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UK - The 2003 Showman’s Show North attracted a wide range of events industry professionals to The Great Yorkshire Showground this March. The second Showman’s Show North offered the 630 visiting event organizers, everything from falconry displays and helicopters for hire, through to security, generators and laser shows.

Unlike the larger Newbury-based Showman’s Show, the majority of the exhibitors were based inside the exhibition hall on the showground. Organizer Jeremy Lance told us: "We were delighted with the look of the show this year and all the exhibitors presented themselves really well. Visitor numbers were on par with the previous year, so we feel we need to address attracting a wider section of the northern events industry when we next return."

The main event, The Showman’s Show, will take place at Newbury Showground on 22-23 Octob

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Portugal - Stageland, the new sound and lighting company, based in Coimbra, Portugal, 200km north of Lisbon, has made a substantial investment in a Nexo Alpha system. Stageland has been set up by Rui Silva, António Cunha and João Moreira. All three are experienced professionals who worked formerly with another Portuguese PA company, PRO2, service providers for international artists such as Joe Cocker, Skunk Anansie, The Pretenders, Ben Harper and Moby.

Newly independent, Rui Silva and his team have invested in a 24-stack Alpha system, largely as a result of a concert in Pavilhão Atlântico in Lisbon last year, staged as a cooperative venture with Belgian PA company Philing Live. It was such a success that Stageland decided to rent the Nexo Alpha system for the summer season. With Alpha, Stageland is using Crown VZ 5000 and 3600 amps, Soundcraft Five consoles, and Martin LE70

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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USA - The ESTA Board of Directors has voted unanimously to approve a detailed business plan to establish a personnel certification programme for entertainment technology technicians provided the required funds can be raised. Two key areas have been identified for initial development - electrical skills and rigging skills. In addition, a curriculum-based certificate programme will be created to address essential skills which comprise a fundamental body of knowledge needed to work in the entertainment industry.

The business plan for the programme has been developed under the guidance of a professional certification consultant using detailed research and extensive market surveys. In order to implement this business plan, the Board has defined the administrative structure needed to establish and run the programme, including the management skills that are essential to the governing

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USA / China - Barco’s Media & Entertainment division has acquired the assets of US-based Trans-Lux West and China-based Beijing Leyard Electronics Technology Co Ltd, in order to further strengthen its position in the full-colour LED (Light Emitting Diode) display market.

Trans-Lux West Corporation, based in Logan, Utah, is a manufacturer of full colour and monochrome displays, message centres and scoring systems for sports applications; Leyard Electronics Technology Co Ltd is a privately-owned company that designs, manufactures and installs LED displays for the Asian market, with strong focus on China. The two investments confirm Barco’s strategy for continued growth in the full colour LED display market by consolidating and expanding its presence in the key North American market and entering the fast growing Chinese market. The two investments are expected to delive

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UK - Donny Osmond's UK and Ireland tour has benefited from two EV line arrays, the choice of front-of-house engineer Lars Brogaard, and provided by rental company Major Tom Ltd. Osmond's three-week tour encompassed a variety of venues, from 2,000-seater theatres to the 14,000-capacity Manchester Evening News Arena. Given the wide variations in size, Brogaard had specified not only an Electro-Voice X-Line Array system but, additionally, an XLC System, provided by Shuttlesound. Last year, Brogaard was the first engineer in the world to tour with the prototypes for EV's new compact line array, on the road with Rod Stewart. This year, he rates the XLC as "a great, great-sounding box, a real PA in its own right."

Brogaard has worked with Donny Osmond before, back in the 70s when the Osmonds were a force in world pop music. Today, the set list is the same, but the underwear

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USA - A weekend of hands-on technical training sessions will be held in New York City on Saturday and Sunday 28-29 June, immediately following the ninth annual Broadway Lighting Master Classes. The courses are organized by ESTA's Training and Seminars commitee, part of the association's ongoing technical training effort. All proceeds from these events will go to ESTA.

On Saturday 28 June, beginner-level hands-on training on the Wholehog III console will be held at High End Systems' New York facility. Limited to just eight students, this intensive day-long session is taught by Vickie Claiborne, training specialist for High End Systems. The cost of the class is $190 with a small breakfast, box lunch, and soda break included.

On both days, WYSIWYG intensive training will be taught in the Fordham University Theatre by Ben Sanford, WYSIWYG product manager for ETC. This two-day cour

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USA - DiGiCo has announced its first US sale of the D5 Live digital mixing system, to Chicago’s dB Sound. The console is already in action on a European tour this month by metal rock Ministry, with dB Sound’s VP of tour development, Lee Popa, at the controls.

The D5 Live is proving a hit with Popa because the large band line-up presents him with no less than 67 inputs from stage and an endless stream of effects and processing cues. Popa comments: "There’s a new generation of bands and a new generation of young sound engineers, people who have come out of their bedrooms and DJ mixers and want to mix real bands live and who are really good at it - new talent with fresh ideas. That’s one of the many reasons we’ve gone for the D5 Live - there’s a whole new wave happening out there and we intend for dB Sound to remain at the cutting edge."

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UK - Silverdown Studio has installed a complete 5.1 Genelec monitoring system featuring 1034B, 1031 and the new LSE 7073 sub-woofers, to cope with the heavy demand it has been experiencing for 5.1 work. The Hertfordshire studio is owned by Jeff Calvert, who has had a string of hits over the years, starting with a massive number one hit Barbados which he wrote, followed quickly by Starship Trooper. Calvert, who started at Morgan Studios in the 70s, left to set up Silverdown, which was originally located in London. After many successful years, he decided get out of ‘the smoke’ and re-locate to the gently rolling countryside of Hertfordshire.

Calvert’s production partner Chaz (Dabat) Kkoshi says: "We have just completed the intro music for a new PlayStation game in 5.1 called Dance Flight, a new album by Mona for the record company TLC, and we are in negotiat

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USA - Vari-Lite and Entertainment Technology have relocated into one central facility in Dallas, Texas. Genlyte Controls has completed the relocation of the three brands which comprise the Genlyte Thomas Group's controls division. Entertainment Technology, Lightolier Controls and Vari-Lite all began working from a new single location on 1 April. The move to he new facility, which has more than 70,000sq.ft of manufacturing and office space, consolidates all operations of the three companies in one facility.

"Each of the three brands will continue to operate and function as individual companies," said Genlyte Controls general manager Steve Carson. "But having each of the companies in a single location, and under the same roof will allow us to operate more efficiently and take greater advantage of the synergies and resources that the companies share."

The new

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USA - Creative Technology North America provided high performance display technology for the recent 75th Annual Academy Awards ceremony, which aired on ABC and was seen in 150 countries around the world. The celebration, thought somewhat subdued, took place at the Kodak Theatre in the Hollywood and Highland Complex and was hosted by comedian and actor, Steve Martin. Presenters included John Travolta, Susan Sarandon, Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, Ben Affleck and Halle Berry, to name a few.

Creative Technology provided 17 Digital Projection Lightning 28sx projectors to project video images onto a variety of projection surfaces throughout the venue. The most interesting surface was a 30ft tall ‘flute’ that sat centre-stage and also served as a scenic element. The flute, approximately 40ft in diameter at the top, narrowing down to 7ft at the bottom, was created out of wh

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UK - SSE Hire has completed a series of highly successful shows in Ireland and Germany with Oasis, using the long-awaited Nexo Geo-T tangent array system, launched at the Frankfurt ProLight&Sound exhibition earlier this month.

SSE has been field testing the system over the past three months, powered by Camco Vortex lightweight amplifiers. It appeared in public for the first time on Tori Amos' Rotterdam Ahoy show during her recent European tour. Following the run of highly successful Oasis shows, FOH engineer Bruce Johnston, who is a long-time Nexo fan and was very keen to be one of the first to use the new Geo-T system, comments: "I'd been to the demo in Frankfurt and couldn't wait to get my hands on the system and try it out. It was fortunate that the Oasis German shows coincided with the launch and that I could be one of the first to get out there with it. I have to say I

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UK - Even while the facilities design branch of Nautilus Entertainment Design steams toward the 2003 launches of Cunard’s ‘Queen Mary 2’, Costa Cruise Line’s ‘Fortune’ and ‘Mediterranea’ and Carnival Cruise Line’s ‘Glory’, Jim Tetlow and the production lighting design arm of NED entered 2003 with a full slate of corporate theatre and special event projects.

January saw the team working on the Porsche exhibit and Cayenne SUV introduction at the Los Angeles Auto Show, on behalf of Jack Morton Productions. Intel had a huge arena show for several thousand of its sales and marketing personnel, produced by John Halloran Associates, while Kaleidoscope Productions oversaw the Glaxo Smith Kline business meeting in Phoenix; both relying on NED for lighting design services. In the spirit of the auto show season, NED designed

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USA - BSR E1.25-200x, Recommended Basic Conditions for Measuring the Photometric Output of Stage and Studio Luminaries by Measuring Illumination Levels Produced on a Planar Surface, is new standards-drafting project intended to help manufacturers collect the data required to be reported in ANSI E1.9 - 2001, Reporting Photometric Performance Data for Luminaires Used in Entertainment Lighting. The adoption of that standard has been slowed by the lack of rules for the basic test conditions for any of the commonly used photometry systems that involve shining the light from a luminaire at a flat screen or wall.

Flat-wall photometry, either using a digital camera photometry system or a simple hand-held meter to measure the illumination levels, is the most common type used by stage and studio luminaire manufacturers, but no standards exist to provide guidance for these me

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UK - Projected Image Digital showcased a RADlite visual manipulation system with television lighting director Will Charles, who utilized it in a new and innovative way on the Carlton TV series ‘Starfinder’. The show, shot at Black Island Studios, Park Royal, north London for transmission as a series this autumn, is produced by Justin Scroggie and features a spectacular set designed by Richard Drew.

‘Starfinder’ is a children’s games programme, set on a space station, with elements from both Crystal Maze and Big Brother. Each episode sees four ‘astronauts’, aged 12 - 14, who won their places via the internet, engage in a series of games, and battle for popularity with the viewers who vote them on or off the space station. The simulator part of the programme - where the contestants whiz through space, playing games, in their special vehicl

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USA - The Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino on the Las Vegas Strip is currently undergoing a $250 million expansion project that will soon add over a thousand new suites and 150,000sq.ft of supplementary meeting space to the already palatial complex.

The new meeting facilities, in particular, are comprised of three large boardrooms, 19 meeting rooms and three 14,000sq.ft. ballrooms, each of which may be split into 14 individual meeting rooms. To accommodate the demanding audio DSP and routing requirements for a project of this magnitude, Michael Naylor, systems design engineer for The Venetian, created a system primarily based around BSS Audio's PS-8810C Prosys processor. "The CobraNet-equipped Prosys units are really the heart of our audio system," says Naylor. "By using The Venetian's Ethernet and fibre backbone, we're able to send audio from any of these new meeting

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Italy - From 13 January to 16 March 2003 the exhibition ‘Renoir and the light of Impressionism’ was opened in the new exhibition rooms of the Musei del Canal Grande of Trieste at the Palazzo Gopcevic. The exhibition, organized by Maïthé Valles-Bled and Vincenzo Sanfo, was conceived and created by New York Masters Exhibitions of Rome and Nuova Tavolozza Eventi of Palermo. The exhibition embraces 30 paintings and another 30 various works institutions and private collections in France, United States, Italy, England and Switzerland.

Allestimenti & Co, jointly with the Altair company, used a Clay Paky V.I.P. 1200 to project the name of the renowned artist on the façade of Palazzo Gopcevic, using a 150mm lens and dichroic gobo - the latter essential for providing the precision required with such a large format projection. The exhibition's logo - showing Renoir’s s

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UK - Visitors to this year’s Daily Mail Ideal Homes Exhibition can’t fail to notice the giant centrepiece of the exhibition, the 16m high ‘Tower of Time’. Commissioned by the exhibition’s organizers, and designed by Andy Johnstone of Johnstone Design Partnership, the four-sided mirrored obelisk showpiece was built by exhibition set construction experts ESS.

"The actual construction was extremely complex," said ESS’s Jeff Burke, "as there’s not a single perpendicular truss or right angle in the entire structure. We used 228m of LT Tower Truss and 24 specially designed and fabricated angled frames to allow the truss sections to interact."

"The outer covering was 700gsm blackout fire retardant pvc, printed on one side to a design by Andy Johnstone," said ESS project manager, Rob Smalldon. "The finished p

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UK - London-based Spirit Design & Production recently staged the Headmasters Awards 2003, for client Headmasters, the south London-based hairdressing group, in association with cosmetics giants L’Oreal, at Wimbledon Theatre.

The long-running annual awards event showcases the best work and latest styles from the past year and honours stylists and sales people alike. Spirit were awarded the contract to supply the full production service, including event design, in 2002 and were brought back to infuse the 2003 event with more fresh ideas and a new look. Spirit D&P, owned by Tor Cooper-Evans and Chris Biddulph, has years of collective experience in the events industry but adds a unique combination of cutting-edge ideas and stylistic presentation. "We simply do not believe in offering a client an off-the-shelf idea," comments Biddulph, "even though that might be

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UK - After 32 years at the helm, Iain Price-Smith, MD of Multiform Lighting, has announced the company’s merger with Light Engineering of Walthamstow, London. As a founding member of PLASA, Multiform was one of the companies that pioneered the development of lighting effects controllers for clubs and rock bands from its early beginnings in the industry in 1970. Light Engineering have distributed the Multiform range for many years.

Under the partnership, the existing product range will be manufactured at new premises in Basildon, with sales handled by the Light Engineering sales team. Iain Price-Smith has moved his consultancy and design organization to Hailsham and will continue to operate as Multiform Technology, providing technical support to Light Engineering. New Multiform Lighting products are under development, and are planned for release at PLASA 2003.

Commenting

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Spain - LA Audio has appointed Lexon S.A. as its new distributor in Spain: the company will take over responsibility for the sales and marketing of the LA Audio brand in this territory.

Lexon S.A. was established in 1977 with offices in Sarriá, Barcelona, and Santibáñez de Béjar, Madrid. Its primary business is the import and distribution of professional audio and video products for fixed installations, rental companies, contractors, consultants and engineering companies. It also supplies specific products to the broadcast sector, in particular radio and TV stations, as well recording and post-production in studios. It operates in the whole of the Spanish territory, including the Canary and Balearic Islands, with over 1300 regular customers.

According to Luke Baldry, director of sales & marketing for Audient and LA Audio, the move will greatly improve the opportunities for

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UK - Massive Attack’s current world tour in support of their new album, 100th Window, has turned out to be a veritable showcase for XTA, whose SiDD digital dynamics processor and the new Series 2 units have been specified throughout the PA system.

GPA Hire is supplying its Funktion One Resolution Series system, comprising 10 mid-high cabinets a side, along with five under-hungs and downfills and up to 12 subwoofers - depending on the venue size - all powered by QSC PL2 and PL4 amplification. TC2290 delays and Lexicon PCM80 and PCM91 reverbs complete the hardware inventory.

Gary Young, mixing front-of-house on a Midas Heritage 3000, specified five DP324 SiDD dynamics processors for compression and dynamic EQ on the low end of the vocals and bass guitar. He comments: "We’re really just grabbing hold of stuff and sorting it out, which you can do easily with a SiD

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USA - Martin Professional Inc has announced the details of its LightJockey Contest - a lighting design competition in which entrants are asked to design a creative 3-minute light show, coded to music, using the Windows-based Martin LightJockey controller software.

The designs must be based on one of three digital format songs available from the Martin US website. The most creative design will win $5000 dollars’ worth of Martin gear and a trip to Denmark to tour the new Martin factory. The runner-up will also receive a trip to Denmark. Other prizes will also be available.

The deadline for entries is September 30, 2003, and the winning entries will be announced at the 2003 LDI show in Orlando.

(Ruth Rossington)

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UK - Leading lights and newcomers to the entertainment industry turned up to see what the future holds for lighting at the launch of Scene Change on March 25. The new company, sister to DHA Lighting, is taking DHA’s 30 years of experience in gobo creation and large-format projection for the performing arts forward into the video age. It offers a huge range of video effects, from abstract animations to bespoke footage. It also provides royalty-free video clips from its own libraries and those of Artbeats, Digital Juice, The Digital Vision Motion Clip Library and others.

The Open Day at the MacOwan Theatre, Earls Court, was staged in conjunction with High End Systems, whose Catalyst system has proved ideal for replaying Scene Change’s video footage, and Flying Pig Systems, who provided control of the lighting and projection through the new Wholehog III. It took place o

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USA - The Seattle Opera House, home to two of the most prestigious and world-renowned performing arts organizations - Pacific North West Ballet and Seattle Opera - is currently undergoing complete renovation works worth $125million. The dramatic refurbishment commenced in January last year and the newly named Marion Oliver McCaw Hall is due for reopening in June this year.

According to the Opera House’s artistic directors Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, the passage of time and millions of visitors have taken their toll on a building that has received no major repairs to either its mechanical, technical or performance spaces since the late 1920s. The new 2,890-seat auditorium has been redesigned to be an aesthetically stunning and state-of-the-art performance hall worthy of housing Seattle’s world-class performances for years to come.

JR Clancy, specialists in the

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