m no expert in this theatre lark - is anyone? - but it seems to me that if your message is that the music business has gone bad, producing fake stars who do dull dance routines synchronized to synthesized backgrounds just to extract the maximum amount of cash from the fans . . . then the best medium for presenting that message is perhaps not a musical which heads dangerously close to that style, and for which you charge in the order of £40 per ticket.

But hey, a couple of thousand screaming Queen fans a night (after a slow start, ticket sales picked up following the cast’s promotional efforts at the real Queen’s Jubilee celebrations) suggest that the producers of We Will Rock You at the Dominion Theatre (the Queen back catalogue in the style of Stars in their Eyes, with Nigel Planer reviving his own old Young Ones role as an ageing hippy)

Details
Optocore, the digital optical multicore system, was recently used by TMC for a Royal Appointment at Harewood House in West Yorkshire, when Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Stately Home during the recent Golden Jubilee tour around the UK. The Optocore LX4 system which consists of a stage box with 48 inputs and two active splits one for monitor purposes and one for broadcast feeds, together with two AES /EBU inputs, RS232, 422, 485 and DMX plus one video was the only solution to TMC needs for this important job.

TMC's Roland Higham says: "We had a major problem with transfer of audio from the performing areas to the FOH control area, the main one being that we could not lay cable across the main road in front of Harewood, due to the amount of traffic involved in this event, plus the distances involved would have put 'copper' alternatives

Details
Martin Professional A/S has consolidated its Scandinavian distributors to form a new joint venture, Martin Scandinavia, with responsibility for the Danish, Norwegian and Swedish markets. The new company will maintain offices in Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm with the express goal of strengthening its position in the market for entertainment lighting.

Martin Scandinavia is an expansion of Martin’s home country subsidiary, Martin Danmark, and is expected to be fully operational from January 1, 2003. Brian Friborg, long-time managing director of Martin Danmark, will head the new venture, which will handle all three Martin brands: Martin, Mach and Jem.

Management, sales and administration will operate from a headquarters located in Copenhagen with warehousing, distribution and service functions based in Lystrup, Denmark. Martin’s Norwegian distributor, EHS, holds a small shar

Details
One of the most talked-about live music mixing consoles of recent months - the DiGiCo D5 Live - was launched at PLASA yesterday, with and Dave Webster and Bob Doyle making a special presentation to members of the press over an enjoyable Sunday roast. On stand D28, the D5 Live system is on demonstration in a fully working set-up with a digital multitrack concert recording sync’d to video.

Designed from the ground up to deliver high sonic purity and powerful, instantly accessible controllability, the D5 Live comprises the D5 Live console itself, a front-of-house Digirack containing A/D converters and I/Os, a matching stage Digirack and 100m of fibre optic cable. This is a complete, self contained system that does away with the need for a multicore, splitters, line drivers, dynamics processors and - optionally - an entire effects rack too. The D5 Live can even record live to multitr

Details
The 2002 PLASA Show got off to a positive start yesterday as the industry congregated in Earls Court, London. With another bumper crop of new product innovations on show the PLASA Show is providing an unmissable opportunity to see and discuss the state of the art in entertainment, communications and presentation technology. Comment from exhibitors was upbeat - one first-time exhibitor told PLASA Media he had been overwhelmed by the attention his company had received on stand, and wished he had more staff to deal with enquiries.

O Sunday night, PLASA’s 25th anniversary party took place to round off a highly successful day on the show floor. The event - staged at The Bridge - was attended by over 500 exhibitors and visitors who participated in numerous side shows at the Party including a bucking bronco, sumo wrestling, boules and the highlight, a full-on seventies disco.

On the

Details
Mobil Tech UK is to take on the manufacture and distribution of selected items from the Mobil Tech France range, which will include the ALP, Standtech and Alutech lines, and will also see the reinstatement of some of the company’s most popular stands from previous years. The move comes after Mobil Tech France had experienced some problems with its manufacturing capability. It is also envisaged that Mobil Tech UK will change its name to Mobil Tech International to reflect this change in emphasis.

Mobil Tech can be seen on stand D28.

Details
The Martin Audio stand at PLASA 2002 was the site for an important announcement yesterday, and the first appearance of the Synco W8L Line Array System by Martin Audio, a specially configured version of the Martin Audio W8L line array system which is exclusive to the Synco Europe Network. Fred Heuves, MD of Synco Europe, and David Bisset-Powell, MD of Martin Audio, announced the signing of the deal that will see Synco Network members equipped with the system.

The deal represents Martin Audio’s largest single European sale since the launch of the acclaimed W8L system in the spring of this year. The Synco W8L Line Array will be operated in parallel with the existing stocks of the network’s Renkus-Heinz Synco Touring System and proprietary Synco floor monitors. "The network has grown very fast in the five years since we launched it and reached over 1000 cabinets but still

Details
Announced at the PLASA Show, Chameleon Audio has appointed the UK’s leading export company, Expotus, to source potential distributors for its products throughout Asia, and the alliance has already borne fruit, with three companies now handling the line.Total Solution, Singapore, Stagecraft International in the Philippines and Phoenix Audio & Lighting Technology, Hong Kong, are now official distributors of Chameleon amplification.

According to Chameleon MD, Paul Houlden, the decision to appoint Expotus was based on the company’s imposing track record of successfully marketing other UK brands overseas, particularly the Far East. Says Houlden: "Trying to break into the Asian market has been a particularly tough nut to crack. However, thanks to Expotus’ expertise, it’s already beginning to pay dividends for Chameleon."

Following a series of field trials,

Details
DJ Sunday - featuring the Gemini ‘Extreme V DJ competition’ and iDJ-sponsored Talk Zones - raised the volume at the first day of the PLASA Show as DJ hopefuls lined up in front of hundreds of spectators to showcase their talents in the hope of launching a successful DJ career. DJ A.D., the runner-up in last year’s DJ competition went one better and reversed the tables on the 2001 defending champion, DJ Angelo (placed third this year), to win the Gemini ‘Extreme V’ DJ competition.

The audience and judges got a taste of DJ A.D’s (real name Adrian Hall) cross-sectional DJ’ing capabilities during the early stages of the competition, where he kicked off with an energetic display of technical ability matched with an impressive mix of unconventional sounds. "This is an excellent competition because there is an enormous variety of DJing styles and

Details
L&SI profiles the new industry trade association taking its first steps in Australia.

The Australasian Lighting Industry Association (ALIA) has been formed with the aim of bringing together everyone in the region with an interest in lighting - at any level and in any area. After many months consulting with the industry, ALIA became incorporated in June, and has since been signing up members. An interim committee is currently in place and the association’s first Annual General Meeting is planned for this month.

The focal point for the association, which covers an area larger than Western Europe, is the website - www.alia.com.au - where news is regularly posted. It’s also proving an invaluable source of technical information, and includes one of the web’s most extensive pages of lighting-related links. Like PLASA, ALIA aims to promote an understanding of the industry

Details
Stagetec has completed a major installation of lighting systems in three studios at BBC Northern Ireland in Belfast. Studio B, the news studio, has recently been completely refurbished with the installation of a digital infrastructure - as a result, now offering widescreen programming for the News and Current Affairs output. Stagetec has installed 120 channels of 5kW Compulite CompuDIM 2000 modular dimming in the new control suite. A custom mains distribution system - also designed and supplied by Stagetec - provides remote voltage/current indication on the studio floor and in the control room.

Two new Compulite control systems have been provided - an Ovation 4D/RX system with remote electronics crate for the control room and a Micron 4D for use on the studio floor. The whole system is controlled via Ethernet, although DMX distribution has also been installed. A range of Ethernet node

Details
PLASA 2002 at Earls Court, London, is the venue for the launch of the Compact Sy40, the new digital mixing console from InnovaSon, featuring 40 input channels and 24 mix busses. Housed in the same chassis as the Compact Live and Actor, the Compact Sy40 offers far greater mixing capabilities and enhanced functionality for the same number of faders: 32 (including eight stereo) for 40 input channels, 12 stereo mix busses, three left/right/mono/centre masters and one for automation control. The Sy40 has all 12 GrAux outputs stereo enabled to allow fully featured IEM mixing capabilities. Compact Sy40 can be expanded to 72 physical inputs and 48 physical outputs when used in conjunction with an InnovaSon remote Stage Box and up to 500m of co-axcable.

The Compact Sy40 has all of the advantages of the modular architecture of the rest of the Sensory range. Users can choose from optional input/o

  1. PLASA Awards 2002
  2. PLASA remembers 11 September
  3. ADB introduces Axis at PLASA
  4. PLASA Show Closes on a High
  5. Edwin Shirley Staging back in the city
  6. NIDA on Parade
Page 545 of 1804
Astera - Large MPU - June 2025
Sennheiser - MPU - June 2025

Latest Issue. . .