Business

Details

14 March 2016

Lorraine Kelly and Jim Rosenthal hosted 300 guests through a light hearted evening with a serious fund-raising purpose. A fast moving fashion show entertained guests with models including ex bond girls Maryam D'Abo and Caroline Bliss, joined by D'Arcy Bussel, Jilly Johnson and sporting icons David James, Richard Dunwoody, David Ginola and (hotly tipped as the next James Bond) actor Colin Salmon.

Sound engineer Richard Ryan skilfully mixed James Bond tracks to create a dynamic feature of the evening, he commented: "The fashion show was quite complicated due to the number of different tracks behind the catwalk parade. I introduced the stings behind each of the couples whilst keeping the backgr

Details

14 March 2016

This year saw a whole new format to the show, which was broadcast across Italy on national TV station RAI. Hosts were Paolo Bonolis, director of the show, and popular TV personality, Antonella Clerici. Guest Stars included Mike Tyson, Vasco Rossi, Gwen Stefani, Michael Buble, Wil Smith and Argentinian singer Lola Ponce. The competition resembled Pop Idol, with two members of each group voted out and the remaining artists merged into one group, this continued until the winner was decided.

AV rental company Eurovideo developed a new concept in set design by placing Lighthouse LED modules in the risers of stairs at the rear

Details

14 March 2016

With a low ceiling height and no provision for rigging Hawthorn decided to make a bold feature of the truss and created a ground support structure with lots of long spokes covering both the stage and the rest of the room. As UK dealers, Hawthorn used Prolyte's X30V truss due to its lightweight but superior strength, allowing large spans of truss with the minimum number of truss legs.

With only a 3m clearance, Hawthorn specified Mac 250's and Mac 300's - due to their small size, uplit with Thomas PIXELline battens. Working in conjunction with Mask Event Design and Production, Hawthorn sponsored the Event Talks area. Hawthorn draped the room in its white Expo Cloth, a fabric it imports for its light reflective abilities. These dra

Details

14 March 2016

Panacea is the brainchild of one of the City's smartest young local party people and entrepreneurs, Joe Akka. Superlative acoustics was seen as absolutely crucial to creating Panacea's essential atmosphere. Akka contacted Adlib Audio's Andy Dockerty via recommendations from Kennedy Street Enterprises, and asked him to design an appropriate system - keeping the speakers as invisible as possible.

Dockerty - renowned for his attention to detail and quality and Dave Fletcher, who produced all the cabinet work, designed, specified and built a tailor-made system for Panacea. This involved embedding four speakers into each of Panacea's structural pillars with a minimal extrusion to ensure the preservation and integrity of the inter

Details

14 March 2016

Apart from the broadcast audience of many millions, the crowd in the Arena numbered around 8,000. For Rental Pro, the choice of the PA system was clear: Nexo Geo T (10 T4805s and three T2815 per side), with Nexo Geo S cabinets (nine S805 and an S830 per side) for the sides of the arena. Powered by Camco Vor

Details

14 March 2016

Lighting director Bernie Davis used his own Vector Green control system to control a discreet rig of conventional lighting, supplied by ELP, as the aim was for an unobtrusive installation and a natural look. Console operator Roy Adcock was using a Compulite desk for the first time, but reported no problems getting the hang of the Vector's versatile graphic user interface.

Davis comments: "While the effects engine and sixteen DMX universes were not used to their full potential on this occasion, the easy to read touch screen controlled groups made programming extremely quick and easy. The lighting control position was from the world's smallest Portakabin - only 12'

Details

14 March 2016

Rod McKinnon and Jeff Shoesmith from Jands worked closely with Justin to map functionality throughout the various audio zones of the venue. D

Details

14 March 2016

Briefed to create a signature stage piece for Westlife's recent No1s tour, it soon became apparent that neon lettering wouldn't be practical, because it's made of glass, but then Mark remembered seeing Neonflex at PLASA. Marketed by Batmink, Neonflex is a flexible PVC light tube which closely replicates real neon, but uses LEDs as a light source. Much more rugged and roadworthy than neon, it was the obvious choice. LiteStructures made up an individual Neonflex letter, which Production North and the band agreed was just what they wanted.

Although the original design, a 20x10ft Perspex signature, was intended to be invisible when not lit, it was then decided, by the band and Production North's S

Details

14 March 2016

E//T//C was initially approached by Event Lighting from Bermondsey to undertake the project, which needed a great deal of artwork produced with just 10 days of lead time. The show was an enjoyed by 350 guests after dinner, located in a translucent-fronted marquee in the middle of the courtyard. The guest list included businessmen, film directors, actors, musicians, designers and writers both Russian and English. "We wanted to

Details

14 March 2016

"The response to our upgrade promotion was tremendous! Our customers have been asking us to entertain a further promotional period. It only makes sense for us to re-introduce this promotion ", says Gil Densham, president & CEO of Cast Software. "We've made the best lighting design package in the industry and are allowing our users to upgrade for the great price of only $639 US. Plus, these upgrades include a

Details

14 March 2016

Being in the heart of the city, the HOGC converted a whole floor of a prime commercial building into a beautiful new training and facilities centre for the church, allowin

Details

14 March 2016

Together with Ben van Berkel of UN Studio in Amsterdam, van der Heide and his team developed a lighting scheme for the building skin that changes, chameleon-like, at night, and during the day reflects the subtleties of natural light on the opalescent façade of dichroic glass discs. At night, the discs are individual

Details

14 March 2016

According to Marquee's Spencer Brooks: "The reliable performance and audio quality of the Midas consoles keeps them in demand with our customers. Recently the volume of sales has been especially high for the compact consoles, first the Venice, and more recently the Verona."

Marquee has supplied Venice desks to Cloud One, Lost It, Blue Audio and AVE. Customers for the Verona model have included Entec, W.E. Audio, Thames Audio and Chaps PA.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

Details

14 March 2016

Pyro for the two-hour extravaganza titled Once Upon A Time, enjoyed in real time by 35,000 people and broadcast live on Danish TV and across Europe by the European Broadcasting Union, was designed by Paul Mann from Machine Shop. He collaborated on the task with whom HSL's Tom Owen: the two have enjoyed a long and fruitful working relationship. The overall Once Upon A Time show design team and production included some of the best names, suppliers and rental operations in the UK production industry. The special effects all had to be very big and v

Details

14 March 2016

A ground-supported truss was used to form the basis of the stand, before Lycra sails were stretched over the back wall and used as projection surfaces for the vehicle branding. Par 64s and ETC Source Fours were used to highlight the cars. Embee lighting's Mark Bailey used the cubes and spheres to attract people on to the stand. He explained: "The built-in effects were used to play random colour patterns and made a visual work of art for people to look at as they visited the show."

The feedback from Proton was extremely good, Bailey

Details

14 March 2016

After signing up to the free information service on the newly re-designed website, users will be automatically e-mailed whenever new US patents are issued that are interesting or relevant to the entertainment technology community. Subscribers will receive an e-mail from the system at most once a week and can cancel their subscription at any time. The e-mail will contain brief descriptions of the newly issued patents and links to allow direct downloading of full pdf files.

The patent database is fully searchable and currently contains over 500 US patents includ

Details

14 March 2016

Staged at the Impact Arena in Bangkok in front of a live audience of 10,000 people and a TV audience of several million, the lighting design/direction team from the UK was headed by DOP Eugene O'Connor who also operated the key lighting console. Main stage LD was Theo Cox and Mikey Howard looked after stages B and C plus the extensive audience lighting. All were working with The Show Company from Singapore, MTV Asia's principal technical production contractor, and headed by Joseph Gan. In addition to supplying all lighting, the company also provided two Catalyst digital media servers for the video clips, and both high resolution and 'break-up' LED screens for the event.

T

Details

14 March 2016

Blackout's project manager Kevin Monks collaborated with Nick Levitt, and set designer Bill Laslett to help transform Parken into a magical fairytale environment. Working to Laslett's exacting specifications, Blackout supplied over 3km of silver voile. Specified for its silky texture and semi-translucency, it played a major role in his design, used by Blackout

Details

14 March 2016

The set involved a lot of timber panelling which had thin perspex strips fitted into it. "I wanted the flexibility of having the RGB LEDs as I could not access these perspex strips once the set was placed together," said Koole. The perspex was lit and fitted with 600+ of CDA's Covelight 100mm RGB colour changing LED strips, running from DC-8 controllers.

Koole also used the CDA Trio 3W high powered luxeon 6° LED fixtures in yellow to high light some vertical equipment panels in the background of the Late Night News. In addition, he used CDA's Solar M100 RGB high-powered colour changers to

Details

14 March 2016

High integrity hoisting systems are also available, including equipment to BGV C1 German safety standard. Special features include double brakes, load sensing and multiple limit switches. Variable speed units and manual or computerized controllers are available to monitor safety features and drive the equipment. LTM has more experience of BGV C1 than anyone else in the UK. L

Details

14 March 2016

Arena Structures installed a number of structures at Aintree including The Aldaniti Pavilion, The Sky Pavilion, The Red Square Vodka Mood Bar, The Cottage Pavilion and The Aintree Pavilion. Each pavilion was individually designed and built to cater for different needs such as varying hospitality arrangements, preferred situation along the course and each companies individual tastes and corporate identity. The Aldaniti Pav

Details

14 March 2016

"It's the comfort factor," says Santi Arribas, the technical manager at Koko. "Live promoters and engineers see the Midas desks and they know they are getting quality, it's very reassuring for them."

Midas dealer Glen Smith from GSA has supplied Koko with a 40-channel Heritage 1000 for front-of-house, and a 32-channel Siena for stage monitoring. Santi Arribas has had full responsibility for choosing and commissioning the new equipment, and says that both he and his clients are much happier now that the Midas boards are in place."Despite all the excitement about the

Details

14 March 2016

The Palace of Arts is an arts complex that promises to change the landscape of Hungary's cultural life, and its technical specifications are world-class. Opening just in time to celebrate the 2005 Budapest Spring Festival, the Palace of Arts covers a ground area of 10,000sq.m in southern Pest, adjacent to the National Theatre. The centrepiece of the Palace is the National Concert Hall, the largest of its kind in Hungary, seating 1700 with standing room for an additional 200. Distinguished by outstanding acoustics and equipped to welcome international orchestras and virtuosi, its programming will also represent the wider scene of Hungarian culture, particularly its rich folk tradition.

The

Details

14 March 2016

Moodmaster offers to dancefloor options - a four-panel module for rental and hire applications and individual floor modules for permanent venue installation.

The latest fixed installation is The Nightclub Company's brand new Bamboogy bar in Brighton, which has a 36-panel dancefloor provided by Bradford-based TMC. The Moodmaster dancefloor provides an eye-catching centrepiece for this, the first of a series of 70s-themed retro bars for the operator. Other venues using a Moodmaster LED dancefloor include two of Mitchell & Butler's latest 80s-styled Reflex bars in Preston and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where