UK - After much anticipation, Earls Court One finally opened its doors to the eager crowds queueing for the first day of PLASA '06. With pre-registration visitor levels at a record high, PLASA is bracing itself for record attendance.

New features opening today at the show include the new Integrated Systems Area; a greatly expanded PLASA Seminar Programme with a dedicated Technologies for Worship programme; and the first PLASA appearance of NEET (the National Exhibition of Entertainment Technology).

Traditionally 'DJ Day', day one of the show attracts a large DJ following, to participate in the heats and final of the Gemini 'Extreme V' DJ Competition.

Among today's other special features and events will be the ever-popular Talkzones, where music industry experts talk about different aspects of DJ'ing and dance music, including technical skills, online music and the business o

UK - EtherSound has announced the signing of two significant new licensees - pro audio manufacturers Peavey Electronics Corporation and Yamaha.

Peavey has licensed EtherSound networking technology for use in Peavey, MediaMatrix, Architectural Acoustics and Crest Audio professional audio and communications products. Peavey will take advantage of EtherSound's rapid implementation support to introduce EtherSound-enabled products at PLASA 2006: Crest Audio amplifiers and mixing consoles are likely to be among the first Peavey products with EtherSound capability, say the company.

"We have monitored the development and growing acceptance of EtherSound technology, and we're impressed by its rapid implementation and evolution," said Hartley Peavey, Founder and CEO of Peavey Electronics and CEO of Crest Audio.

"As the networked audio market grows, EtherSound will enabl

UK - Tomorrow's Awards for Innovation ceremony will also include a series of charity presentations, as the money raised from entry fees to the Awards is donated to a number of deserving causes. The ceremony will also include a personal appearance by a true entertainment industry legend - Sir George Martin.

In supporting Sir George's Music Foundation, PLASA will purchase a limited edition reproduction lithograph of the original score for Yesterday - the most performed song in history - signed by both Sir George Martin and Sir Paul McCartney. The lithograph will be auctioned during the course of the show to raise further money for the Music Foundation.

The Awards ceremony takes place tomorrow evening at 6.00pm, at the Central Bar area in the centre of Earls Court 1.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - As the PLASA Show's visitors began to fill Earls Court 1, the Innovation Gallery was naturally proving a big draw. Situated at the front of the main floor of Earls Court, the Innovation Gallery, sponsored by Lighting&Sound International magazine, forms a striking focal point for everyone coming to PLASA, as it is here that the 60 nominated products vying for this year's PLASA Awards for Innovation are prominently displayed.

The judging panel, consisting of an array of industry experts, is hard at work viewing, questioning and debating throughout today, and will draw a line under their deliberations by around lunchtime tomorrow. As well as the eight Innovation Awards, the judges will also have at their disposal an Award for Environmental Impact to reward any product that makes a significant contribution to environmental issues. The winners will be revealed to the industry to

UK - Hawthorn is pleased to announce that it's investment in Clay Paky's Alpha 575 and 1200 series spot and wash lights has now exceeded £0.5 million.

"We started our investment in this range in late 2004," said Martin Hawthorn, "as this was a second generation moving head feature spot, Clay Paky had learnt a lot from its original series and the quality and reliability of the new range justify the significant investment we have made, including our latest order last week of over £40,000 for the Alpha Profile 1200 range, which combines the technology of Alpha projectors with the exclusive Clay Paky patented framing system."

"We now have a hire stock of over 100 Alpha washes and spots," said Matt Edgington of the Hawthorn Moving Light Department, "the initial intensive three-day training course that Gavin, Tim Ellis, our electronics

UK - British loudspeaker manufacturer Martin Audio celebrated 35 years in business with a champagne reception at the PLASA Show yesterday afternoon, and also chose the occasion to present some of its leading international distributorships with special awards for their achievements during the year.

Pictured here are representatives of the five companies who received Awards on the Martin stand: from left to right are Marc Kocks of TM Audio (The Netherlands), who received the Award for Achievement in Installed Sound; Juan Sebastian De Castells of Adagio (Spain), with the Award for Achievement in Tour Sound; Nick Lidster of Autograph Sound Recording (UK) with the Award for Achievement in Theatre Sound; Patrick Lau of Dah Chong Hong (Hong Kong) with Martin Audio's Distributor of the Year Award; and Wei Ming of Swee Lee (Singapore), with the Award for Achievement in Club Sound.

(Lee

UK - Avolites launched its new Pearl Expert desk at the PLASA show yesterday. This is a new high performance version of one of the industry's most popular ever consoles, boasting more submasters, more flash buttons, and based on the Pearl 2004 operating system.

Pearl Expert is powered by the new Intel Core Duo Processor giving an exceptionally high-speed button response, which is particularly useful for 'take over' and busking. An additional five sub master playbacks makes a total of 20, and new Add and Swop buttons for the top row of faders allow easy placement of fixtures and dimmers, on all 60 preset faders.

The new 'Colour Picker' a feature from the Diamond 4 console, gives instant control of CMY and colour mix devices. This is the first of many D4 features for future software releases in Pearl Expert. A new 'Split Roller' separates the 20 sub masters into two banks of 10

UK - Sound Rental Company SSE Audio Group has announced the acquisition of Tarsin Entertainment Ltd. London based Tarsin specialises in the contract hire of live sound installations at many major venues in the capital and around the UK. These contracts will now transfer to SSE London, a newly created division of SSE Audio Group.

John Penn, SSE Audio Group's MD commented: "After working with Tarsin's Peter Dyer for many years, we realised the natural synergy between our two operations could lead to mutual benefit for both our businesses and customers."

Dyer becomes SSE London's contracts manager, looking after existing customer relations and developing new business, while SSE's Emma Barwell becomes operations director, responsible for the day to day running of the London warehouse and offices, which are based at Hayes in West London.

Tarsin Entertainment's clients w

UK - At the PLASA Show yesterday, Australian manufacturer LSC Lighting announced the appointment of White Light as its new exclusive distributor for the UK. The announcement was made on the White Light stand, where LSC's Gary Pritchard officially presented White Light's Peter Threadgold with a framed certificate.

Earlier in the morning The White Light stand had also seen the launch of the latest offering from Robert Juliat, - Lancelot - the latest in a line of innovative products from French manufacturer Robert Juliat.

The brightest, most spectacular fixture ever released by Robert Juliat, Lancelot is both a long-throw effects projector and a followspot suitable for the largest of venues, particularly stadiums. Based around a 360,000 lumen 4kW HTI lamp, Lancelot uses a carefully-designed optical train that gives an extremely flat-field beam distribution. Lancelot's modular des

UK - There is a stand missing on the upper level this year - Garwood. Chrys Lindop, instigator of the in-ear monitoring revolution has packed up his house in London and with his wife, Maggie Riley (Moonlight Shadow by Mike Oldfield if you're wondering where you've heard that name before) and moved to Glasgow. Lindop has turned his audio skills to new, more altruistic pastures, working for the Sounds of Progress charity.

Readers may care to remember that name. Essentially, the charity is concerned with making musical expression more accessible to people with handicaps and disabilities. "I've done something that links music and the playing of instruments to colours," Lindop explained briefly. It must be effective, the Scottish education board has asked the charity to expand and adapt the program to support school children with learning needs. Audio in education, is this

UK - The new Hippotizer V3 from Green Hippo aims to make convergence a reality rather than a buzzword, the company says. A combination of the video and lighting backgrounds of the Green Hippo design team has resulted in the system's multi-discipline operation and suitability for a variety of new AV tasks. Timeline functionality, HippoNet advanced networking capability, new media management, and efficiency-focused features are all accessible via a definable interface. Hippotizer can work autonomously, control other devices or be controlled externally, say Green Hippo.

Hippotizer V3 keeps all its award-winning features of Hippotizer: True HD capability, frame-blended playback and proven reliability but following a full rework, now heralds a quantum leap in Media Server technology.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Ortofon, one of the sponsors of the DMC DJ World Championship Finals, was one the busiest stands of Sunday at the PLASA Show, where a host of world class DJs demoed their mixing and scratching skills using Ortofon's famous DJ cartridges designed to work with time-coded vinyl. Guest slots were taken up Tamara Sky, ID, Ms Vicious and many others who were also among artists from 91 countries perfuming at the 2-day Championship Finals, staged at legendary nearby venue, Hammersmith Palais.

Last night's Battle for World Supremacy was won by DJ Coma from Japan with Troubl' from France the runner up, and the Wold Team Battle was won by C2C from France with Disablists from the UK second.

Being contested tonight - the second and final evening of the event - is the ultimate DJ accolade, the Championship World Final (now in its 23rd year), plus the DMC World DJ Summit 2 . . . where f

UK - PLASA '06 has opened, with much of the industry heading to Earls Court 1 to be part of this international event. The mood on the show floor has been positive, business deals have already been signed, and a strong blueprint has been established for the rest of the show.

The exhibition has been busy since the doors opened yesterday at 10am with architects, DJs, lighting designers, sound engineers, production managers and installers arriving in London to take part in the event.

The show's international credentials have been reinforced by the presence of companies from over 20 countries, including Canada, France, Israel, Lithuania, Germany, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands, Turkey and the USA. All the major names are at Earls Court, amongst them 50 first-time exhibitors, including the innovative Canadian company Cirque du Soleil.

No other show gives visitors such a positive f

UK - Hundreds of products have been launched at this year's PLASA Show, currently running at Earls Court in London. At last night's PLASA Awards for Innovation ceremony, attended by special guest Sir George Martin, eight awards were presented in recognition of the impressive design and development work going on across the industry.

The eight awards went to: Avolites (Stand J30) for its mDMX system; Dolby Laboratories / Lake Technology (BB12) for the Dolby Lake Processor; Global Design Solutions' Blues System (R53); Vieta / KV2 Audio Europe Ltd (GG6) for the So Line; Pharos Architectural Controls (F31) for its Audio Visual Controller; TiMax / Outboard (DD18) for the Track The Actors system; Volex Power Products (FF14) for its V-Lock; and Wybron's InfoTrace system (J38).

In addition to the main award winners, commendations were also given to Adam Hall for its adjustable top-hat

UK - With the advent of high quality plasma screens which can be found in most places where information is required to be seen, comes the need to match such innovations with realistic sound. To meet this demand, ADSworldwide of Stockport has introduced the Genie music distribution system.

The use of high precision miniature wall loudspeakers made from weighty cast aluminium provide an exceptional quality sound which belies their size. A ceiling loudspeaker version is also available, therefore providing a choice between wall and ceiling mounting. The addition of a subwoofer completes a comprehensive sound system unrivalled by any other in terms of both quality and price.

The core of the system is a six-channel amplifier comprising six individual 35W modules, four each feeding an individual loudspeaker and also providing separate volume control. The last two amplifiers are bridg

UK - The Michael Northern Bursary 2006, set up to reward students who show exemplary talent in lighting design, has been awarded to Chloe Kenward from the University of Hull, for her imaginative design for Egbert in the Underworld. The Bursary of £500 is awarded for a project completed within the past academic year, and the judges felt that Kenward's work clearly demonstrated a strong creative flair.

The ETC runner up prize of £250 went to Richard Howell, from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama, for his work on Twelfth Night, while Joshua Tomalin from LAMDA was awarded the ALD runner up prize of £250 for his work on Mathilde, Serious Money and The Misanthrope.

This year, for the first time, two Honourable Mention Awards, sponsored by PRG Europe were awarded to first year students. The judges - Paule Constable, Mark Jonathan, R

UK - Yesterday at the PLASA Show, ADB Lighting Technologies unveiled major new product releases, as well as an expanded accessory range.

On stand H19, the company unveiled two new ranges of luminaires in the award winning Warp series - the HMI Warp/Daylight and the cool running, long lamp-life Warp/Ceramic, along with new Warp series accessories. Two new dimmers will also be on show - the Eurodim Sine Wave series and the Erack 50 Plus economy dimmer rack.

The new, HMI powered Warp/Daylight automated spot luminaire range, available in both motorised and manual versions, provides the brightest beam in the 575 discharge lamp range. A new fixture range with electronic flicker free ballasts, with two different light output angles of 12-30 and 22-50 degrees, its light output is over 10,500 LUX.

The second luminaire launch at PLASA will be the high light output, cool beam Warp/Cera

Germany - Belle et Fou - The play with lust is a new show in Berlin. It's Berlin's first theatre of senses and offers the observer a unique show with eroticism, dance, music and theatre. The production of Arthur Castro, Hans-Peter Wodarz and Günter Münstermann tells stories about sensuality and attraction of the opposite sex. Belle et Fou is housed in the Spielbank Berlin, where nearly 300 seats are equipped with state-of-the-art lighting, sound and A/V technology.

"Lust knows many forms of expression, but no boundaries", says Arthur Castro - words which inspired lighting designer Andreas Fuchs: besides the 70 moving lights he is using, there are four beamers, one video screen composed of 27 cubes (9 x 2m), several LEDs and 76 Clay Paky Point In are used in the auditorium. The whole system is controlled by a grandMA Light together with grandMA on PC as

UK / Norway - Clockaudio Limited has expanded its Scandinavian marketing and distribution efforts with the appointment of FotoPhono AS as its Norwegian distributor. The announcement was made by Rod Geary, Clockaudio's sales and marketing manager, and reflects the continued growth of the Clockaudio operation worldwide.

FotoPhono AS will be responsible for the sales and distribution of Clockaudio's extensive line of microphones, mixers, headsets and accessories within the burgeoning Scandinavian market. "We are very excited to be distributing Clockaudio," says Erik Torp, FotoPhono divisional manager. "With our experience in the microphone business, we hope to growClockaudio's presence in Norway. We feel we can offer the Norwegian dealer quicker delivery of product, better servicing, and increased local sales and marketing."

Commenting on the appointment of Fo

Australia - Australian lighting control manufacturer LSC Lighting Systems has announced the release of a new touring dimmer called Teko, which, the company says, introduces a new level of power and sophistication for portable dimmers.

With features including 3,000W per channel (@230V), a full 512 channel softpatch, 80 internal memories, seven dimmer curves and remote status monitoring it would easy for the dimmer to be too complex to use. However the clever design uses an LCD touch-screen for the user interface, with clear text labelling of all functions and a context sensitive help display.

However the Teko is a dimmer and dimming lights is where it really exceeds. Using LSC's Pulse Transformer Fired Dimmer (PTFD) output circuitry means that virtually any load can be controlled perfectly. Pinspots, ELV lamps, transformers, strobes and even a 5W pilot lamp can all be connected

UK - With only one day remaining of the PLASA Show 2006, visitors still have time to register their interest in PLASA's National Rigging Certificate. Visitors can learn more about the 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.

Rigging assessors are currently undertaking assessment pilots to demonstrate that they meet the standards within the National Rigging Certificate, and each assessor is also working towards achieving an A1 Award - the nationally recognised award in assessment.

Rigging Assessors and members of the Rigging Advisory Group will be present on the PLASA Stand

UK - Audio-Technica's comprehensive range of wireless products is to be further augmented with the launch of the company's new 700 Series. The series offers customers a range of easy-to-use solutions designed for a variety of performance situations.

Comprising five different packages, the 700 Series includes the Vocal system with handheld mic/transmitter, the Presenter system with belt pack and lavalier mic, the Guitar system including cable for guitar/belt pack hook-up, and the Active system that includes a headworn mic. For ultimate flexibility, the Options system comprises a basic belt pack and receiver, with the customer able to select a microphone of choice from Audio-Technica's Wireless Essential range. (All Wireless Essential models are compatible with the Options system.)

The 700 Series offers eight selectable frequency-coordinated UHF channels, automatic frequency sca

UK - Two school leavers, have been given the opportunity to discover the fascinating world of conference staging, lighting, sound and audiovisual equipment at the UK's leading conference centre, Birmingham's ICC, following a brand new career initiative launched this summer.

Katie Clements,18, from Selly Oak, and Greg Toomer,16, from Castle Vale have joined the ICC to work in various parts of the technical department, and will experience a wide range of conferences, events and exhibitions, whilst gaining a qualification in a related area, on day release at college, starting in September 2006. The programme has been designed to allow trainees to study and complete their chosen qualification, in preparation for a junior technical position within the industry in two years.

Clements, who has recently completed three A-levels at Shenley Court Specialist Arts College, says: "Thi

USA - Color Kinetics Inc (CKI) has announced the unveiling of its latest landmark installation, encompassing more than 1,800 LED-based fixtures as part of a lighting renovation project for Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Based on preliminary operation and testing, the LED-based system is expected to consume just 25% of the total energy drawn by the previous fixtures, while also reducing maintenance and cutting the number of electrical vendors required from six to two.

The project called for the replacement of five-year-old metal halide fixtures within 26 glass pylons leading to the airport's entrance, known as the famed LAX Gateway. Ranging in height from 25 to 110ft, the translucent pylons can now display custom-designed colour-changing effects employing CKI's Chromacore technology, as opposed to the use of glass filters, coloured gels, and electro-mechanical colour sc

Latest Issue. . .