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PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

Business

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USA - Composer Brian Wilson was honoured recently as the Grammy MusiCares 2005 Person of the Year. To celebrate his musical, humanitarian and philanthropic accomplishments, a special all-star tribute concert and silent auction was held 11 February at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles.

Delicate Productions of Camarillo, California, supplied the good lighting vibrations with a package featuring High End Systems equipment. LD David 'Gurn' Kaniski and crew chief Andy Figuroa took charge of the rig of 18 Studio Beams, 16 Studio Color 575s and 12 Studio Spot 575s. A Wholehog 2 console with a Wing was specified for control. The Palladium rocked out with performances by Backstreet Boys, Barenaked Ladies, Jeff Beck, Michelle Branch, Jamie Cullum, Earth, Wind & Fire, India.Arie, John Legend, Darlene Love, Shelby Lynne, Fred Martin & The Levite Camp, Michael McDonald, Red Hot Chili P

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UK - When Umbaba opened to a select clientele recently, it completed a trio of exclusive London West End venues equipped from the ground up with ATC transparent reference monitors. Overseen by acoustician Nick Whitaker, the Umbaba system came about as a development of the PA they had designed and installed at Aura and Chinawhite. The guiding influence had been Freddie Moss, who has a strong financial stake in both Aura and Chinawhite, and was introduced to the ATC sound by Whitaker himself.

ATC's method is to use recording studio quality loudspeakers in slightly greater numbers to give enhanced sound performance and extended listening comfort. "The major advantage in the greatly reduced distortion over a PA-type system," says ATC's R&D engineer, Ben Lilly. "Distortion is the major cause of listener fatigue and discomfort."

"We wanted hi-fi quality bu

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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Australia - Australian hospitality entrepreneur, Geoff Haywood, has renovated one of Perth's 19th Century classic pubs, the Brisbane Hotel, appointing club specialists, Megavision, and audio suppliers, TAG, to install a new audio format.

The resurrected venue is a fusion of new design elements and classic tradition. From an audio perspective the main hospitality area splits into two zones - the Long Bar and the Beer Garden. Globally connected and able to be operated as a single system, each area can also run independently and has been custom-designed to best meet the expected use.

All the audio system zones are controlled by an 8 x 16 Allen & Heath iDR-8 digital mix processor with settings addressable via wall panels - including the eight fader PL-6 - via laptop, or using the iDR's TCP-IP address over the web.

Strategically located between The Long Bar and The Beer Garden is

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UK / Italy - The International Audio Group (IAG) has announced the acquisition of the Italian Coef brand of lighting products to its portfolio of leading audio brands. Formed in 1997, IAG comprises well known brand names such as Wharfedale hifi, Wharfedale Pro, Quad hifi and Quad Industrial. With its worldwide distribution network including subsidiaries in the UK, Germany, Australia, America and Hong Kong, the Group says it has both the manufacturing expertise and strategic positioning to develop the Coef brand further.

IAG says it will continue to manufacture the existing range of Coef-branded products for the architectural, entertainment and theatre markets but above all will inject considerable investment into research and development of new products to address the needs of those markets. However, the company will cease to operate in Italy.

In recent years, say the compan

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UK - The Sage Gateshead, the stunning new £70m home for live music in the North of England, is at the heart of the regeneration of Tyneside. Funded by the largest Arts Lottery grant outside London, The Sage Gateshead is the first building for the performing arts to be designed by Foster and Partners and aims to be an inclusive, open-for-everyone music venue. It includes two concert halls, the Northern Rock Foundation Hall for rehearsal and performance and a 25 room Music Education Centre designed to pioneer a fresh approach to musical discovery. Theatre Projects Consultants (TPC) was responsible for the technical design, working with acousticians Arup Acoustics.

Hall One, with a capacity of 1650, is the largest of the two concert halls and uses retractable acoustic curtains, as does Northern Rock Foundation Hall, whereas the unusual design of Hall Two called for acoustic banne

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UK - Birmingham-based AV installation company Argus Services is creating something of a benchmark for sound reinforcement systems among the leading football clubs in the UK, having recently installed Martin Audio's AM Stadium Series loudspeakers cabinets at three Premier Division clubs.

The latest to install the specially-designed weather-proofed cabinets is West Bromwich Albion FC. Argus has added seven AM15 cabinets to the main stand at West Brom's Hawthorns stadium. Jerry Matthews of Argus explains that "it's a deep tiered stand, and, although there was already a single row of speakers at the front, the further you went up the rows, the less you could hear. We've had to mount a row of Martin Audio AM15s about 25ft up the stand, just about where the directors sit!" All the AM15's have been suspended on custom-built brackets. "These enable us to do everything fr

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UK - Michigan-based Thunder Audio has invested in DiGiCo D5 Live and D1 Live digital mixing consoles for its current tour with Garbage. With 25 years' experience in sound and light rental, Thunder Audio is a premier audio and full production company in both the US and the rest of the world, and they have chosen to invest in DiGiCo as their first foray into the world of digital audio mixing.

"We always said that we would take the digital plunge when it was necessary," says Paul Owen, vice-president of Thunder Audio. "We chose to go for the D5 and D1 Live with fibre optic split because of DiGiCo's excellent reputation and the request for these particular consoles on the Garbage tour. We know that we're going to have them rented out for the coming 12 months and that makes for a very sound investment."

Geoff Lissaman, DiGiCo's vice-president - Concert Sound,

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UK - The Brit Awards, now celebrating its 25th year, saw Shure hard-wired and wireless mics plus personal monitoring being utilized. Many artists chose to use the combination of Shure Premier Wireless with a Beta 58A capsule. Those included four Brit nominee, Natasha Bedingfield who performed Chaka Khan's disco classic 'Ain't Nobody' with her brother Daniel. Another stunning duo to use Shure Premier Wireless were Jamelia and Lemar who performed a raunchy version of Robert Palmer's 'Addicted to Love'; both urban artists were nominated for several awards. Winner of Best UK Solo Artist, The Streets was another Shure wireless user delivering his recent UK number one track 'Dry Your Eyes'. Furthermore, arguably the highlight of the evening, Robbie Williams and Joss Stone chose to use Premier Wireless whilst performing Robbie's 'Angels', for which he received the Best Song Award. Joss

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UK - SDD Sound & Light has just completed the updating of lighting control hardware and software for the Magna Carta Arts Centre in Staines, Surrey. The centre plays host to a wide range of events from pantomime, concerts, musical theatre through to school drama festivals. Technical expertise is also wide ranging from users who have worked in the West End to school age children. Needless to say, with this in mind it was important that a new lighting desk should be easy to understand and yet powerful enough to satisfy the needs of the users.

Remaining with Strand products was the obvious choice and with the increasing number of clients using intelligent lighting in their productions, SDD finally settled on the 350 channel, 520i to replace the ageing Strand LBX. Clive Walker, the Arts Centre manager, said: "Our relationship with SDD goes back to the early years of the centre

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USA - For the eighth consecutive year, New Life Church in Colorado Springs is preparing for its popular Easter production of The Thorn, with a new setting and lighting design in place. The 8,000+ seat New Life Church Worship Center features a state-of-the-art lighting system to augment the variety of services and productions planned for the venue. Terry Taylor, lighting director for the facility, consulted with Peter Maurelli from Barbizon Light of the Rockies in Denver to decide on the perfect arrangement for the church's busy schedule. Naturally, The Thorn was a major focus.

With the new Worship Center in place to showcase the performance, Taylor needed the lighting to be perfect. The decision was made to install the Wybron Autopilot II system with 22 x.Spots in the ceiling and four on the floor, plus eight High End Systems 575 Studio series in the ceiling, for

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UK - XL supplied two of its new DP HD35 projectors and a newly released Barco Folsom Encore SC control system along with a digital three-camera PPU for Pizza Hut's 2005 sales conference in the Monarch Suite of the Hilton Metropole in London. The conference was followed by an awards dinner and dance. The event was produced by Beki Gaskin working for Breeze Marketing; XL's project manager was Greg Rice and Mel Davis handled the event production management.

The two projectors - each displaying 1920 x 1080 pixels - were rigged for rear projection using a soft edge overlap, and giving a full screen display area of 3200 x 1080 pixels across the 12m wide asymmetric surface. Gaskin has produced the show for the last nine years and this year wanted to attempt something radically different. The highly flexible Barco Folsom system enabled her to break the mould not only in live video effe

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Denmark - A large quantity of DPA Microphones including 14 DPA 4011 cardioid mics, 10 DPA 4022 compact cardioid mics, eight DPA 4006 omnidirectional mics, 32 4061 miniatures and 22 4066 miniatures are in use at the new Danish Opera House in Copenhagen. The opera house, which is one of the most advanced in the world, was inaugurated with a gala performance on 15 January 2005.

The new venue is a gift to the people of Denmark from Danish businessman Mærsk Mc-Kinney Møller, and home to the Danish Royal Theatre, with whom DPA Microphones enjoys a close relationship. The Danish Royal Theatre has assumed technical responsibility for the venue, and the mics were specified by Claus Wolter, head of sound for the Royal Danish Theatre and Opera. "I have to believe in the quality of every single piece of equipment we use in our daily work, and that's why we always have different type

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UK - The National Theatre has just completed a refit of the main proscenium loudspeaker system in the Lyttelton Theatre, using Opus Audio Developments loudspeakers, amplifiers and controllers. Adam Rudd, Sound Supervisor for the Lyttelton, together with members of his team, went through a lengthy evaluation process to find the system that gave them the most natural sound quality and best coverage.

Adam Rudd explains, "We've had various systems in the Lyttelton over the years, but never one we were completely satisfied with. Up for evaluation were the usual systems you'd list for top quality theatre and Alan Lochhead also approached us with the Opus products. I have to say that there was some scepticism before the listening tests but it soon became clear that the full Opus system of loudspeakers, amplifiers and controllers were in a league of their own as far as accurate, n

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USA - For the eighth consecutive year, Audio-Technica microphones was extensively deployed by the Grammy Awards show for star performances, and to provide backline signals for the major international broadcast event, televised in both HDTV and surround sound on the CBS High Definition Television Network.

Michael Abbott, audio coordinator for the 47th Annual Grammys, stated: "We are pleased that Audio-Technica has continued its support for the 8th year as a Grammy manufacturing partner. I would also like to commend A-T on the 5000 Series Wireless. Its high-fidelity and solid performance made it a go-to wireless for artists and engineers alike."

Audio-Technica's Artist Elite 5000 Series Wireless Systems were used for front-line vocals by artists such as: Gwen Stefani, Marc Anthony and Jennifer Lopez, Johnny Van Zant, Blind Boys of Alabama, Melissa Etheridge and John Ma

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UK - Following on from the success of last year's series of Theatre Lighting Workshops, Selecon UK has announced further sessions for 2005. These technical lighting workshops, organized especially for professional theatre technicians and lighting designers, offer a hands-on experience and the opportunity to have a closer look at Selecon's unique range of Award-winning theatre luminaries.

Venues and Dates for 2005 are: 21 March at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge; 24 March at the Tyne Theatre, Newcastle; and 5 April at the Clywd Theatre, Mold, North Wales. The sessions will last from 10.30am to 3pm, with lunch included. The workshops are free to all theatre technicians and lighting designers.

(Lee Baldock)

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Canada - An Adamson SpekTrix compact line array system has been permanently installed at the new Cats Theatre in Tokyo, Japan. The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Cats has enjoyed successful theatrical stagings across the globe, and although the Broadway and London productions have completed their extended, record-breaking runs, the popularity of Cats in Japan has never faded.

Running in the country since 1983, Cats, performed in Japanese by the Shiki Theatre Company, has been presented in a number of major cities including Osaka, Nagoya, Fukuoka, Sapporo, Shizuoka, Hiroshima and Sendai. Pulling in more than 5.7 million people over the course of almost 6,000 performances in Japan, the musical has returned to the city of Tokyo after an absence of eight years.

The specially-designed Cats Theatre can accommodate a capacity of 1,200 on two levels of seating. The s

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UK - International dance music magazine iDJ has announced what it calls "the biggest interactive DJ show to ever take place in the UK". Aimed at producers, VJs, promoters, and DJs of the bedroom or professional varieties, iDJ Live 05 will fill two halls at the Wembley Complex into the "ultimate DJ and dance music paradise" on 3-4 June, say the organizers.

The event will combine music from dance music's superstar DJs, industry workshops, a record fair and a main exhibition showcasing the latest DJ equipment from the market's leading brands. Visitors will be able to try out the latest DJ technology and sound and light systems.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK / The Netherlands - MC2 Audio has appointed Match Audio and Vision to distribute its range of amplifiers in The Netherlands. "We have been active as a pro audio distributor since 1997," explains Robert Pigeaud, sales manager of Match Audio & Vision. "We were looking for a high-end amplifier brand to complete our range of products and, after being introduced to MC2 and meeting Ian McCarthy, we decided that we wanted to become their Dutch distributor. "Of course, the audio quality and reliability of all MC2 products played an important role in this decision, as well as the support of the people within the company.

"We believe that MC2 will become a serious competitor to the big Swedish and American brands because of its pricing, functionality and unmatched performance. We will be focussing on the Dutch rental market with the E-series and several rental

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UK - TPA 05 - the Graduate Exhibition and Trade Show of the Technical and Production Arts department of the RSAMD (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) will take place on 22 and 23 March 2005. Once again, Graduating students from the BA Technical and Production Arts Course will be showing their work over the past three years in the Academy's Chandler Studio Theatre. Supporting this in the New Athenaeum, the RSAMD's main house, the industry supporters of the course will be showing a large range of production equipment.

Triple E and Black Light have joined the list of course sponsors this year and will exhibiting alongside PRG Europe, Le Mark, Rosco, Rope Assemblies, White Light, Zero88, Autograph Sales and Hall Stage. Also new to the show will be Lift Turn Move and Learn 2B Safe, as well as several industry organizations such as the ABTT, SMA, PSA, PLASA and the ALD, many

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USA - At the Las Vegas Hilton, High End Systems products have been installed at the new Barry Manilow Theatre - which opens on 24 February - for his year-long engagement, Barry Manilow: The Music and Passion. PRG Las Vegas is supplying the equipment, which includes six DL1 digital light fixtures, four Catalyst Pro media servers, 19 x.Spot and 24 Studio Color 575 moving lights, and control from a Wholehog 3 console.

LD Seth Jackson and set designer Jim Lenahan team up for the show. Says Jackson: "This is home for a year. Barry's done everything in his live shows, so this allows us to go somewhere different because now the limits of touring are off the table. It's a nice approach."

The DL1s will hang on the line sets over the main section of the stage on each side. "We're using them to do beam effects in the air, we're using them to light the band, we're

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UK - Once again it was standing room only at some of the five seminars during this year's ISCEx 2005 event in Watford Tuesday 22 February, according to the event's organizers, the Institute of Sound and Communication Engieneers (ISCE). The 23 specialist companies exhibiting their latest products and services reported good business from around 200 visitors, say the organizers, who also reveal that ISCEx 2006 is already planned for 28 February 2006.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) - the organization which awards the famous Oscars each year - plays a much wider role in the day-to-day workings of Hollywood. As a large organization holding many meetings and conferences, the Academy recently undertook an expansion and modernization of its main Los Angeles conference room, which includes the installation of Sennheiser' ME36 condenser microphone.

Los Angeles-based Offenhauser/Mekeel Architects oversaw the redesign of the AMPAS room, and Warner Constructors, the firm behind many of Disney's theme parks, spearheaded construction. To create the room's audio and video systems, and provide acoustic design, Offenhauser/Mekeel brought in Menlo Scientific Acoustics, who have brainstormed acoustical and presentation system designs for venues including the Getty Center and the Getty Villa Museums. Menlo princ

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UK - Blitz, a leading provider of AV equipment and services, combined the expertise from its Manchester and Elstree facilities to supply sound and video solutions for the 2005 ELLE Style Awards held on 15 February at one of East London's newest and most challenging venues, Spitalfields Market. The event was attended by a host of leading celebrities from the fashion, film, television and music world.

Blitz worked with urban productions, a leading events management company, to supply the Awards ceremony with both the equipment and personnel to ensure a flawless service. Blitz first worked with urban productions for the 2004 Whitbread Young Achiever Awards. Monique Smith, project manager at urban productions, commented: "The Whitbread Young Achiever Awards was held at a unique venue in Central London and Blitz's expertise, coupled with their proactive approach and attention t

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USA - Fibre optic lighting manufacturers Lumenyte International Corporation and Visual Lighting Technologies Inc have entered into an exclusive sales and distribution agreement for worldwide sales in the architectural market. Visual Lighting Technologies will be taking over all aspects of Lumenyte's architectural trade, including sales, marketing, design, installation and customer service.

The new alliance will combine the strengths and superior product offerings of both companies, including Lumenyte's proprietary LEF directional linear technology, Sta-flex large core fibres, and LumePanel Backlighting fixtures, and VLT's line of high quality Roblon Fiber Optic stranded fibre and fixtures. Visual Lighting Technologies will also contribute its extensive experience in the architectural lighting field, and its reputation for outstanding customer service, the company says.

The n

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