USA - Since publicizing its involvement this past January with the first national tour of the award-winning Broadway musical, Wicked, Tomcat has been asked to manufacture custom items for an additional production. The need arose after tickets went on sale for the show's run in Chicago - and sold out immediately for the entire nine-week run, from 29 April through to 12 June. Given the high demand for the show, the producers decided to add another production that would stay in Chicago for an open-ended run, allowing the original tour to go on as planned.
"Wicked Tour Productions has been pleased with the equipment provided by Tomcat, so it just made sense for them to continue using the gear that has been working so well thus far," explained Brad Barnhill, US sales manager for Tomcat USA. "Our design team understands the challenging requirements for touring Br
International - With just one week to go until Showlight 2005 (22-24 May, Munich, Germany), more details of the event's papers programme are available: A paper by technical broadcast specialist Chris Bretnall will address HD and how it's affecting television production. As digital replaces analogue as the broadcasting standard, such rapid advances are being made in technology that it's easy to feel left behind. 'High definition' (HD) is a current buzzword, but how many of us know exactly what it entails? What new equipment needs to be bought? What new techniques need to be learned?
The technology at the heart of HD broadcasting is the HD camera. Closely complementing Chris's paper will be a presentation, by television Director of Photography Sue Gibson and representatives from manufacturer ARRI, on the company's new high definition camera. Originally designed for motion picture
UK - Sony Entertainment Television Asia recently staged its Boogie Woogie International Finals at the Sheraton Skyline Hotel at Heathrow. Hawthorn's main challenge was to create a suspended stage across the Sheraton's 11m wide swimming pool. Martin Hawthorn, managing director said: "Its not often we tell our crew to pack their swimming trunks, but on this event it was a must, as the stage was rigged from the swimming pool!"As well as the stage, Hawthorn also provided full lighting and sound for the live studio audience as well as for the TV broadcast.
The lighting had to take account of the daylight from the glass roof at the beginning of the event, and then accommodate the fading light as the event progressed. Hawthorn's sound engineer Jon Curnew had the unenviable task of balancing sound against the pool acoustics. Jon commented: "The combination of the high roo
UK - Size and scale are no advantage when it comes to overall financial success, according to a new study by Sound Equipment industry analysts Plimsoll Publishing. It seems the industry's smaller players are putting their larger counterparts to shame when it comes to overall financial performance. The study has looked at the industry's largest 40 companies and compared their financial performance with that of 238 smaller UK Sound Equipment competitors.
There is no doubting the dominance of these 40 'major players' - they currently control almost 94% of the market. Yet look beyond their size at their individual financial performance and their image appears somewhat staid.
Of the Top 40 companies profiled; 12 failed to increase sales beyond that of the industry average, dispelling the myth that they are capturing ever more market share. 14 made less profit than the average indus
UK - Original supergroup Cream's four-night appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2005 following a 36-year absence from the spotlights is already being hailed as the musical event of the year, if not the decade. Such classic rock and roll musicianship demanded sound equipment of a similar pedigree, which is why both front of house engineer Chris (Privet) Hedge and monitor engineer Chris Wibberley chose Midas XL4 consoles for the sonic excellence and reliability such a concert demanded. The PA system was supplied by Concert Sound, which has counted Eric Clapton amongst one of its loyal clients for over 20 years.
"We just wanted to go for the best sounding board we could, and to me that is an XL4," says Privet. "This is a classic, straightforward blues-rock gig and it's all completely organic, there are no scenes or midi; Sound quality is the only criterion.
UK - Creative sound design and installation specialists CP Sound has completed its latest installation - at 'Blush', the newest venue to open in central Cheltenham. The club is part owned by Glendola Leisure and part by operator/manager Stuart Hunt. The space - previously a club - has been completely gutted, re-fitted and installed with new sound proofing, aligning the building as a stylish downtown 'chameleon' venue.The key to running this specific type of operation is its ability to have the facilities to react quickly to the diverse demands of a dynamic and mixed clientele, all of whom may want slightly varying elements out of the same space. CP Sound's Colin Pattenden is well experienced in chameleon installations, and has an extremely good ear for the acoustic properties that the different ambiences within it might require. Colin comments "The disco needed to be powerful
Canada - Adamson Systems Engineering has appointed independent rep firm Joe Desmond & Associates, based outside of San Francisco, to be its authorized sales representative for Nevada and California. Joe Desmond, CEO and founder of JDA, is a native Bostonian who has been in the pro audio and musical instrument industries for over 25 years.
"Adamson fits perfectly into the direction that we want to take our newly-established firm and we consider it an honor to be associated with them," said Desmond. "I was blown away at a demo we recently did in Reno for the Jazz Festival with Star Sound. Not only did the system sound better than anything I've ever heard, but the ease of hanging the boxes was unbelievable. With no heavy lifting by anyone, sixteen boxes were hung in less than thirty minutes; and this was the first time the guys from Star Sound had hung an Y10 system!
UK - Presentation specialists PSL has devised a portfolio of low-entry packages to enable event producers to take advantage of a tailored staging solution. PSL's scalable audio visual options incorporate projection, mics, speakers and lighting. Each can be customised to individual requirements (including client branding) and come with full technical support.
Remarked PSL managing director, Gary Davis: "These have been created as a flexible and cost-effective alternative to custom design and build, or off-the-shelf display and set systems. Whatever the presentation needs, these packages provide outstanding value - including everything required to stage an event at a fixed price."
The six separate alternatives - which range from simple wall-flats to more striking and multi-textured set designs - can be mixed and matched to suit client requirements and venue limitations
UK - Bandit Lites UK supplied all lighting equipment to LD Nick Jevons and his company Electric Fly Productions for the main stage at Radio One's One Big Weekend event in Hetherington Park, Sunderland.
Electric Fly has supplied innovative and exciting visuals for all the One Big Weekend events, of which this was the sixth. "I always use Bandit" Jevons states, "I would not go anywhere else. The kit and the service is excellent". General manager of Bandit Mark Powell handled the show.
Jevons traditionally uses the One Big Weekend occasion to introduce new and exciting visual tools and ideas - particularly video orientated ones - into the lighting design mix, and the Sunderland event was no exception. He clearly sees the creative potential of integrating video effects as lighting features, and many of the LED fixtures now on the market are proving a gre
USA - Robe Show Lighting moving lights were specified by lighting designer and programmer John Westermann at the recent Home Depot Drive 2 Zero Safety Meeting event, staged at the Renaissance Waverly Hotel in Atlanta, Georgia. It's north-west Atlanta's only full-service hotel, featuring over 60,000 sqft of meeting space.
Dillon Production Services, Inc, an Atlanta, based rental house run by Matt Dillon and Westermann supplied lighting equipment. Dillon Production Services has been designing light shows for The Home Depot and Coca Cola for over ten years.
The fixtures utilized for this event were eight Robe 1200E AT Spots flown downstage and mid-stage; and four Robe 1200AT E Washes, two flown mid-stage, with two mounted upstage on the ground upstage. These 12 fixtures were used to produce the main effects and colour washing lighting.
Denmark - Bosch has supplied the public address and emergency sound system for the new opera house in the Danish capital Copenhagen which was opened in January 2005. Installation was handled by Pro-Partner ApS Denmark. The decorative interior of the Opera House features lots of wood, glass and marble, which meant that the sound system had to be unobtrusive and yet very efficient. Bosch's Praesideo system was chosen to fulfil the dual functions of public address and emergency evacuation as the flexible system architecture permits any type of equipment to be located wherever required in a building.
The Opera House has around 1000 rooms with a total surface area of 41,000sqm, divided into some 280 extensive acoustic zones with 1,200 loudspeakers in all. The feed to the speakers comes from 79 Praesideo power amplifiers, which are in turn controlled by two network controllers. These
UK - Dartington College of Arts was founded in 1961 near Totnes, Devon and is now well established as a University sector College for Higher Education, specializing in the performing arts.
As part of a major refurbishment a new studio complex 'Lower Close Studios' has been constructed to cater for the College's expanding and diverse courses, including contemporary classical/art music, jazz, pop, world and folk music, as well as courses in theatre, choreography, fine art, performance art, arts and cultural management and writing, engaging the students through practical work and research by developing interests and abilities in preparation for a professional career.
Rob Waite, live sound technician comments: "We have regular concerts, visiting artists, residencies, and more than thirty professional instrumental music tutors who come to teach, perform, and play music. The ne
UK - Britain's leading jazz star Courtney Pine is equipping himself, and every musician on his stage, with Electro-Voice microphones. Courtney has chosen for his soprano and tenor saxophones the new RE920TX condenser, just launched by EV and designed especially for horns. According to him and his sound engineer Steve Reece, the mic not only sounds great but is giving him unprecedented freedom on stage.
Pine and his five-piece band are currently touring to promote the new Devotion album, but this world tour has been going since 1981, according to Pine, who is as much road warrior as jazz warrior.
"Jazz musicians are even more critical than classical musicians about which microphones we use," explains Pine. "We may be capturing a live moment but we've got ears like bats!" Reece agrees, admitting that he had one or two nervous moments when he first put
UK - Lighting designer/director Martin Kubanka specified over 50 Robe Show Lighting moving fixtures in his design for the final of the Slovakian Miss Universe qualifier. The show, directed by top Czech Republic-based Ji?i Adamek, was broadcast live on Slovakia's largest private television channel, Joj TV (pronounced 'Yoy') in front of a live audience of 4,000 at the National Tennis Centre in Bratislava.
It is one of Slovakia's largest annual media events, and attracted a phenomenal domestic audience of four million people - 80 per cent of the country's population for its Thursday night prime time slot. The 12 finalists were chosen from over 1500 initial applicants.
Lighting and sound production was supplied by Slovakia's number one rental house, Q-99, co-ordinated by Marek Adamik. Kubanka is the country's highest profile TV lighting designer/director and works on some of the t
UK - Internet-based recording and production studio, Tracks By Email.com, has installed a 40-channel Allen & Heath GL4000 multi-purpose console in its Lincolnshire facility. The company provides remote recording resources for musicians and songwriters who either do not have access, or the budget, to hire studios or sessions musicians. Clients submit partial tracks online with composition instructions, and Tracks By Email.com adds the missing elements - such as a live strings arrangement, drum track, or backing vocals - providing the results over the web.
The GL4000 is the front end of the studio's audio set up, connected to a Nuendo media production software suite via 4 RME ADI-8 audio converters. The desk manages all recording, and can sometimes be used for up to five different projects a day.
"We selected the GL4000 for the studio because we had previously used a GL2200
UK - Essential Lighting was asked by Andy Ayres of Mantaplan to provide lighting for the 60th anniversary of VE day, in Trafalgar Square. Under the direction of Mark Kenyon, Essential's Tony Hall took on the challenge of installing two 40ft trailers worth of equipment into the Square.
The site was particularly difficult, given a very limited back stage area, and many hours were spent playing "flightcase Tetris". Over a three-day fit up period, 145 moving lights (mainly Martin MAC 2000 units of various types) were rigged in and around the Square, to Kenyon 's specifications. The spec included 16 City Colours to light the National Gallery, City Beams for the fountains, 60 MAC 2000 wash lights and 60 MAC 2000 profiles, with eight MAC 2000 Performances thrown into the mix. Additional effects were from 60 Chroma cans, and 24 Chroma banks.
USA - Peavey celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. The company, still family-owned, today employs well over 1,100 people in the US, and occupies two million square feet of manufacturing, R&D, office space, warehousing and other facilities in and around Meridian, Mississippi.
Hartley Peavey began building amplifiers, in 1965; the first real boost came when in 1968 when he saw a gap in the market for a portable PA system, and introduced the PA-3. Success continued with the Peavey Classic and Peavey Vintage amplifiers between 1972-1973, followed by the Peavey Bandit, which became the world's top-selling amplifier. 1976 saw the CS-800 power amp, and the first mass-produced electric guitars. Then followed Peavey's own range of loudspeakers, beginning with the Black Widow.
In the 1980s, Peavey began the foundations of a digital programme that continues to this day, and in 1984
USA - Following the letter in the last issue from Brett Kingstone, president and CEO of Super Vision Inc, L&SI put some further questions to Color Kinetics regarding its recent US patents and patent applications.
L&SI: Patent application (20050044617) for 'Methods and apparatus for illumination of liquids', was filed on 3 March 2005, and another, very similar Patent (6,869,204) was granted on 22 March 2005. The abstract of the granted Patent 6,869,204 'Light fixtures for illumination of liquids' appears to be very close to that of the latest application. What is the purpose of applying for the second, very similar patent?
George Mueller, Color Kinetics: "The patent applications referred to here (dated 2005) are actually continuations of previously filed, issued patents and pending applications, dating back as far as 1997. The specific details are c
UK - Eat to the Beat fed the artists, BBC and production team at BBC Radio 1's One Big Weekend in Sunderland. Many of the artists on the bill, including the Foo Fighters, The Levellers, Kasabian and Basement Jaxx along with the Radio 1 DJ's Chris Moyles and Colin and Edith , left the sanctuary of their dressing rooms and joined the production team in the sociable atmosphere of the 'backstage restaurant' created by Eat to the Beat.
The hail was bouncing off the roof of Eat to the Beat's temporary kitchen in the backstage area of Radio 1's One Big weekend, as superb food was served at breakfast, lunch and dinner, cooked on site by Heather and Paul and their team of six. The menu choices had everyone spoilt for choice and the compliments were flowing.
UK - Suffolk-based Synergy Audio is the first UK sound company to take delivery of Proel's new Axiom line array system. The choice of Axiom followed a tough demo at Synergy's headquarters, on the old RAF Bentwaters airfield in Suffolk.
In the course of a dank afternoon, against a tearing crosswind, the system was tested with a variety of program material, ranging from classical through to heavy rock and spoken word and, says Synergy Audio's Rob Quin, "The results were quite staggering. Even in the strong winds, the system produced a very even sound field, across a large area, with very little noticeable drop in level or quality.
"It's extraordinarily good. The people behind the design have worked with some of the "big names" in line array, so it has a good design pedigree. We've been inside the boxes and the components are very good quality. The build of th
USA - Symetrix recently announced the appointment of M-PRO BeNeLux as exclusive distributor of Symetrix and SymNet products in Belgium and Luxembourg. Founded in August 2004 by Mario Clabots, M-PRO was set up to focus on the distribution of products for the fixed installation market, AV installations and pro audio applications.
Noted Jim Latimer, director of sales: "Symetrix is pleased to bring M-PRO on board. Mario Clabots brings a wealth of experience garnered while working with major AV distribution companies. His hands-on experience and knowledge of both the digital and analog world makes M-PRO a perfect match for us."
UK - Starlight Design, recently turned to VDC for a range of custom panels and Van Damme Black Series multicore cables for its new Front of House sound system. "The panels and cables we have chosen are being used to connect our equipment racks to each other and to the Front of House console," says Starlight's Charlie Jamieson, who is responsible for the company's sound department. "We've had an account with VDC for years. They have the biggest range, the sales guys are friendly and they understand exactly what we're trying to achieve. To be perfectly honest, there's no-one else we'd use."
Established 23 years ago, Starlight Design has a prestigious client list that includes royalty, the aristocracy and international celebrities. Much of its work is venue specific and over the next few months alone it will be ensuring the success of spectacular private parties
UK - All budding lighting designers should be hard at work as the submission deadline looms for the annual Michael Northen Bursary, organized by the Association of Lighting Designers in conjunction with ETC and the Mousetrap Foundation. With the competition closing on 31 May, judging will take place in mid June at the ABTT theatre show.
Last year the judges were so impressed with the standard of entries that, in an unprecedented move, they agreed to present two runner-up prizes of £250 each, in addition to the first prize of £500. Judge Mark White, ETC's UK regional manager for UK and Ireland, said: "I had no hesitation in saying that ETC would augment the main prize with a further £250 for each of the two runners up and am pleased to confirm that ETC will be doing the same this year. The level of work we saw last year was of the highest calibre and it is only right that
Italy - This year, an Outline Butterfly system was once again chosen as sound reinforcement for the 90,000sqm of Europe's largest square (Prato della Valle - Padua), for an annual event staged by radio/TV broadcaster Radio Italia Solo Musica Italiana and Video Italia, one of the world's most widely distributed sat TV channels.
The event - now in its 6th year - is followed every year by an average of 120,000 people who pack the square. As well as catching the interest of Mediaset and RAI, the show was broadcast live on the terrestrial and sat frequencies of Radio Italia, Video Italia and Video Italia channel 712 (Sky), plus free sat channel 858.
The 2005 cast included Francesco Renga (winner of the 55th Sanremo Festival), Le Vibrazioni, Marco Masini, I Nomadi, Paola and Chiara, Ivana Spagna, Matia Bazar, Velvet, Paolo Meneguzzi, Toto Cutugno and Annalisa Minetti, Luca Dirisio,