UK - Andrew Lloyd Webber has sold four of his West End theatres - the Apollo, the Duchess, the Lyric and the Garrick - to Max Weitzenhoffer, who is joined in a new partnership with producer Nica Burns. They will take over the four theatres on October 1 this year. The sale leaves Lloyd Webber with eight West End theatres - the Adelphi, the Cambridge, the Gielgud, Her Majesty's, the London Palladium, the New London, the Palace and the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Announcing the sale Lord Lloyd Webber said, "Because the company's borrowings will be reduced, we will be able to spend a minimum of £10 million over the next five years in improving and refurbishing the remaining eight theatres in our portfolio which comprises some of the world's most famous music houses, including the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, the Palace and the London Palladium.

"These wonderful, treasured bu

Hong Kong - Lighthouse LED video screens featured strongly at the recent Monaco Grand Prix. The demand for giant screens within Formula One has steadily increased and this year saw three more added to Monaco's already substantial compliment.

The action on the track was relayed by a number of strategically positioned screens supplied to the Automobile Club de Monaco by French audiovisual company Lumison, allowing race-goers a clear view of Kimi Raikkonen's convincing win for McLaren-Mercedes.

Two Lighthouse 20mm pixel pitch LED screens, one of 120 and one of 16 panels were placed 30m above ground level on the roof of the Hotel Palace - the larger of the two screens for spectators viewing from the port and the smaller for VIPs viewing from the terrace of the hotel Hermitage, with a 16 panel screen placed, as in previous years, at the swimming pool.

A further two 16-panel 20mm

USA - With six stages hosting over 100 major and emerging musical acts, the Music Midtown Festival boasts one of the most diverse lineups of any festival in the world. This June, for the 12th year in a row, the Atlanta, Georgia, event rolled out the best in southern comfort and hospitality, in addition to a lot of music, to entertain more than 300,000 guests on the 40-plus-acre festival site.

Rock 'n' Road Audio of Tucker, Georgia, supplied the sound for the event. Rock 'n' Road's Roy Drukenmiller and on-site production manager James (Jid) O'Brien worked with Nashville's Spectrum Sound and Blackhawk Audio to ensure there would be enough powerful hardware to guarantee a splendid time for all.

On the Miller Lite/99X/Comcast Stage, alt-rock ruled with a lineup that included the Pixies, Lemonheads, White Stripes, DEVO and Keane performing through a substantial array featuring 34 M

UK - Bandit Lites is supplying lighting production for Brian McFadden's first solo UK tour, during which he is promoting his Walking Disaster album. Bandit's Lester Cobrin is working with Production North and lighting designer Arturo Ollandini.

McFadden's musical direction has changed considerably following his move from Westlife and Ollandini's lighting brief was left wide open, apart from the fact that he was asked to make it a bit rocky and raw, to suit McFadden's gritty new style and his dynamics as a solo performer. "There's plenty of creative scope," he says. "The set really rocks out one minute, gets bluesey and ballady the next and also gets stripped right back at times to just him and his acoustic guitar."

Ollandini and lighting technician Martin Garnish are using a two truss rig. The front one features Martin MAC 2K performances to light an

Turkey - Safak Studios, a video and film post production complex, has become the first facility in Turkey to invest in a Solid State Logic C200 digital production console.

Safak, which means 'dawn' in Turkish, was established 28 years ago by the Ustun family and attracts the majority of its work from the Turkish film and video community. It also undertakes post production projects for a number of national television channels and has a thriving rental business supplying audio and video equipment to the local film industry.

The decision to invest in a new digital console indicates Safak's wider intention to attract more work from other European countries. The company has built a new audio post production studio to house the desk and has equipped this with state of the art Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound facilities. It also has facilities for 35mm and HD (High Definition) film p

World - Martin Professional gear, including the Maxedia Digital Media Composer, MAC fixtures and Atomic strobes were integral factors in the production of several of the Live8 shows.

All lighting equipment for the Hyde Park concert was supplied by PRG London and included 50 MAC 2000 Wash, 35 MAC 2000 Profiles, 20 Atomic strobes with Atomic Colours, LEDs and conventionals.

In Philadelphia, lighting designer Thomas Beck had MAC 2000 Wash, MAC 2000 Profiles and Atomic strobes at his disposal while a Martin Maxedia digital server provided wallpaper and animation effects onto multiple screens in combination with IMAG and other pre-built content. Maxedia effects were controlled from a Martin Xciter off a touchscreen with 60+ songs programmed in two days. Lighting gear was supplied by Light Action of Delaware.

At the Mary Fitzgerald Square in Newtown, Johannesburg, Gearhouse South

UK - DiGiCo has licensed the open standard EtherSound protocol for digital audio distribution and will utilise EtherSound Authorised Implementor AuviTran to accelerate the development of EtherSound-enabled digital consoles.

"DiGiCo is proud to become an addition to the EtherSound family, utilising this superb data transmission protocol to provide yet another solution to DiGiCo's customers in this ever-changing digital world," says DiGiCo managing director Bob Doyle. Marketing director David Webster explains further, "We wanted to expand our connectivity with other devices. We've already got analogue, optical, AES/EBU, T/DIF/ADAT and others, so regardless of what you want to plug into - you can. EtherSound is appearing on enough devices to make it a strategic addition to DiGiCo consoles in any signal chain."

"DiGiCo's rapid emergence as a leader in digi

France - French audio visual company, Lumison, reports a "spectacular" first half to 2005 with a plethora of high profile events featuring Lighthouse LED screens. These include corporate functions for major banking institution BNP Parisbas and French television producers union Espace Clacquesin, plus a fashion show in the Lagerfeld Gallery of the Paris Carrousel Du Louvres.

BNP Parisbas holds its annual conference at the Palais Des Congres De Paris each year for 5,000 of its employees. For this year's event, Lumison supplied 50 panels of Lighthouse R10 10mm pixel pitch LED video screen strategically positioned to provide an eye-catching effect.

"The set was quite unusual looking," explains Lumison's CEO and owner Pierre Heyligen. "We stacked LED panels on the stage in a variety of configurations - as single panel, 2x2 panel, 4x4 panel and 4x6 panel scr

Singapore - Following design and construction-supervision projects in Singapore spanning the past twenty years for independent recording and broadcast clients, UK-based Eastlake Audio is again active in the dynamic South-East Asian City-State.

The current client, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, located on the National University of Singapore campus, is constructing a new, world-class music facility with technology-smart classrooms and seminar rooms, practice facilities, teaching studios, concert hall, recording studio and video and Pro Tools equipped media facilities. Eastlake's involvement is with the recording studio and media facilities.

The project is a joint collaboration between the National University of Singapore and one of the world's leading music schools, the Peabody Institute of the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA. The Conservatory is working closely

UK - A new service company, Theatrelease, has been created by industry veterans Steve Sunderland and Peter Barnard. It will provide audio design services to provincial and West End theatres and will be be run separately from Audiolease and Barnard's rental company, Sigma AV.

Audiolease's first contract is with the Savoy Theatre where they have designed the sound system for The Rat Pack Live From Las Vegas. The set-up centres on Outline's Butterfly array. A total of twenty CDH483 high packs (ten per hang) are flown left and right of the stage; 2 x Outline Victor live sub basses are also used. Stage monitoring features 14 mixes handled by Outlines Micra II self-powered and Outline's HARD 212 SP low profile stage wedges. Side fill duties are via Outline's award winning Kangaroo system. Power and control are provided by Outline digital TP 6.5 power amplifiers.

The FOH desk

USA - On 9 June, the 2005 NBA Finals kicked-off with Game 1 of the Detroit Pistons versus the San Antonio Spurs championship series in Dallas. Lighting designer Randy Nordstrom, and the rest of the NBA production team, utilised a lighting package supplied by Bandit Lites.

"My hat goes off to all the production staff involved in the NBA Finals," says Bandit Lites vice president Mike Golden. "Watching the NBA production team go through the scramble of surveying the final team venues and then detailing their equipment needs and lighting plan was truly impressive."

The lighting package for the NBA Finals consisted of 26 VL3000 spot luminaires, 6 VL2500 spot luminaires, 28 Mac 2000 wash units, 8 Mac 600 units, 54 ETC Source Four units, 2 Grand MA lighting control consoles, along with Electrol and CD80 digital dimmers.

"For the finals, we used what we call

UK - Members and invited guests of the APRS, the Professional Recording Association, gathered at the Bush Bar & Grill in London recently to hear more about the new recording membership categories that have recently been introduced by the Association.

The new categories recognise the changes taking place across the recording industry and are designed to address the needs of the smaller professional and non-professional members, as well as the Association's existing established membership.

APRS council members Nick Dimes and Tony Andrews introduced the new categories and explained how these will enable all professionals involved in music making to benefit from APRS membership. The Association also took the opportunity to introduce its new Terms and Conditions, a task handled by Malcolm Atkin and Dennis Weinreich (APRS Directors) and Richard Taylor and Stuart Barry from the Simki

UK - The PAI Group (PAIG) has completed the design, specification and installation of full sound, lighting and AV system at the Media Centre Arts Hall, University of Wales in Lampeter. The project included the supply of a full live stage sound system, stage lighting and video equipment to the Arts Hall adjacent to the Media Centre.

The project required flexible and easy to use systems to enable the students to stage a variety of performances from fashion shows to live concerts and stage shows, plus conferences and media presentations.

The PAIG team, led by project manager Steve Timlin chose Logic System loudspeakers, for their ruggedness, quality and cost-effectiveness. They reconditioned and re-used the college's existing cabinets for side fills. The system is powered by QSC amplifiers, and the FOH desk is an Allen & Heath GL3300.

"It was also important to give the stu

World - Radical Lighting's new NG1 digital media server is making its debut on Coldplay's Twisted Logic world tour. The NG1 was specified by show director Bryan Leitch and lighting designer Nick Whitehouse who collaboratively devised the show that is already receiving rave reviews.

Along with the rest of the lighting equipment, the NG1 is being supplied by leading rental company Siyan. It is Coldplay's second world tour with Siyan. The last became a two-year marathon stint throughout 2003 to 2004, with Radical Lighting's RADlite media server at the core of the show.

Leitch and Whitehouse chose the NG1 this time around after their very positive experience with RADlite. "Using the latest product from Radical was a logical progression," says Whitehouse. "We also wanted to do something really big with video." Video images are beamed onto an upstage scre

USA - Creative Technology has opened CT Las Vegas. Herb Brandt, former CT Los Angeles senior production manager heads up the new operation as general manager. Spearheading the CTLV sales effort is sales executive Virginia Groshans who has moved to CT from AVW/TELAV where she held the position of sales manager, exhibit programmes national sales group. She is responsible for developing new corporate, exhibit, convention and entertainment clients for CT, both nationally and in the Las Vegas region.

"We have long been providing our clients travelling to Las Vegas with a/v staging solutions, so it is really a natural progression that we have an operation here to better service them," says Herb Brandt. "CT Las Vegas offers clients all the advantages of a national staging company including a vast inventory of high-end equipment and skilled sales and technical staff, alon

UK - For the second year running, KV2 Audio's ES loudspeakers headed up the field as the main FOH system for Channel 4's The Games. Filmed in Sheffield, the brief was to provide a powerful system with high intelligibility in a stadium environment but with a minimum visual impact for the TV film crews.

Robert Beck of Avid AV chose KV2 Audio's ES predominantly due to its performance at last year's show, as well as on several projects since. Supplied by FT Audio Visual of Harrogate and engineered by Sid Arthur, the whole event was a huge success for Channel 4, easily beating previous year's viewing numbers.

This is the second time recently that ES has been used for a prestigious sporting event: Dave Lowton of Sound Support made the same decision for the launch of the new England football kit in Manchester just a few weeks earlier. That experience persuaded him to invest in

Japan - Sound engineer Jon Burton, who was working for Bjork, requested a pair of new Hebden Sound microphones is spreading. to use for her Live8 Appearance in Tokyo. The pair of mics was used for the Celeste, which played a major part in the song 'All is full of love' which was broadcast worldwide. It will also hopefully feature on the DVD. Burton said: "The gig went really well. The mics sounded great and Bjork's manager was admiring the solid Sheffield build!"

Hebden Sound MD David Anderson said: "It was great to be able to help Jon, especially with such an important event. Hopefully it will also increase people's awareness of the mics and help to prove how versatile they really are."

(Lee Baldock)

USA - Peavey Electronics has moved the production of Crest Audio from its previous base in Fairlawn, New Jersey, to Peavey's own specialized factories in Meridian, Mississippi. Citing increased market demand for Crest Audio products in the export markets as the main reason behind the consolidation, Hartley Peavey went on to qualify his decision: "In many cases we had duplicate systems and overlapping operations that were unnecessary and costly to maintain. We're now incorporating the best methods from both operations to give us faster time-to-market and reduced costs, which will benefit the company as well as Peavey and Crest Audio consumers."

With the recent addition of Meridian based sales and marketing personnel for Crest Audio, and the addition of more than 150 employees to the Meridian manufacturing workforce, this move is designed to enhance the Crest Audio opera

France - Renault has opened a new communications and presentation facility at its main plant in Flins, near Paris, installing Allen & Heath products to manage the audio requirements. The new site houses a 350-capacity theatre and 1200sq.m dining/entertainment area, which will be used to launch new vehicles to the Press and VIP, and also as a meeting space for the company's distributors and employees.

The sound system was installed by Bordeaux-based IEC-ASV and includes a 32-channel GL3300 multi-purpose live sound console for mixing live events, and an iDR-8 digital mixing processor and iDR-out expansion unit for audio distribution around the venue. Turbosound speakers are fitted throughout the venue.

The entertainment area and theatre are separated by a stage, and a partition wall enables either side to be closed off, depending on the occasion. The iDR is programmed so that wh

Germany - During the Confederation Cup games between Argentina and Germany and between Germany and Brazil, the new Franken Stadium in Nuremberg proved beyond doubt its credentials as a World Cup venue.

German trainer Jürgen Klinsmann wasn't the only one to draw important conclusions from the matches between Germany and the artists of South American football, Brazil and Argentina. The organizers of the World Cup 2006 were also on hand to assess the state of readiness of the venue, Nuremberg's Franken Stadium, and the conclusions they drew were highly positive: the stadium is more than qualified to play its part in the world's greatest sporting event - certainly in respect of its electro-acoustic systems.

As was the case with most of the venues selected for next year's tournament those responsible for equipping the 50,000-seater Franken Stadium opted for sound systems from EVI

UK - The PLASA Show (11-14 September) has long been acknowledged as a focal point for new developments in technology. During its 28-year history, it has seen literally thousands of new products unveiled - a trend that is very much set to continue in 2005. This drive for creative excellence is reflected in the PLASA Awards for Innovation - a series of eight awards that puts the focus firmly on the best design and development work going on across the industry.

In the months running up to the Show, leading manufacturers across the audio, lighting, AV and staging worlds will put forward the new products that they feel initiate change and further demonstrate just how creative this industry is. All the nominations will be featured in the Lighting&Sound International-sponsored Innovation Gallery, an impressive display area at the entrance to the exhibition that captures the spirit of t

UK - South London-based PA rental company Systems Etc has purchased a new EV XLC compact line-array system, complete with EV's Precision Series power amplifiers, from Shuttlesound.

The company's new ElectroVoice package purchase includes 24 x XLC 127+ line array cabinets, four SLX 118 subwoofers, and 12 x Xsubs from the X-Line range. To power the system, there are 24 Precision Series P3000RLs, the flagship model in EV's top line of remote power amplifiers, which offers 2 x 1300W into 4/2 x 1800 W into 2 Ohms.

"It wasn't a spontaneous decision to buy ElectroVoice," says Systems Etc's Bernard Mani, "we've been researching the market for about two years. We came to the XLC line-array because it was such a good match for the work we're doing, in terms of size and format. Some of the very compact systems are not suitable for our bigger gigs, but the XLC gives us the

UK - PSCo has become the first UK trade hire company to be awarded Gold status as a Certified Audio Visual Solutions Provider (CAVSP).

This accolade is awarded to those companies that can boast 75% of their technical sales and customer service personnel are 'Certified Technical Specialist' (CTS) qualified. The CTS credential is for audio visual professionals who have demonstrated knowledge and comprehension of the science and technology used in communications including audio, video, display and systems.

The company can now boast that 80% of its sales and 100% of its technical staff are CTS qualified, with more currently going through the process, ensuring that they now have an advanced knowledge of the AV industry and are able to apply these skills to new technologies and applications as they develop.

PSCo's investment in bringing new and technologically advanced AV products

UK - Wavelength Stage and Events in the Midlands has filled its work diary through to the end of 2005, which the company says is a direct result of the acquisition of a new Martin Audio Wavefront W8C system: despite adding four stacks of the compact W8C system to a substantial existing inventory of Martin Audio Blackline, Wavelength says it is still sub-hiring Martin Audio cabinets to cope with demand.

Wavelength was set up by Glen Brazil, whose career as a local radio presenter gave him a insight into the business of live radio station events. Originally, Wavelength's business was the supply of staging services, with audio requirements being met through sub-contractors. In January 2005, the decision was taken to supply PA systems directly and sound engineer Dave Abbott joined the company. "I've been using Martin Audio's W8C system for years as a freelance, and have always

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