Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

Business

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UK - PSL, the London-based event services company, is expanding its presence in London, with its appointment as Preferred AV and production partner to one of the capital's most stylish meeting venues, Vinopolis.

Since Vinopolis opened in 1999, it has strongly developed its unique dual identity as a wine-tasting visitor attraction with an impressive capacity for corporate and private events. Developed over a three-acre site beneath 140-year-old Victorian railway arches, alongside London Bridge and Borough Market, Vinopolis offers a a range of spectacular spaces for banquets, conferences, exhibitions, product launches, weddings and social functions. Six distinct areas, underneath 21 soaring arches, regularly welcome party sizes of 10 to 1250 guests, making it one of the City's most sought-after locations.

With a staff member permanently on site at Vinopolis, PSL will now handle

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UK - 400 employees of O2 were given a night of entertainment to remember in July when phone manufacturer Motorola staged a spectacular evening at Manchester's New Century Hall, organised by event producers Rodber Thorneycroft. Birmingham-based PSP was appointed to provide all of the technical services for the event.

Hosted by popular TV presenter Vernon Kay, guests were invited to take part in two game shows, entitled SLVR of Fortune and Play Your RAZR. One of the UK's brightest new music stars, Paolo Nutini sang four songs from his new album, while magician Paul Zenon and comedian Al Murray added to the entertainment.

The event proved to be technically complex: PSP's 8-way buzzer system was used for the quiz section as well as Flash to create a random name selector for participants. All of the quiz graphics were specifically designed to reflect the Motorola brand. For the sou

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - PRG Europe Sales have been awarded the exclusive distributorship of Pathway products in Europe. Pathway Connectivity is the leading data communications company in the entertainment lighting industry. Based in Canada, Pathway has been defining the future of lighting network functionality for more that a decade.

Founder and president of Pathway, Dave Higgins says: "We're very pleased to be able to expand our long-standing relationship with the PRG organisation. As Pathway's exclusive distributor in the European, Middle Eastern and African regions, PRG Europe's commitment to these markets will ensure that our new product ranges, as well as our CE and RoHS programs, receive maximum exposure. The opportunity to work with the great sales team at PRG Europe is the icing on the cake for Pathway."

Pathway designs, manufactures and supports an innovative family of product

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USA - The General Electric Company (GE) through its Consumer & Industrial business, and the Nichia Corporation, have announced a strategic alliance agreement to support GELcore LLC, based in Cleveland, Ohio. GELcore, formed in 1999, was previously a joint venture between GE and the Emcore Corporation of Somerset, New Jersey. GE purchased Emcore's 49% interest in the joint venture for $100m, demonstrating its ongoing commitment to invest in LED technology and the future of lighting.

This agreement combines GELcore's LED system strengths in the Transportation, Signage, Specialty Illumination, and General Illumination segments with Nichia's extensive phosphor and optoelectronics products, such as LEDs. Both companies expect to benefit significantly from each other's expertise and penetrate the high-growth LED general illumination segment.

"This agreement is a true win-win ou

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UK - Vertigo Rigging lived up to its tag line of 'rigging revolutionaries' by pulling off one of the most spectacular car launches ever staged to mark the start of the 2006 British International Motor Show in London in July.

Flying in the face of everyone who said "it can't be done", Vertigo unveiled Opel's new Corsa to the world's press and industry VIPs by flying the car, suspended beneath a specially modified helicopter, along the River Thames through the heart of the City of London and straight into a big reveal in the Old Billingsgate Fish Market with split-second precision.

The car maker's PR agency had proposed a helicopter-based reveal as a dramatic statement - an idea which was promptly rejected by safety authorities. Undaunted, and convinced that the concept was a winner, Opel brought in events specialist Jack Morton Worldwide to come up with a workable sol

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UK - Denon DJ says it was as delighted that Janette Slack walked away with a pair of its flagship DN-S3500 CD/MP3 players for winning the recent DJoust shoot-out, as the fast-rising electronic star was to bag them. Sponsored by Fruityloopy Promotions, the event attracted some of London's best unknown DJs, but Janette was already firmly on many people's radar.

The precociously-talented Eurasian remixer/producer already has eight years DJing experience, and with a wealth of worldwide club appearances - ranging from Montreal to Sydney and Croatia, she has still managed to build up a huge following in London through residencies at Platform 12 and Ali B's Air, as well as highly-acclaimed dance tracks such as Shake & Play (on the Ali B presents Air Breaks album) and Never Enough (on Re:Connect). On top of that she has been tipped as a Mixmag 'Future Hero'.

Janette only entered DJous

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UK - Blackout provided all rigging, starcloth and drapes for a major fundraising event designed to aid Chase Hospice and DebRA, two specialist charities for the needs of children. Both charities are passionately supported by showbiz personalities, Anthea Turner and Grant Bovey.

The event took place on 15 July at Grant and Anthea's stunning country home in Surrey. Guests included media friends, celebrities and general public ticket holders. Everyone present was wined and dined, and then entertained by some famous names from the world of television and showbiz including The Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, Duncan James, Keedie, Chico and Lulu. Hosted by Bobbie Davro, Master of Ceremonies, there were two auctions during the evening including a Silent Auction. Prizes in the second auction included a shopping trip with Liz Hurley, a weekend on a yacht in the Mediterranean, an ap

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Canada - LTS, based in Vancouver, recently invested in an Adamson Y-Axis rig, comprising 16 Adamson Y10 High Mids and four T21 Subwoofers. "We have used the rig for several productions in the past year, and have had nothing but excellent feedback regarding the system," commented Alan Le Texier.

Alan and Don Le Texier are the owners of LTS Pro Sound & Lighting, a division of Le Texier Systems Inc, which has been providing sales, rentals, consulting, design, installations, and production services to Vancouver and the Lower Mainland for over eighteen years. LTS production services provides sound and lighting equipment as well as transportation, set-up and human resources, and has supplied services for events such as The Cloverdale Rodeo & Exhibition and The Blue Mountain Blues Festival.

The company's equipment sales division offers products such as portable sound system

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Worldwide - QSC's C-series ceiling speakers are playing an important role on the current Robbie Williams Close Encounters tour - as part of a unique electronic media concept, piloted for Blink TV.

The company responsible for the video wanted to develop a system whereby electronic merchandise would be advertised to the tour audience by way of many large screen displays around the outside of the event arenas.

The idea was that SMS messaging would be given to text certain words to obtain video or music downloads onto the user's mobile phones. The displays were required to be housed in weather-resistant casings, be easily maintainable and be able to provide a good quality, high level audio output.

To achieve the solution Blink TV approached Jon Swain's company SPC, who were asked to advise and project manage the entire manufacture and supply of the equipment together with

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UK - Norwich based Viking Stage Lighting has just purchased its 200th Robe fixture. The company, headed by Ian Leonard, passed the 200 mark with the acquisition of a batch of the all-new ColorWash 575AT Zoom s.

Viking specialises in theatrical sales and hire, and initially bought the ColorWash 575AT Zoom because of its "Superb zoom - which, along with light output and functionality, is better than any other product on the market at the moment".

Since having these fixtures in their own hire stock, Viking has demo'd them to many others and consequently sold several more CW 575AT Zooms to its clients.

Viking has steadily replaced their entire hire stock inventory with Robe moving lights over the last two years, now only leaving six non Robe units. In terms of fixtures, they have everything from the expediently sized Spot 150XT spot to the powerful workhorse ColorSpot

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USA - The Lollapalooza Festival in early August was an extraordinary event, offering 130 bands on eight stages over the course of three days in Chicago's lakeside Grant Park. Also living up to the dictionary definition of lollapalooza ("something outstanding of its kind"), according to Dolby, was the Dolby Lake Processor, four of which were deployed by production services company StagePro on the festival's Playstation and AMD stages.

"We love it - it sounds awesome," said Tim Smith, production manager for StagePro, of the Dolby Lake Processor. The company purchased the four units two months ago. "The ability to make changes from multiple locations around the venue, as well as the intuitive control software made tuning the rigs a joy. There were many compliments from both band engineers and patrons. For where we were at with our audio systems, which are b

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UK - Visitors to this year's PLASA Show (running from September 10-13 at Earls Court One, London) will be able to learn more about PLASA's work on the development of a new National Rigging Certificate - an initiative designed to give riggers working in all sectors a framework by which their expertise and knowledge can be measured.

Over the last year, PLASA has been working closely with the industry and a range of government bodies to develop a scheme that will not only serve the specific needs of the industry, but also achieve national recognition.

A Rigging Advisory Group, consisting of key figures from the rigging industry, has been established and has been working closely with PLASA on the development of the Certificate, most critically on the content of the qualification and on how the assessment process will be delivered. This consultation has allowed PLASA to develop an

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UK - Star Events Group Ltd supplied over 50 structures at both the Telford and Chelmsford sites of this year's V Festival.

Along with the 20m four bay Orbit stages, SEGL also supplied stages three and four, over 30 site towers at each venue, wheelchair user platforms, camera platforms, front of house structures, DJ Risers and the 'Tree House', a raised enclosed television interview room.

Mike Goodwin, manager of Star Orbit, says: "We were extremely happy to be given the opportunity to supply the majority of structures at this year's V sites. The weather was particularly challenging, with quite heavy on-off rain throughout, but everyone responded brilliantly and the event was a great success all round."

(Chris Henry)

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USA - Outline, manufacturer of pro audio, have announced its partnership with Morin Productions. Effective since July 15 2006, Morin Productions will act as the exclusive distributor for Outline products in the United States and Canada. The principals of Morin Productions, Tim Morin, Brandon Pritchard and Tom Nichols, each have over 15 years direct experience in the audiovisual and entertainment industry.

Morin Productions can be contacted on:
29 Front Street
Nashua, NH 03060
Tel: 603-880-3880
Fax: 603-880-3844

(Chris Henry)

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UK - LD Patrick Marks has found the Avolites Diamond 4 lighting console's Fixture Exchange facility a life saver during their extensive summer festival style tour. He's touring his own console everywhere and picking up a variety of local productions across the UK and Europe. The schedule has also encompassed a 3-week Swedish tour with lighting sound and trucking all supplied by Copenhagen-based Nordic.

Having the D4 and using Fixture Exchange has not only meant: "No more re-programming shows on sunny afternoons with no time!" says Marks, it's also saved him from worrying about whether the fixtures for the day are Martin, Robe, Vari*Lite. Whatever they are, his show remains the same.

Marks 'converted' to the D4 at the beginning of the summer after many years of running Status Quo's show on a Diamond 3. Now he's using the D4 and the very latest software versions which

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UK - Pearl Jam, Muse, Franz Ferdinand, Kaiser Chiefs, The Arctic Monkeys and Primal Scream were among the highlights of a great weekend of music enjoyed by over 150,000 fans at the Carling Leeds and Reading Festivals.

Mojo Barriers supplied over 1000m of barrier across the two sites. Aluminium Mojo Barrier, incorporating the Barrier Load Monitor System (BLMS), formed the main front of stage systems with the new secondary barrier system employed at both festival sites constructed from steel barrier, in the new configuration, located between the front of house mixer and stage.

Headliners Pearl Jam's last festival tour in Europe was shattered by the tragic deaths of nine people during their Rosklide show. So their return to festival stages this year was accompanied by particularly close attention to health and safety issues.

This is an area Mean Fiddler's festival director Melv

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UK - HSL is supplying a full floor lighting system for Snow Patrol's current UK and European outdoor festival tour, which includes an impressive LED back wall consisting of 57 ColorKinetics iColor Tiles and 57 Chroma-Q DB4 LED fixtures, plus 16 Robe moving lights.

The band's stunning stage look is being created by the slick teamwork of lighting designer Dave Sherwin and visuals operator Robin Haddow. The tour is being project managed for HSL by Mike Oates.

In addition to the LED and moving lights, HSL is also supplying six vertical trussing towers, two pairs each at 10ft in the centre, 8ft and 6ft on the outside; six two cell Moles and six Atomic strobes - each of which sits on each tower, along with six of the Robe ColorSpot 1200ATs on top. The rest of the moving lights are scattered around the floor, along with an additional 20 DB4s.

HSL designed and supplied the custom sc

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UK - With the industry's leading companies rolling out major new products and services, PLASA06 is going to play a central role in delivering solutions to many of the high profile projects, events and tours of the coming 12 months.

The specialists exhibiting at PLASA06 have the expertise to make anything possible with technologies developed by this industry transforming the quality of experience within the entertainment, events, live arts and leisure markets to a level scarcely imaginable 10 years ago.

And in the building and architectural sectors, the development of audio, video and IT technologies has also transformed the way buildings are designed and used - aesthetically, practically and architecturally - with information and safety-related systems now essential ingredients in the development of public spaces and buildings.

All these developments - together with the next

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USA - Founded in 1867, Howard University is better known for academics than athletics, sports are still a prominent aspect of student life.The university's homecoming football game and accompanying celebration is considered one of the capital's more notable annual events, with thousands of local residents joining the 11,000-plus student body to partake in the week-long gala, which features a cornucopia of musical entertainment and special celebrity guests.

With another year fast approaching, Athletic Department facility manager Isaac Darden knew it was time to upgrade Greene Memorial Stadium's aging sound system, and sought the advice of Beltsville, MD-based RCI Sound Systems, the firm behind other local high-profile jobs including Kennedy Center Concert Hall and the Washington Redskins' FedEx Field.

"We knew the stadium needed an audio system that could withstand the Was

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UK - At the PLASA Show this year, a trio of the UK's best-known TV lighting directors will gather together for what promises to be an entertaining session on the ups and downs of the business of lighting for television.

John Watt, Mike Le Fevre and Ian Dow are all TV lighting directors who by default have specialised in different genres of television - as well as just lighting whatever comes next! They hope to be inspired by questions from the floor to explain how they attempt to keep the quality of lighting in television, whilst battling budgets and the idiosyncrasies of producers. They may well illustrate their remarks with stories of the triumphs and disasters of their careers!

Chaired by PLASA's executive director and former L&SI editor Ruth Rossington, the session will take place from 3.30-5.00pm on Tuesday 12 September, in the seminar theatre on Level Two of Earls Court.

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UK - PLASA - the Professional Lighting and Sound Association - has announced a new events strategy to drive the development of its market-leading PLASA Show and to advance its range of business and networking events. Central to this major initiative will be the roll-out of a number of satellite events, including the launch of a regional networking event in the north of England, details of which will be announced shortly.

The move will be underpinned by the launch of PLASA Events Ltd, which will implement the new strategy, and also allow PLASA to build on the success of its established PLASA Show, paving the way for a major relaunch of the event in 2007. The new division will be headed by two faces familiar to the industry: Nicola Rowland joins the PLASA team as director of events and Sophie Matthews joins as operations manager. Formerly with Clarion Events, both have wide experi

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Hawaii - The Maui Arts & Cultural Center's (MACC) was founded in 1994and hosts over 1,700 events a year in nine facilities.

Two of the MACC's premier venues, the 1,200-seat Harold K.L. Castle Theater and the 250-seat McCoy Studio Theater, have just been given major audio upgrades with the installation of new self-powered Meyer Sound systems. The Castle Theater's new MICA compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers, 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers, UPJ-1P compact VariO, UPA-2P compact narrow coverage, M1D ultra-compact curvilinear array, and CQ-1 wide coverage main loudspeakers, are put to use with the aid of Meyer Sound's RMS remote monitoring system and a SIM 3 audio analyzer.

The system was installed by Docktrdave Audio, specialists in theatre sound system retrofits. Company president Dave Lawler and his partners, Craig Doubet and Eric Laliberte, saw the opportunity

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UK - UK cable specialist VDC Trading supplied a large amount of cabling to A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division, which recently installed a background audio system for the newly refurbished Wembley Arena. A.C. Lighting was contracted by Wembley London Limited through Stace Project Management to provide the background audio system for the Arena's five separate sound zones, including specification and supply of all equipment, custom-built AV racks, electrical power and data cabling, trunking, routing and programming.

The installation of the system was scheduled to take place during the final stages of the building works, so A.C. was under both budget and deadline pressure to complete all work in time for the re-opening. A.C. chose VDC because the characteristics of its cables were ideal for their requirements, plus the company was able to respond quickly to their brief, which

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UK - Top DJ, Paul van Dyk, has adopted Allen & Heath's new Xone:3D mixer-controller as the core control element in his live performance set-up. PvD has purchased two Xone:3D's, one for touring, and one installed in his studio.

"The 3D is perfect for my live set up as it's not just a mixer, it's also a controller, which means I can programme in real time using the unit's MIDI sends and returns," explains van Dyk. "As soon as I got the 3D I configured it with all my software and it worked straight away. Iuse two computers - one loaded with Scratch Live using time-coded CDs, and the other with Ableton Live and all of my sequences and elements. I also have an E-MU keyboard, which records and plays back sequences. And at heart is the 3D, controlling and syncing it all. It's liberating - I'm constructing and creating tracks on the spot, and every performanceis unique.&q

  1. RF Spectrum open forum at PLASA '06
  2. UK's first RCF TTL33A line array install
  3. grandMA sets sail
  4. Radia Ribbons revitalise the Rose Bowl
  5. Concert Sound for Rizla Unleashed
  6. Shortee Blitz makes the Denon Transfer
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