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UK - Washington D.C.-based Presentation Services is an outside lighting vendor for the largest hotel in the city - the Marriott Wardman Park hotel, and the Zero 88 Fat Frog is their console of choice. Presentation Services won the contract for lighting events at the hotel in January 2004. In their first year competing against outside vendors, Presentation Services won almost $3 million in lighting and video equipment contracts alone. "We go after every group that comes into the hotel," says technical director and lead technician Aaron Kramer. "A lot of the groups that come in here, however, have national contracts, but we've still handled events for the Big Brother Big Sister program - where Laura Bush spoke in support, corporate Marriot events and others."

In 2004, Presentation Services invested $176,000 in new lighting equipment and purchased a Zero 88 Fat

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Ireland - Bandit Lites supplied Production North with full lighting production for the first Cork Festival of Music, titled Live at the Marquee, and staged by Aiken Promotions in a near-5,000 capacity big top at the Monster Showground, Cork. The event, part of the City's year as European Capital of Culture, has been so successful that moves are afoot for it to become a regular fixture on Cork's annual entertainment calendar. The two weeks of live music featured a diverse line up of national and international artists, ranging from Christie Moore to the Gypsy Kings, Ronan Keating to Nick Cave.

Production North came onboard to supply the entire technical infrastructure, with the unflappable Steve Levitt at the helm, production and site managing. With some fast back-to-back changes needed, he wanted to ensure that all bands received their own required standards of lighting, a

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China - China's National Broadcaster CCTV has selected HK Audio's Cohedra Coherent Dynamic Response Array system for its Studio 1, from where the prestigious CCTV New Year Gala TV show is broadcast to over one billion Chinese people at home and abroad. Studio 1 was constructed on the site of a circular garden alongside the main CCTV building in 1997. The 1600 square metre building, which can seat 800, was purpose-built for the New Year Gala show and other large-scale live broadcast programs. As the studio was constrained by the shape of the garden, it is also circular in shape, meaning that improving the sound quality has become a constant challenge to the CCTV audio department, and this is why CCTV chose to install the Cohedra system. Sixteen CDR 208 T/S mid-high cabinets have been installed into the room where they have already been used for shows such as Joyride in China - Seve

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UK - When Faceparty, organizer of London's Big Gay Out festival in north London, wanted lighting for its dance tent, it gave the brief as "to create an 80s-style rave environment." With the help of PRG Europe - who also supplied lighting for the main stage and the alternative music tent - they did just that.

The event, held on Saturday 23 July, is the successor to London's Pride festival, and hosted 20,000 people at the Big Mutha main stage and 11 other stages and tents in Finsbury Park.

"For the main stage, we created a big automated lighting rig, to cater for all requirements, and offer greater flexibility live," said lighting designer Mike Sobotnicki, contracted by PRG Europe from Imagination. "Until we saw the rehearsals, we had no idea what would be needed. We had three overhead lighting positions, to create symmetrical patterns of beams through h

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UK - For the 60th Anniversary of the end of World War II the Ministry of Defence engaged Unusual Services to provide production services for a weeklong programme of events.

The main focus of the week was on Sunday 10 July with an event staged on Horse Guards Parade for 11,000 veterans. Edwin Shirley Staging built a 40m x 25m stage with sound supplied by Wigwam, lighting provided by PRG Europe and a 160m scenic wall from Centrestage. Other key suppliers included Search, Power Logistics, Arena Seating, Unusual Rigging, Screenco, Show & Event, Dobson Sound, Delta Sound, Thorns and National Radio Bank.

During the week leading up to the celebrations, images of previously unseen World War II photographs were projected onto the façade of Buckingham Palace. In addition an 85m x 30m tented Veterans Centre was installed in St. James's Park along with a Living Museum, Press Centre, a BB

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USA - Greg Norgeot, Paul Sharwell and Angus Sinex of the lighting design partnership Unlimited Visibility Lighting Design recently lit the Oprah Winfrey Live Your Best Life workshop tour in multiple locations across the US.

Hosted by O, The Oprah Magazine, the Live Your Best Life tour was billed as "A day with friends, an afternoon with Oprah." The all-day workshop consisted of a morning of motivational entertainment and esteem-building exercises, followed by a presentation featuring Oprah Winfrey herself in the afternoon. UVLD's Greg Norgeot designed the lighting for the event; Paul Sharwell, assisted by Angus Sinex, was charged with recreating the design on each stop of the tour.

"This was quite different from most of the shows that we light," remarked Norgeot of the Live Your best Life tour. "Whereas most events we design

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UK - XL Video supplied Oasis with a seven-camera DPU including one of its new GV Zodiac vision mixing desks, three 'Magic' DVE's, a matrix switcher and Dataton control for its UK stadium tour. XL also supplied a Catalyst digital media server used by the show's artistic director and lighting designer Andi Watson.

The band's overall video production was coordinated by video director Dick Carruthers' company, Cheese Film & Video Productions, with touring video production manager Dave Wright overseeing the 35 video crew.

The show is a dynamic, pacey mix of live camera and specially created playback sources onto six LED screens - four onstage which moved up and down on a Kinesys vari-speed automation system, and stage left and right side screens.

Carruthers and programmer Richard Turner maximized XL's pre-programming facilities for prepping the show at its Hertfordshire HQ, worki

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UK - Leading UK audio rental house Britannia Row has purchased 32 crown Xs amplifiers from Harman Pro UK.

These went straight into rehearsals with some of the best known rock 'n' roll stars on the planet - including Pink Floyd, The Who, Madonna, Elton John and Robbie Williams in the run up to Live 8. "So as you can deduce from that, we were pretty confident we had a superlative product" states Brit Row's Roly Oliver. The company provided discreet monitor systems for all these maverick performers in the run up to their appearances at Live 8 London.

The amplifiers were then used to power the monitor system for the historic Live 8 gig in Hyde Park. It's the first time Britannia Row has ever bought Crown explains Oliver, "We did a listening test against several other amplifiers and nothing even came near the Xs in terms of build quality and value for money." He

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USA - 'A sensory overload' is what Toshiba wanted for its corporate meeting 15-20 May in Miami. Plus the design had to enhance Terry Bradshaw and The Beach Boys, who would also take the stage.

"Our design objective was to create an immersive environment resulting in a sensory overload that would work in tandem with automated lighting," says veteran LD Bill Strother of Carrollton, TX, who was called in to set the scene.

To carry out his design, Strother selected six High End Systems DL1 digital light fixtures and a Catalyst Pro Media Server, supplied by Zenith Lighting of Orlando.

"The set - provided by the client - was a vast array of different Spandex shapes," Strother explains. "With that many differing surfaces for projection, we had to be able to hit as many as we could with only six projectors - knowing that it would be very difficult to gauge t

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UK - Building on the success of the previous two years, the third ABTT Summer School takes place during the first week August at Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry from Monday, 1 August - Friday, 5 August inclusive.

The courses are for members of the ABTT wishing to develop their career in the industry by learning new skills or refreshing their knowledge of individual subjects. This year sees three firsts; the launch of the Silver Award courses, alongside the established Bronze Award, full accreditation of all courses by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama and ABTT's active involvement in Skillscene, the organization developing industry standards for the live arts.

Open to members of the ABTT only, a few places remain for the Sound Technicians course for this year.

Also during the same week, the ABTT Road Show will be held on Wednesday 3 August 2005, at the same venue at

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UK/Europe - Avril Lavigne's show at London's Carling Hammersmith Apollo had the packed audience screaming for more as crunchy guitars filled the air and the kick drum vibrated throughout the audience. FOH engineer John Kerns looked pleased as he watched the crowd response. "This is probably the first time I have taken a real rock show out with a Meyer loudspeaker system," Kerns admits. Having taken over FOH duties from Jim Yakabuski partway through Lavigne's extensive European and American tour, Kerns found himself in the capable hands of Audio Analysts system technician Brett Dicus. "Jim came up with a setup that he really liked," explains Dicus, "which was Meyer mains and a centre sub-hang. That is our priority whenever possible. The Meyer high-end energy from about 5kHz on up can't be beaten. We find we do not have to do the usual boosts for intelligibi

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USA - Hilary Duff has seemingly done it all at the ripe old age of nearly 18. Stage actress, film and television star (she was Lizzie McGuire on the TV show of the same name), she even has her own clothing line. And oh yes, she also finds time to sing.

Hilary Duff kicked off her Still Most Wanted tour in LA in July and will be touring the US through September. Teaming up on the tour are the Martin Maxxyz lighting console and Maxedia media server along with MAC 2000 Wash, MAC 300 wash lights, VL3000s and conventionals, all in the hands of lighting designer Seth Jackson. Tour lighting supplier is Bandit Lites.

"The plot was changing up until a day before the truck loaded," Jackson commented. "If it weren't for the flexibility of the crew (Sam Harden, BK Waggoner and Billy Willingham) and the endless amounts of drawings and input from Dizzy Gosnell, I doubt

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UK - Star Events Group was recently involved with the series of spectacular shows that took place at the Tower of London during July this year. The client, Planit Events approached Star Orbit requiring a 20m five bay flat back Orbit stage structure to be positioned in the moat surrounding the Tower for five nights of grand opera and six nights of jazz.

One of the main stipulations from the client was the need to effectively seat and protect from the elements a 60-piece orchestra without obscuring the onstage artists and disrupting audience sightlines. Mike Goodwin (Star Orbit) and the Star Design team collaborated with Planit to devise an under-stage Orchestra pit that provided the shelter the orchestra members required whilst maintaining the sound quality. This was achieved by extending the front of the stage floor out and over the heads of the musicians. Onstage the stunning c

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UK - Leisuretec Distribution has been recognized as an Investor in People organization after achieving the Standard in February 2005.

"We are fully committed to developing our people's skills in order to achieve our wider business aims and objectives. We have used the Investors in People planning process to address our needs and have now implemented a training and development programme. We will consistently evaluate this to ensure our workforce has the most up to date skills so that we can continue to build upon our success," commented Suzannah Hawkins, business development manager for Leisuretec Distribution.

Ruth Spellman, chief executive of Investors in People UK comments: " Putting people development at the heart of every function is the most cost effective decision a business can make. Employees are central to business success so it is vital for staff to be

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UK - This month ABTT members got their first opportunity to see the new Junction Theatre, Cambridge, at a special open day hosted by the venue's development director Robin Townley and architects Plowman Brown.

Junction 2, a 220-seat timber clad theatre - nicknamed The Shed - which opened in March 2005, is the first purpose-built public theatre to open in Cambridge since the 1930s and will house the company's growing programme of contemporary drama, dance, poetry, comedy and world music.

Anne Minors, chairman Society of Theatre Consultants, said of the visit: "The ABTT visit to the Junction demonstrated how a persistent client, a design team who detailed the building early on, and an interested contractor and subcontractors, achieved good value for money, and an attractive building fit for purpose".

The full project team for the Capital Development Project undertake

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Borneo - Glasgow-based Cheer Productions managed the sound requirements for the annual Rainforest World Music Festival, which took place recently in Borneo, selecting an Allen & Heath ML5000 VCA live sound console as the FOH mixer for the main stage.

Established in 1998, the three-day festival takes place in Borneo's Sarawak Cultural Village, attracting over 5,000 visitors with "world music" groups from across the globe. This year, the festival included performances from Colombian singer, Petrona Martinez; Faiz Al Faiz from Pakistan; Italian gypsy quartet, Acquaragia Drom; the Namgar from Mongolia; Djamel Laroussi and his band from Algeria; Polish bagpiper, Marcin Ruminski; and a debut from the American group, the Foghorn String Band. The festival also features daytime workshops, ranging from story telling sessions, to interactive dance and percussion jamming.

"

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UK - Revolver Audio has been providing professional audio production for a variety of clients throughout Sydney and surrounding areas for more than 20 years. Manager Keith Clarkson believes that there are still some people who view Revolver Audio as a company with a lot of older equipment in its fleet; but nothing could be further from the truth. Over the last few years, Revolver has extensively upgraded its audio hire stock - with the help of Jands.

"We've recently upgraded all of our drive equipment and we're now running everything on BSS digital processing," Clarkson stated. "We've also got a large inventory of Shure microphones and we're constantly upgrading all the equipment to the point that the majority of our hire stock is new."

Revolver Audio recently purchased the first Soundcraft GB8 console in Australia. The new release Soundcraft GB8 32 channel

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UK - Star Orbit provided a 20m two-bay Orbit stage for the recent B-Live event on Clapham Common which was sponsored by Bacardi. The three evening event opened on Friday 1 July with a Latin Splash night, featuring latino dance bands and R&B acts, the second evening featured world class dance DJ's and the event closed on the Sunday with the headlining act Jamiroquai creating a giant party atmosphere across the park.

Along with the impressive stage, Star Events Group provided the two large PA towers that were rigged at 10m, an 11m high follow-spot platform and a large front of house structure.

Star Orbit were called in at the last minute to provide all of the staging structures after the organizers were let down and were left without a stage just three and a half weeks before the event was due to take place. Despite it being one of the busiest weekends in the outdoor event calen

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Germany - Two of the biggest players in the laser display market have announced a joint venture. Lothar Bopp, president of laser show market-leader Lobo, and Rüdiger Müller, founder of the global Tarm empire, have announced that the Tarm building in Bochum, Germany, will host a Lobo representation as a centre for installation and rental projects in the near future. Bopp and Müller have expressed their confidence that this association of former competitors will prove a successful model.

From now on, Tarm laser and showtechnik OHG will not depend on its old-fashioned Tarm technology, but can configure a product line together with Lobo which unites the high-tech solutions of Lobo with parts of the former concepts of Tarm. The new range of special device configurations will, say the companies, withstand the globalization of the laser show industry in regards to performance and pr

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Malaysia - The first Midas Siena console in Malaysia has been purchased by the Hemijaya Group, and is proving to be a flexible and hard-working addition to its growing Midas inventory, the company says. The console was supplied to the Kuala-Lumpur-based PA rental company by local distributor EVI Audio Malaysia.

Hemijaya was set up five years ago to provide staging, truss and lighting systems, and more recently it launched a sister company, Clef Sound and Light Sdn Bhd, to handle PA and lighting rentals. The company already owns three Midas Venice consoles as well as a large inventory of Electro-Voice speaker systems. "We chose Siena in particular because it has the flexibility to be used as a front of house or a monitor desk," says David Tham from the Hemijaya Group. "We've already been using it across a range of concerts and shows which we¹ve worked on for Malay

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France / Australia - Robert Juliat and SA Australia have announced a joint venture - SA Europe - which will build on the existing capabilities of both companies, in the entertainment and architectural lighting sector. SA Europe will focus on the sales and support of SA's extensive range of dimming, control and network products within the European market. "This is an exciting initiative for SA - it makes us a local player and represents a very significant undertaking in Europe," said Chris Bishop, owner of SA. "We are very excited about the opportunities this venture creates. The joint venture will have access to Robert Juliat's valuable distribution network throughout Europe and company reputation, plus SA's technology capabilities and skills as a global leader in entertainment and architectural dimming development."

"Robert Juliat has strong relationshi

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UK - An Avolites Diamond 4 Elite console was in action as the lighting controller at Somerset House, London, for their summer season concerts. It was chosen by Somerset House's head of lighting Nick Read and was supplied, along with the rest of the lighting gear, by rental company Siyan.

With headliners like The Doves, Super Furry Animals, Sigur Ros and Bloc Party, Nick Read designed a generic lighting rig for the venue's first series of summer concerts promoted by Somerset House themselves, and staged in the charismatic courtyard in central London. These will be followed by another series run by top UK promoters, Metropolis. Most band LDs used the D4, reports Read: "Because it's a great festival desk and this is essentially a festival-style set-up. It's highly 'buskable' and perfect for the job."

The main D4 programmer on Read's team was Dom Smith, himself a keen D4

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UK - Powered access hire company Nationwide Access supplied four telescopic access platforms to support floodlights illuminating the NatWest Series one-day international cricket match at Trent Bridge last month. Each of the four truck-mounted Bronto Skylift machines were fitted with special brackets carrying 15 lamps rated at 6kW each. The Brontos' 44m maximum lift height enabled lighting contractor Musco Lighting, specialists in permanent lighting installations for sports facilities, to obtain the optimum floodlight coverage over the Trent Bridge ground.

Allan Burgess, manager of Musco's mobile services division, says Nationwide Access regularly supplies the company's access hire requirement. The four boom lifts used at Trent Bridge supplemented four lighting towers which are owned and operated by Musco. "We have four cranes but eight sets of lamps and we used all eight se

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Europe - The record number of exhibitor bookings and added space secured for the Integrated Systems Europe 2006 exhibition demonstrates that the market is buoyant and confident, say the organizers - a claim they say is confirmed by the record results achieved at InfoComm 2005 - the largest annual conference and exhibition for audio-visual buyers and sellers, held in Las Vegas in June. The event grew 15% over 2004, attracting over 26,000 AV professionals including a strong increase in the number of AV and IT managers.

Mike Blackman, ISE 2006 managing director explains: "The success of InfoComm 2005 demonstrates that the market is growing stronger by the year as more professionals and installers look to exhibitions as the key medium to source new products and see the latest innovations in technology."

Blackman also had this to say about the latest progress on ISE 2006:

  1. 'Live Your Best Life' with UVLD
  2. Beyerdynamic leave the coast clear for one
  3. Port Stewart Baptist Church
  4. Nexo with Royal de Luxe
  5. EVI Audio for Frankfurt's new stadium
  6. Thomson Cruise ships' technical upgrade
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