For the filming of ‘Chicago,’ Miramax's reconceived film version of Bob Fosse's hit Broadway musical, director Rob Marshall called on two of the renowned theatrical lighting designers - Peggy Eisenhauer and Jules Fisher - to light the musical numbers. To light the film's detail-specific musical fantasy sequences and transitions, they chose Vari*Lite Series 2000 automated luminaries.

"The central core concept is that the musical numbers take place in different theatrical environments," Eisenhauer explained. "There is a contrast between the real-time scenes and the 'fantasy' musical numbers. All of the lighting in the film was achieved in a wonderful collaboration with the Cinematographer, Dion Beebe. In addition to lighting the musical numbers Jules and I collaborated with Beebe on many of the transitions between reality and fantasy."

Eisenhauer and Fis

Eastbourne Youth Radio is planning its second broadcast next month, following the success of last year’s 24-hour broadcast, which involved over 1,000 young people and around 50 community and business organizations in the Eastbourne area. Similar projects have since been launched in other parts of the country.

The EYR website received thousands of hits and significant media coverage was gained for Eastbourne and the many participants including links with BBC Southern Counties, Sovereign and SouthernFM radio stations. Bolstered by this huge success, Eastbourne Education Business Partnership is working on arrangements to run EYR again for 36 hours on 28-29 November 2002. Programmes will contain a mix of live and recorded interviews, local performance work and music. In particular, EYR will help to raise awareness of SRB6 ‘Pooling our Resources’ and other community proje

Liverpool based sound specialist Adlib Audio Ltd report that they’ve had a very busy few months. The company has recently purchased a Nexo Alpha system which, combined with their JBL Vertec line array system, ensures that their stock caters for a wide range of requirements. Tours out with Adlib this year include Atomic Kitten, Gomez and The Coral, plus have Groove Armada shows coming up, not to mention US big boys the Fun Lovin’ Criminals. With Dave Kay (FOH) and Paul Roberts (systems tech) out on the road with Mercury Award Nominees The Coral and soon heading to the US, Adlib look set for an equally busy winter.

(Lee Baldock)

A place to unwind and have fun, as if you were at home: that’s the idea behind Salò’s new Absolut - the most renowned and exclusive nightclub on Lake Garda, Italy. The lake has always been an ideal setting for nightclubs, but quality took a turn in summer 2001, when Massimo and Giampiero Gallina took over the club, creating its distinctive character, for which much of the merit goes to art director Ezio Arnaboldi.

The interior is furnished with comfortable sofas and couches, alternated with loungers and dark wood tables, which set off the numerous white cushions, large lampshades and huge ashtrays. Clay Paky’s Mini Scan HPE and Tiger CC lighting fixtures embellish the dance floor with colour, graphic patterns and varied effects. Colour also takes the centre stage outside: the outdoor Clay Paky CP Color 150-E colour changers create a cosy atmosphere in the relaxation

From 10-13 October, Moscow was home to Russia’s largest music trade fair. ‘Music Moscow 2002’ attracted visitors and exhibitors from all over the world. One of the highlights was provided by Ruton S - the Russian distributor for Electro-Voice, with its dynamic yet business-like presentation.

As well as introducing visitors to a whole series of products drawn from the current Electro-Voice range, such as the Eliminator Double, the Eliminator kW, the EVID speaker and the new Co-11 and Re510 condenser microphones, the team, led by Gregory Ronin, had laid on a rock band, ‘The Vinyl Steam Locomotive’, whose powerful sound quickly established them as one of the biggest draws at the show. The band - all dedicated EV users - were showcasing the EV Eliminator Double and Eliminator kW enclosures, as well as the new Fri-2082 monitors. This allowed music dealers as we

Beijing Bei Ao Grand Cultural & Sports Events Company of China cooperated with Martin Professional recently in providing a large number of intelligent lights for the ‘928’ Beijing Concert. The ‘928’ concert featured the foremost singers of the year from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Aside from the lighting system, Bei Ao was also responsible for the entire production for the concert, including sound and staging. The event was very successful and received a rapturous response from both the audience and the media.

With a 50,000-strong audience at the Beijing Worker's Stadium, Bei Ao used more than a hundred of Martin’s MAC series moving head fixtures, including MAC 2000, MAC 500 and MAC 600s, hung on the curved trussing system above stage and projecting innumerable changes of lighting and patterns onto the stage and set.

(Lee Baldock)

MC2 Audio’s distributor in India, Performance Audio India Pvt Ltd, has installed sound systems powered by MC2 Audio amplifiers in two of Mumbai's newest clubs - Mikanos and Velocity. Velocity is situated in the Tardeo district of Mumbai and comprises the main Velocity club area, a 'retro' lounge called RPM, the Bollywood restaurant and a private members lounge. The club caters for all preferences from a quiet dinner to a night of non-stop dancing on the 1,000sq.ft dance floor.

The brief for Rustom Pavri, director of Performance Audio India, was to equip the venue to handle the wide mix of music, from rock and pop to techno and country. This he achieved using Turbosound Floodlight speakers powered by MC1250, MC750 and MC450 amplifiers with T1000 amplifiers being used for the Turbosound TCS-35. Pavri says: "Since we installed the system, everyone has been very impressed with t

Coe-tech/Robe UK, exclusive UK distributors for the fast growing Czech moving light brand Robe, has supplied Dublin-based distribution company Aquarius with a large quantity of Robe intelligent lighting fixtures for Lacey’s, a 1500 capacity club at the Carrickdale Hotel, Dundalk, Republic of Ireland.

This is the first Robe installation in Ireland since Northampton-based Coe-tech took on the UK and Irish distribution in July this year. The lighting rig for the newly revamped club was designed by Wayne Winstanley and installed by the Carrickdale’s own technical team led by Brian O’Keeffe. The space consists of a large, single multi-purpose room that’s also utilized as a Sunday carvery and occasional restaurant. It is also used as a venue for a miscellany of events including business conferences and weddings - and the lighting scheme was required to be as versatile

On 19 October at a press conference held during the LDI show in Las Vegas, Martin Professional’s US subsidiary, Martin Professional Inc, presented its second annual Intelligent Lighting Technology Grant.

The company’s CEO, Troels Volver, presented the 2002 Grant to the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) Department of Theatre. On hand to accept the award on behalf of the university was Brackley Frayer, lighting designer and head of design/technology at UNLV. "The Grant will allow UNLV to teach students with state-of-the-art equipment and help to establish an Entertainment Engineering programme," he stated after the presentation. "Las Vegas is the centre for entertainment technology, thus we need our students involved in all aspects of lighting."

Former UNLV theatre students include Cirque de Soleil lighting director Jeanette Farmer and Emmy award-wi

Tomcat’s second annual Las Vegas Motor School, held immediately after LDI 2002, was a major success for the company. Building on the popularity of the first class offered in Las Vegas in June 2001, the company enrolled over 40 participants for the two-day course. These received instruction on chain hoist motors by Don Dimitroff of Columbus McKinnon, fall protection lead by Morgan Neff of Mine Safety Appliances and truss theory taught by Keith Bohn from Tomcat USA. In other Tomcat training news, the annual four-day Tomcat Hoist and Rigging Workshop will be hosted by Tomcat USA in Midland, Texas on February 5-8, 2003.

(Ruth Rossington)

Lighting companies trading on the Internet are being warned to keep a watchful eye after a number of businesses in the industry have seen their Internet traffic unlawfully directed to a rival’s website.

The warning comes from commercial law firm, Taylors, who successfully helped a leading Lancashire-based lighting manufacturer win a legal battle against their competitor who had unlawfully placed meta tags on their website so that customers searching for their rival’s products would be directed instead to their own. Further investigations by intellectual property lawyers at Taylors also revealed that the website contained 15 meta tags for other rivals’ sites.

Elaine Hurn, managing partner at Taylors said: "Some unscrupulous companies have been including meta tags giving the names of their competitors so that when the competitor's name is searched for, their own

Soundcraft’s successful new multipurpose MH4 mixing desk is continuing to make an impact with the UK’s sound rental companies. Liverpool-based Adlib Audio is the latest rental company to purchase both 40- and 48-channel frame versions of the new console.

Fitted with four stereo mic/line inputs, the MH4 serves as either a dedicated front-of-house or monitor desk - or a combination of both - attributes which Adlib managing director Andy Dockerty had been seeking. The 48-channel desk went straight out with up-and-coming Liverpool band, The Coral, where colleague and sound engineer Dave Kay, was mixing at front-of-house. Andy Dockerty explained: "We are finding that in our marketplace - typically the 1,000-2,000 capacity venues - we need a reasonably high-spec desk in a relatively small footprint, which the engineers will be happy with. I liked Soundcraft’s Series 4,

The Flightcase Warehouse and Q-Flightcases of Lisburn have formed a partnership to distribute their standard range of flightcases in Ireland. The new company will be called Flightcase Warehouse Ireland and will be based in Lisburn. Flightcase Warehouse managing director Steve Austin comments: "We know that the potential in Ireland is massive, but due to logistics and shipping costs, we are limited to what we can sell direct from the UK. According to our website statistics, we receive on average of 5000 hits per month from Ireland, indicating a need for an outlet in this region. Q-Flightcases are the perfect solution to this problem, and are well situated to cover the whole of Ireland."

Q-Flightcases co-director Joan Beggs adds: "At present those companies that take advantage of our local facilities, have mostly been interested in our specialized cases. Generally, for lar

Sound Advice, the Music Industry Education Roadshow, kicked off its tour of the UK on Monday 21 October to a packed auditorium of eager young music students at The Brit School, the venue for the launch event.

The day, which began at 11am, was split into three seminars Can't Get You Out Of My Head - from the Song to the Recording; Help I Need Somebody - from the Concept to the Concert; Paid in Full - from Rights to Royalties. Panellists for the London seminars were Horace Trubridge, Andy East, Sharon Rose, Radio 1 star Steve Lamacq, and Blue Weaver for the creative panel; Howard Ricklow, Nick Kanaar, Martin Talbot, Peter Horrey, Jane Dyball and ex Dire Straits manager Ed Bicknell for the business seminar and Frances Lowe, Peter Horrey, Mark Jones, Jo Laverty, Malcolm Buckland and Jill Drew on the rights and royalties panel. Over 200 students joined industry professionals for the day of

Proving that no job is too unusual, a Lighthouse LVP1010 LED video screen (10mm pixel pitch, 1000 nits of brightness) was supplied for a large pharmaceutical company, Pharmacia’s, recent staff forum. The 5x5 panel screen was supplied by AV Network, specialists in the hire and sale of technology presentation products. “The management of Pharmacia believe in strong, regular communications with its staff," explains AV Network director, Suzanne Atkins. "And to achieve this they hold regular staff forums for two-way open communications and updates." To keep the meeting informal, and to encourage interaction from the staff, the company wanted to keep the event in-house.

"Their offices have a large glass-ceilinged atrium, which they wanted to use for the forum," continues Atkins. "This gave us an area with very high ambient light. As we intended to ru

Professional audio distributor, Rock Centrum, has completed a major indoor and outdoor installation in the Slovakian city of Martin. The company was approached by the city's mayor and a panel of architects to create a fitting audio system for a high profile new pedestrian area and the glass-sided ‘Millenium’ building within it. The open air space is dominated by 10 translucent columns, which project a light and sound show into the central square. An Allen & Heath GR1 three-output analogue zone mixer routes audio to the columns, which contain five Crown XLS series amplifiers and 10 Tannoy i8 AW all weather speakers. Delays are provided by a Digitech Studio Quad4 multi-effects processor.

Beyond the columns, the pedestrian area is overlooked by the suitably impressive Millenium bar. The building is divided into four independent zones, each fed by an output from an Allen & Heat

Rising dance stars Kosheen have gone from touring pubs and clubs in a Transit van to playing the main stage at V2002 in just 18 months. This month, they embark on their first ever production tour with a Martin Audio, XTA, Midas and Sennheiser system supplied by Capital Sound. The nine-date UK tour runs from October 10-25 with the final night at Brixton Academy.

Capital Sound’s Paul Timmins explains: "We supported them and provided monitors on a 12-week tour last year when they were on their way up, and they’ve come a very long way very quickly. A year and a half ago were still going around in a van and now they’re taking out a full production including sound, lighting and projection."

This autumn’s one-truck tour production features a Midas Heritage 3000 for FOH with engineer Simon Thomas and a Midas XL4 on monitors, mixed by Dave Lee. 14 cabinets as

Now fewer than 300 Arrisun Event 575 Daylight Pars were on duty at the British International Motor Show - all hired by north-east London-based Static Light. Some 200 of these were featured on the spectacular Vauxhall stand - mounted on 50 x 50 GP truss to create a dramatic effect in front of a Dataton Watchout soft-blend backdrop.

The ballasts - power factor corrected, dimmable, and controllable via DMX - were stacked in groups of three in specially made 19" racks. Andrew Mama, a director of Static Light, said that Marshall Design, who designed the Vauxhall display, had insisted on using Arri. "These are ideal for motor shows because of their fast set-up, advanced optics and the fact they have a dichroic glass reflector behind the light. This produces an even field of light - rather than the polished aluminium which degrades quickly."

He says that unlike other luminar

One of the largest concentrations of its kind in the world, a record-breaking number of 26 BSS Jellyfish has been ordered for installation in the leafy backwater of Bagshot in Surrey. Installation Technologies, the Oxfordshire-based audio-visual installation company, is masterminding the ultimate personal entertainment network for guests at the Pennyhill Park Hotel, part of the Exclusive Hotels group.

Winner of the AA's prestigious Hotel of the Year 2002 award, Pennyhill Park is currently constructing a lavishly appointed spa and health centre. Adam Bloch of Installation Technologies has designed an entertainment system which delivers multi-channel choice to every fitness room and treatment suite, giving guests the ability to pick their own music, ambience and volume preferences using the Jellyfish interface.

The heart of the network is two BSS Soundweb 9088ii DSP engines, with four

A year after the devastating events of 11 September, 2001, light is gleaming again in the Winter Garden, the centrepiece public space of the World Financial Center complex. The vaulted glass atrium was severely damaged during the collapse of the towers, and the lighting system, including speciality entertainment luminaires and architectural-control functionality, was destroyed. Miraculously, people were evacuated in time to prevent injuries. As part of the $50m renovation, a new glass façade archway has replaced the footbridge which led to the World Trade Center. High within the arches of the new glass ceiling is a state-of-the-art lighting rig and ETC control system.

Todd Berling Design Inc was asked in November 2001 by Brookfield Properties to assess the damage to the venue's theatrical systems - rigging, lighting and audio. "Our original walkthrough was overwhelming. We got to

500 guests attended this year’s UK AV Industry Awards Ceremony on 16 October; and the event attracted record numbers of entries. One of the most hotly contested categories was Installation of the Year, which included five finalists instead of the usual three. Electrosonic, which was involved in three of the final projects, emerged as the overall winner of Installation of the Year for ‘Thinktank’, the Birmingham Museum of Science and Discovery. The other finalists were Williams F1 Conference Center and Grand Prix Museum; the Vanco Lab Presentation Environment; the Sheraton Frankfurt 270 degree AV installation; and The Big Picture at Imperial War Museum North.

The principal criteria applied to the judging process were evidence of innovation and company performance, coherent strategies and objectives, capable implementation, the appropriate use of technologies and creati

Contracted by Unusual Services, Fourth Phase London has paid yet another visit to the Royal Albert Hall. As the lights went down on Wednesday 16 October, the London landmark became the venue for 'Whip Craic', an evening of music from the worlds of rock, pop, classical, opera, comedy and theatre hosted by the Countryside Alliance.

The Countryside Alliance promotes the interests of rural people, including all countryside pursuits and field sports, sensible wildlife management and wider countryside concerns such as employment and environments. As all of the £200,000 raised by this event will be used to support the organisation's work, it was essential that the evening of music and entertainment made an impact on the audience.

Fourth Phase supplied a variety of MAC 500s and 600s and a Wholehog II control desk to supplement the existing house rig, plus crew. Creating a lighting design to

Australian company Jands Electronics, the well-known manufacturer of a leading range of lighting consoles and dimmers for the entertainment industry, is the latest manufacturer to join the Art-Net Alliance. The purpose of the Alliance is to promote the wide-spread adoption of the Art-Net Ethernet Standard. The Art-Net Alliance with the inclusion of Jands is now truly a global network.

From their Australian base Jands supports a global customer network. "Supporting Art-Net will ensure that we maintain our position as a supplier of leading edge products. The features offered by Art-Net will ensure our users continue to have access to the latest lighting data transmission tools," Paul Mulholland, managing director of Jands told us. "We look forward to implementing Art-Net in future generations of our products."

The Art-Net tools package continues to grow on a weekly

JBL Professional is excited to announce the first international installation of Precision Directivity Series loudspeakers. Vodafone Arena, a premiere sports and entertainment venue in Melbourne, was recently renovated with PD speakers, receiving a very positive response. The 10,800-seat Vodafone Arena features retractable and removable seats to accommodate various events including tennis, basketball, live music concerts and a velodrome for bicycle races. A retractable roof, which takes ten minutes to fully open or close, allows the venue to be transformed from an indoor arena to an outdoor venue. The roof presented an understandable challenge when designing the sound system. Since the system could not be mounted in the centre of the arena, the catwalk running around the perimeter of the open roof was utilized.

The original sound system, consisting of a six-element circular array of 15&

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