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USA - Fur, in Washington DC, is a new multi-level entertainment establishment that's been drawing record crowds since it's opening late last year. Fur features a sophisticated décor, including the trademark mink-covered walls, but more importantly, it's the state-of-the-art EAW Avalon sound system that keeps the devoted patrons coming back for more.

Designed by John Fiorito, owner of OHM Productions and installed by his associate Jeff Darby, the EAW Avalon system was conceived during the renovation stage of the classic 1890s building. "Because we entered the renovation stage early, we were able to design the floor plan around the Avalon system itself," explained Fiorito. "As a result, Fur's Avalon system is cleverly integrated into all areas of the club whilst not detracting from the meticulous décor."

The main floor, which hosts the stage and dance flo

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USA - Lighting, audio reinforcement, video and technical production management was provided for the Celebration of Freedom Concert on the Ellipse in Washington DC by Showcall Inc, a Maryland based technical event production company. "The Showcall team delivered a flawless event to us despite the crew and equipment having to brave heavy rain, sub-zero temperatures, biting wind and three inches of snow during the load in process on the Ellipse. These guys are just incredible," said Jason Recher, a managing director of events for the Presidential Inaugural Committee.

The event was designed to accommodate 65,000 attendees and included three LED videowalls, a Martin Audio Line array for the main and delay audio system as well as dozens of intelligent lighting fixtures. The stage, measuring 60ft x 100ft, was illuminated by BSL Productions using 28 Vari-Lite 3000 and 14 Var

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - Following a highly successful 2004, Specialz Ltd has started off 2005 with a contract to remove 189 hoists from Carlton Studios Nottingham and transport them to Pinewood Studios. The project was completed on schedule in five days. Dave Smith commented: "This is the type of project we really excel at; the whole project was planned and executed in 10 days which pleased the client as they had allocated over a month to complete the job!"

2004 saw Specialz making major technical contributions to projects as diverse as kids' TV show, Fun Song Factory (set lights installation), Phil Collins (five DMX controlled Louvre panels), Morrissey (the 12ft high illuminated sign) and two stage sets for Daniel O'Donnell, each including a lightweight electrically operated scissor-lift drum riser, designed and built in-house. Other projects included BBC Proms light boxes, the Scissor

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USA - Even before his graduation from Pasadena Art College of Design as an illustrator and graphic artist, it was pretty clear that Mike Shinoda's band, Linkin Park, was onto something big. In fact, as the story goes, Shinoda was doing his eighth term finals on the same weekend the band was playing a showcase for six different record labels. Despite his growing renown in the hip-hop and rock music scenes, Shinoda's background is in piano and production. "I listen to everything," he explains, "and I try to experiment with as many types of music as I can. I try hard to stay versatile."

Shinoda says a good part of the band's material is written in his home studio or on the tour bus. "We always like to get the basic shell of a song together before taking it into a studio - it's less stressful that way, plus you're not paying for a big studio while you're sc

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The Netherlands - HK Audio's Dutch Concert Sound distributor, Audio Insight, supplied an HK Audio Cohedra (Coherent Dynamic Response Array) system for a six-day indoor cycle tournament at the Rotterdam Ahoy club in early January.

The system was set up as a flown centre cluster in the middle of the venue, to cover the audience of 7,500. The cluster consisted of two arrays of 12 Cohedra CDR208 mid/high cabinets, each with six CDR 210 F flyable subwoofers, to cover either side of the hall where the audience was seated. This small 2 x 12 setup covered almost all the audience area around the cycle track, while four sets of two VT115X multi-functional two-way speakers covered small areas in the four corners of the venue, flown closer to the audience and delayed as necessary.

Two hangs of eight CDR 108C Cohedra Compact cabinets, each with two CDR 210 C compact subs, were used for co

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UK - Lighting and sound rental house HSL kicked off 2005 as it means to continue, purchasing a large quantity of Vari lite VL1000TS framing units for hire stock. This is in response to the steady and continuing growth of HSL's hire division and to service several immediately up-coming productions.

Other recent lighting purchases include Avolites dimming and control - with more Pearl 2004 consoles and rack mount optical splitters joining the inventory. Additional WholeHog II and Hog 1000 consoles have also been added to HSL's stock, plus a series of power distribution units from SES Ltd.

Blackburn-based HSL also continues to invest heavily in LED technology, and the number of James Thomas Pixel LED units continues to increase. HSL now offers access to over 250 JTE 1044 PixelLine battens and 150 PixelPAR 90 units - making HSL the largest European supplier of LED lighting.

MD S

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UK - A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division programmed BT's Tower logo with Olympic colours for a London 2012 Olympic Bid launch event held last November and preparations for the IOC's official visit to London this month to review the Capital's Bid plans. BT is a premier partner of the London 2012 Bid and is playing an integral part in the campaign to promote the Bid to the UK public and International Olympic Committee. As a follow-up to this event, the Olympic colours scheme will again light up the London skyline this week to commemorate the IOC's short visit to London.

London creative agency Rufus Leonard designed the original BT "connected world" globe logo lighting concept last April and also provided the new Olympic colours scheme. Design and events company Imagination developed and implemented the original design of the lighting system. A key requirement of t

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UK - Hadley vs. Fry & ABC (starring 1980s superstars Tony Hadley from Spandau Ballet and Martin Fry from ABC) are using Robe ColorSpot 250 XTs on their four-month UK theatre tour which kicked off last week. The fixtures were specified and highly recommended by lighting designer Dave Gibbon, who also used them on last year's marathon Hadley vs. Cox (Go West) tour.

"Robe is the most reliable and value-for-money moving light on the market" he states, "I've used Robe fixtures on numerous occasions - both on tour and on one-offs and special events, and they have always just worked and worked whatever the conditions and however hard". He adds that when it came to specifying kit for the Hadley vs Fry tour, he had no hesitation in again choosing Robe.

Gibbon is using the eight Robe ColorSpot250 XT's on the tour as his main 'specials'. Each day they are rigged on

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UK - The fourth annual Total Production International Awards event attracted a sell-out audience of 800 industry people at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith on Monday 31 January.

The event was hosted by the broadcaster, author and 'Professor of Pop', Paul Gambaccini. As well as a number of cameo presentations by a wide range of industry personalities, including DiGiCo's Bob Doyle, PR guru Jerry Gilbert, Martin Professional's David Caulfield, plus Adrian Forbes-Black and Andy Lenthall of the PSA, the event was crowned by special guest appearances by Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour, ex-Undertone Feargal Sharkey (now Chairman of the government's Live Music Forum) and former BRIT Awards producer Lisa Anderson.

Of the winners, catering firm Eat To The Beat celebrated its third consecutive award and XL Video and the Star Events Group both won their third award to date, while mo

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UK - Sound design and installation company CP Sound has completed an eye-catching integrated audio system at Cocoon in Regent Street - an elegant, classy sushi bar and Japanese restaurant. CP Sound encountered many challenges throughout the project, the major one being the design and build of 18 custom spherical speakers: these contain JBL components, and were designed and produced by CP Sound's in-house team. CP Sound won the contract on the strength of previous successful one-off projects for Cocoon's owners and operators, Ignite.

The entire geometry, design and individual ambience of Cocoon - created by the renowned New York-based Stephan Dupoux - revolves around a spatially lavish series of interlocking circles and spheres. This specific environment required highly precise audio: "The only way to achieve exactly what they wanted was to start from scratch, producing a s

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UK - The Spring Term at Reading University began in 2005 with a bit of a party which was also the opening night for its new AD Systems sound installation. The university Nightclub - 3sixty - opened in January 2001 with a capacity of 1200 and holds events up to four times a week so quickly established itself as one of the best Student Union venues in the country.

As well as catering for the clubbers in the university, there has been a number of major acts making an appearance on the 3sixty stage including Supergrass, Miss Dynamite, Lisa Mafia, Reef, Dannii Minogue, The Bluetones and Judge Jules! The new sound system had to ensure it did not infringe on the stage or floor area, remained within the aesthetics' of the existing décor, provides a system that will cope with play back and touring bands and finally be cost effective, reliable and low maintenance. Ian MacDonald, Readings

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UK / Czech Republic / Australia - Anolis Lighting is a new LED manufacturing and sales company, formed in a collaboration between Robe Show Lighting of the Czech Republic and ULA of Australia. The company has been established to design, manufacture and distribute a top-end range of LED products worldwide.

Anolis UK, run by John Saunders, will represent the brand across the UK and Ireland. Anolis was officially launched this week at the ARC 05 trade show at London's Business Design Centre, complete with a whole new range of LED lighting fixtures aimed at applications in architectural, retail, transport, leisure and entertainment markets. Anolis (Latin for Chameleon) is the brainchild of Robe Show Lighting's Josef Valchar and ULA's Con Biviano, who first formed the idea at PLASA 2004. "We've followed the recent trends in LED lighting closely," says Valchar. "There'

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UK - Fineline, an event supply company based in the South West of England, was named Lighting Company of the Year at the Total Production International Awards, which celebrate the achievements and contributions of individuals and companies working within the live event production industry. Fineline is owned and run by Darren Wring and is divided into two operations. The company's hire business houses a substantial range of lighting and rigging equipment which has lit up stars such as Jet, Blue, Busted, Status Quo, Westlife, Donny Osmond and Tom Jones. The company offer professional design and installation services for events of all descriptions both in the UK and internationally and is a major player in outdoor summer festivals like Glastonbury and the Powderham Castle Concerts.

The company also has a manufacturing facility where it has the capability to cater for all of its cl

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UK - White Light recently completed the installation of a new lighting grid and dimming system for LAMDA, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. LAMDA, which dates back to 1861, recently moved to a new home in West London, the former headquarters of the Royal Ballet School. As part of this move, one of the building's ballet rooms has been converted into a black-box drama studio, named the Linbury Studio for former Royal Ballet ballerina Anya Linden Sainsbury.

As part of the conversion, the room required the installation of a technical infrastructure which would be used to rig and control lanterns from LAMDA's existing stock. White Light's Roger Hennigan worked with Claire Cooper, LAMDA's buildings administrator, and Paul Rowland, the college's head of lighting, to specify the system. This provides a 6m x 11.5m fixed overhead lighting grid with 60 15A sockets on internall

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Canada - The first-ever World Stage Design will be held from 12-19 March 2005 in the Canadian Hall at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The exhibition and catalogue of set, costume, lighting, and sound design will present work from designers around the world. An international jury has selected 188 works from a total of 951 submissions to be presented in the gallery exhibition, representing designers from 35 nations. All the submitted designs will be presented in the digital exhibit section and included in the print and digital catalogues available for sale at the event.

The exhibition is co-produced by three prominent theatre associations: United States Institute for Theatre Technology Inc (USITT), the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology/l'Institut Canadien des Technologies Scenographiques (CITT), and the International Organization of Scenographer

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USA - The televised pre-game entertainment from Super Bowl XXXIX (that's 39 for non-Romans), held at Alltel Stadium in Jacksonville, used a variety of Sennheiser equipment. "The entire pre-game entertainment was all Sennheiser," confirms James Stoffo, an RF expert who works on many major sports and entertainment events. "There were Sennheiser 3000 in-ears and Sennheiser EM1046 receivers and Sennheiser 5000 handhelds with Neumann heads."

Stoffo, whose Professional Wireless Systems (PWS), a Masque Sound company, is based in Orlando, Florida, supplied the RF microphones, receivers and antennas, while sound production company ATK AudioTek supplied the 3000 Series personal monitor systems. Every handheld comprised a Sennheiser/Neumann hybrid RF mic, which combines a Sennheiser 5000 Series wireless transmitter with Neumann's KK105 capsule.

"But the cool th

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USA - Bogen Communications. and Apogee Sound announced today that Daytona International Speedway has installed a broad and extensive array of leading edge Bogen and Apogee sound equipment in its new "World Center of Racing". The World Center of Racing, built in just seven months, embodies a new multi-million dollar, state-of-the art venue located within the Daytona Speedway's infield. It offers the world's most extraordinary, "up-close and personal" fan experience in motor sports: interactive displays; a tribute area to the legends of the Speedway; rooftop spectator areas; upgraded specialty vehicle infield parking; renovated NEXTEL Cup Series and NASCAR Busch Series Garages; a new Gatorade Victory Lane; and a new signature infield structure, the Daytona 500 Club building. All sound reinforcement in each of these locations is delivered exclusively through Bogen

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Dubai, UAE - Now in it's third year, PALME - the Middle East's leading professional sound, light, music, audio visual and systems integration exhibition - has firmly established itself as a must attend event on the industry trade show calendar. Internationally acknowledged as the key forum for the industry in the Middle East, the event is supported by PLASA, the Professional Lighting and Sound Association. Other major industry associations such as APIAS (Italy), Secarty's (Spain) and ILDA (US) are also enthusiastic supporters.

This year's event, already a sell-out according to the organizers, is set to build on the outstanding success of PALME 2004, which attracted 30% more exhibitors than the 2003 event, 134 companies from 25 countries, from as far away as the US, Australia, Korea and Belgium, participating - this exceptional growth is the result of the high quality of the eve

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UK - Ampetronic induction loops have recently been installed at the heart of two major London tourist attractions, ensuring that the hearing impaired can enjoy the experience just as much as those with no disability. Driven by twin Ampetronic ILD9 induction loop amplifiers via an SP5 phaser, Scanaudio has installed adjacent ultra-low spill loop systems at the British Museum's Virtual Mummy exhibition. This showcase is made possible by CAT scanning technology, allowing the Museum to see 'inside' an Egyptian mummy which has resided intact at the museum since the late 19th Century. The exhibition is based on the resulting three-dimensional model and explores who the body inside the mummy might have been, how he lived and so on. Visitors are treated to a 20-minute IMAG show, featuring full surround sound and 3D visuals.

"Because of the show's format, our main consideration was

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UK - Hawthorn Theatrical, has made its first investment in line array technology - with Martin Audio. The company has consolidated a relationship with the High Wycombe company that extends over a decade by purchasing 16 x W8LM Mini Line Array enclosures, matched with six WLX subs.

Hawthorn's head of sound, Iain Reinhold, said the acquisition made perfect sense. "It creates compatibility with our already comprehensive inventory of Martin Wavefront systems and will allow us to expand our work portfolio by quoting for more outdoor work."

This portfolio is already substantial, as Martin Hawthorn's Leicestershire-based company has carved out an enviable share of the large-scale corporate event market since setting up the business 18 years ago as sound and lighting specialists.

"As we were being asked to service more arena-style conferences we decided to demo the Ma

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USA - Sennheiser RF and wired microphones and wireless personal monitor systems played a significant part in the 47th Annual Grammy Awards show telecast, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. In addition to the wide array of Sennheiser and Neumann equipment used onstage, this year, for the very first time, the stereo and 5.1 surround broadcast audio was enhanced with the addition of more than 36 audience microphones. Capturing the crowd ambiance were four Sennheiser shotgun microphones, plus Neumann cardioid compact miniature and large diaphragm mics.

Wireless systems, provided and overseen by frequency coordinator Dave Bellamy and his Soundtronics RF service company, included Sennheiser SKM5000-N handhelds fitted with Neumann KK 105-S elements for a variety of artists, including Eve, performing with Gwen Stefani, Tim McGraw, and Joss Stone. Two-thirds of the 24 RF persona

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UK - Although Andrew and Roselyn Baldwin have been operating in the nightclub industry for the past 14 years, it has been during the 12 months since establishing Jedi Light and Sound that they have really made an impact on the installation front.

Last month the company provided a radical sound and lighting upgrade to the former Oval in Wood Green - animating the venue (now known as Club KO) with a number of original Geni scanning effects from Lighting Effects Distribution and re-configuring the resident Martin Audio sound system.

DJ Spoony had been one of the partners in the previous Oval operation, which opened in the spring of 2002, but these days the venue is under the proprietorship of Mick Theo. "It was already a nice venue but lacked that wow factor," declared Andrew. Firstly they recommended two Geni Burst 2X 360° full-barrel effects - flipping and spinning 1

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UK - Kylie Minogue, Travis, The Strokes and Liberty X are just some of the artists who have benefited recently from the touring combination of Van Damme Cable and Capital Sound Hire. "When you're putting together equipment for a major artist's tour, the three key elements you look for are quality, reliability and flexibility," says Capital Sound Hire's Simon Barron. "Van Damme's Black Tour Grade cable fits all three criteria perfectly, which is why we specify it for just about every tour we handle."

London-based Capital Sound Hire, incorporating Capital Sound Design and Capital Productions, is responsible for hiring sound equipment, freelance technical crews and transport to the entertainment world. Touring artists make up a large percentage of its business - and their tours may involve anything from a few UK dates to major international events incorporating

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UK - With a total of 132 points, Summit Steel's installation of Cirque du Soleil's ambitious Dralion show at London's Royal Albert Hall has broken the record for the most number of rigging points ever installed into the venue. The previous record was also set by Summit Steel - for installation of the same show last year. What's more, the rigging process also had to be completed in and even shorter time slot of two days less than last year.

Summit continued its working relationship with Cirque du Soleil, with this, the fifth Cirque production they've installed into the RAH for Dralion's fully sold-out five-week residency. Summit's Chris Walker started work on the project in September 2004. Working closely with a team of people including Cirque's rigging project manager Ewen Seagel; Marc-André Leclerc, technical manager for the transfer to the RAH; Adrian Bray, t

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