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Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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Spain - Midas' Spanish distributor Auprosa has delivered two Heritage 3000 consoles with 16-channel extensions to L'Auditori de Barcelona, the city's leading cultural centre which houses several music halls. One of the H3000s is for mobile use and can be moved wherever it is needed, though mainly based in the 2,340-capacity Symphonic Hall, while the second has a permanent home in the 700-capacity Chamber Music Hall.

Spanish installation company Twin Cam were responsible for commissioning the new desks into the halls, together with a package of Klark Teknik equipment including 24 channels of Helix DN9340 dual digital EQ and Helix DN9331 Rapide graphic controller. Five DN360 graphic eqs and four DN1248 Plus mic splitters join the second H3000 in the Chamber Music Hall. The Helix EQs were configured as part of a Show Command system, with the H3000's Solo Tracking System (STS), Rapi

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USA - Theatre Projects Consultants (TPC) began a year-long celebration of its 50th anniversary with a cocktail party on 42nd Street in New York City. The event was held in the Penthouse Lobby at the American Airlines Theatre on Monday 15 January. The party was attended by over 250 guests including architects, theatre and entertainment professionals, TPC clients both past and present, acousticians, theatre consultants, TPC alumni, the media, and other friends of TPC.

Speeches and toasts were made by Emmy and Tony-winning set and costume designer Tony Walton, theatre architect Hugh Hardy of H3 Hardy Collaboration, and Richard Pilbrow, TPC Founder and Chairman Emeritus.

TPC was the theatre design consultant for the renovation of the American Airlines Theatre (formerly the Selwyn Theatre) which reopened in 2000 and is now home to the Roundabout Theatre Company.

(Lee Baldock)

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - Mojo Barriers UK office ended 2006 in Aberdeen, supplying their Line-Up gates for Scotland's only Hogmany event to survive terrible weather, and then began 2007 at the opposite end of the country in Brighton for Fat Boy Slim's New Year Day Big Beach Boutique show.

Over 15,000 people attended Aberdeen's Hogmanay Party, at which Wet Wet Wet were the headline act. It was the only large-scale event to take place in Scotland on the 31 December 2006, with others falling foul of the Scottish weather the event.

Dorothy Anderson, Aberdeen City Council's events officer says: "This year for the first time we decided to implement an entry control system to monitor the numbers attending and to ensure public safety at the event. We were looking for a quick to assemble solution that would assist us in doing this and decided that the 'Mojo Line Up Gates' would be ideal. On the night

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Chile - Robbie Williams recently played the National Stadium in Santiago, Chile as part of his current Close Encounters world tour. A crowd of 50,000 people came to see and hear the English pop artist and songwriter, whose career began as a member of the highly successful band Take That. As part of the celebration of its 90 years in the nation, Citibank was the official sponsor of the concert in coordination with CIE Chile, one of Latin America's leading entertainment promotion companies.

Sound services for the Robbie Williams world tour are being coordinated through UK-based Britannia Row Productions. For the Santiago National Stadium show, local Chilean rental vendor Cristian Olavarria Ltd, a rental company with over 25 years of experience in sound reinforcement, supplied a total of 72 VT4888DP powered mid-size line array elements from JBL's Vertec DP Series, as part of the te

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UK - When Autosports International needed a special effect to open the high-octane event in the Live Action Arena at the NEC early this month, it was Laser Hire Ltd that they turned to. Laser Hire used four laser systems including a truss mounted 10W DPSS laser system controlled by a laptop, running Pangolyn laser 2000 and a Magnum III controller running three laser outputs 'live'.

Each of the 14 live shows started by the laser systems simulating the stage being cut away to release the Red Bull F1 car. Cutting 'sparks' were also produced by Laser Hire Ltd using various pyrotechinc effects through a running sequence from a pyromate control system to match the moving laser beam projected from the truss. The car was then raised to the centre of the stage through a cloud of smoke, creating a truly Bond like effect to start the thrilling live event in front of a packed house of over

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UK - The Long standing PMC user Jon Astley, mastering engineer at Close to the Edge Studios, has recently taken delivery of AML1 active two way monitors for installation in the Twickenham studio, to supplement his current PMC 5.1 configuration.

Astley is one of the UK's leading mastering engineers and producers, and has worked with such eminent names as The Who, Abba and Eric Clapton. The AML1s were acquired for mastering of the recent release from Jools Holland - 'Moving out to the Country' - and is currently mastering the imminent album from John Mayall - 'In the Palace of the King'. Due to the AML1's diminutive proportions and ease of integration, Astley will be taking the AML1s to Martian Sound in the West Country for use in the on going project with Tori Amos. He commented: "The definition is superb and the imaging is perfect. I can identify and resolve problem areas i

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The Netherlands - With just a few days to go until the fourth edition of Integrated Systems Europe opens in Amsterdam, the show organisers have announced that visitors to ISE 2007 will see a show that is bigger in size and has twice the number of special features than in previous events. These include some new education sessions in the conference programme. Over 350 exhibitors will be at ISE, representing a 40% increase on the 2006 event.

Halls 1 - 4 at the Amsterdam RAI exhibition centre are about to open to welcome the first of over 350 leading exhibitors who are on their way to prepare for what is now officially the biggest event yet staged by ISE. As Mike Blackman, show director confirms: "This is a true testament to not only the AV industry, but also the Exhibition medium, that many exhibitors are using ISE 2007 to show and introduce (new) products to the industry. We

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UK - XL Video has supplied design collective United Visual Artists (UVA) with Barco O-Lite modules for their critically acclaimed interactive music installation, 'Volume' at the V&A Museum, London. The work was commissioned buy the V&A as part of the Playstation Season, and is a collaboration between UVA, Robert Del Naja (3D of Massive Attack) and his long-term co-writer Neil Davidge (as part of their music production company, one point six).

Staged in the V&A's John Madejski Garden, the O-Lite is arranged into 46 columns mounted on 6 x 7 grid, each column consisting of 24 O-Lite modules stacked on top of one another. These measure 2.5 metres in height by 12cm wide, and the columns are placed 2m apart, each with a speaker on top.

UVA's Ash Nehru explains: "We've worked with XL in the past, and they have always been excellent, so were an obvious choice to supply the hardwa

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Europe - The new Walt Disney film Enchanted - due for release later this year - has a promotional tour travelling to the main European cities of London, Paris, Madrid, Brussels and Munich. One of the key features of the movie is an enchanted wishing well, and for this the tour makes use of a FogScreen walk-through screen.

A Finnish invention, the FogScreen walk-through screen generates a thin 'projection screen' of dry fog that people can walk through without getting wet. FogScreen walk-through screen uses ordinary water and does not contain any chemicals, and has been hailed as "the audiovisual innovation of the decade".

"We chose FogScreen because of the unique qualities it has that bring the magical well to life," explains Enchanted Experience project manager, Maria Walker. "Its real-life movement and fluidity capture a water effect like no o

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UK - Forty of the new i-Pix Satellite LED fixtures were used by lighting designer Nick Gray for shows in Manchester (G-MEX) and London (The East Winter Gardens at Canary Wharf) launching the Audi R8 super-coupe performance car. Gray and his company Renegade Productions were asked to design and supply lighting for the show by event producers GSP.

He specified the i-Pix Satellites to light a shroud surrounding the car. The gauze was rigged onto a circular truss above a raised rotating platform in the middle of the room. Illuminating the gauze in red, the Satellites effectively hid the R8 from view until it was time for the theatrical style reveal.

The lights were attached to the same circular truss as the gauze. The latter was on the inner cord, and the Satellites around the outer cord - down-lighting the cloth, "A simple but effective theatrical trick," explains Gray.

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UK - The St Peters and Broadway Bridges in Maidstone were brought to life over the holiday season by lighting artist Peter Freeman and Maidstone Borough Council. The new permanent installation project, called Light Elements, makes use of a Wireless Solutions W-DMX system supplied by White Light.

According to Peter Freeman: "The inspiration for Light Elements came from the proximity of the two bridges and how they form a circle of traffic movement around a basin oasis of calm with fishermen and pedestrians on the riverbanks in between. My aim was to create a light installation that would be informed by the structure of the bridges, visually connect the two bridges, and create a dialogue between the bridges and the space between them using reflections and animated coloured light." Freeman also opted to make Light Elements interactive, with the public able to text phrases

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UK - Cadac reports on an interesting audio dynamic on the West End musical Daddy Cool, which has been running at the Shaftesbury Theatre as one of this season's only non-Broadway new productions. From an audio perspective, the show stands out from the crowd on a number of counts, with sound designer Richard Brooker establishing several technical firsts. Richard's design deploys a combination of Cadac analogue and digital mixing equipment, with an 82-input J-Type live production console and a Digital Series stage rack, comprising D16 digital mix matrices and M16 remote controlled microphone amplifiers. He is also using a large-scale Opus Audio PA system - the first time the rig has been specified for a major new West End show.

Directed by Andy Goldberg, with music from Boney M and Frank Farian Productions, Daddy Cool has a Romeo and Juliet-style plot set agai

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UK - Bedfordshire's Amalfi Suite, the adjacent Vesuvio Restaurant, and the overarching Sharnbrook Hotel are three separate entities, but under the ownership of the Ciampi family, an offer a conference facility, with accommodation on site.

The Ciampi family called in local installation company A.I.S (Audio Installation Services) of Bedford to devise an audio system that would enhance the environments. Luke Magliaro of A.I.S. in turn called in the services of David Howe of Shuttlesound, the projects support specialist for Electro-Voice in the UK.

"Initially, the design brief from the client was pretty straightforward," explains Howe, "they simply wanted to send any audio signal from any area into any other area of the hotel. Not an unreasonable request but managing all the local inputs from the function suite, conference rooms, bars, restaurant and the multiple sa

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UAE - World renowned lighting architect Jonathan Speirs is giving his full backing to this year's Install Middle East 2007 - a principle feature of the PALME Middle East Show in Dubai (Dubai International Exhibition Centre, May 20-22).

Part of the successful UK-based Speirs and Major Associates partnership (with Mark Major), Speirs commends the introduction of Made of Light - The Art of Light and Architecture feature which he helped to conceive, within the expanded Architectural Lighting and Interior Illumination Zone. In addition to the company's participation here, Jonathan Speirs will also be active in the exhibition's seminar programme, which will include a day of 'Lighting Masterclasses'.

The architect also praised the MELDA Lighting Design Award initiative (which he helped to structure) stating that PALME was not only recognising the convergence between entertainment and

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Norway - Vamp is one of Norway's most successful bands, and has just completed a national tour, playing on stage with the Norwegian Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. The three-week tour of Norway's largest cities culminated in the Oslo Spektrum Arena, where VAMP delivered their unique blend of Norwegian folk, Celtic music and rock to a sell-out crowd of 8,000.

For the tour, the role of monitor engineer was filled by Espen Andersen, using one of Soundcraft's new Vi6 digital audio consoles. "A tour is the real test of a console, not what you see in the demo. The Vi6 performed perfectly on each of the 14 dates, and I thought that the sound quality was amazing."

The Vi6 is already making quite an impact in Norway, purchased by the National Theatre, and also by Oslo-based PA company Christiania Lyd. With a customer base that encompasses live music and corporate events, Chr

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UK - Shuttlesound has delivered a Midas Venice 160 audio mixing console to a rather unexpected customer, Air/Strongroom Studios. The desk is intended to service the growing clientele of Breathe Post-Production, the recently-formed joint venture between the two studios' post divisions.

The purchase comes as a result of a demo by Keith Malin of KMR Audio, requested by Air's technical manager Tim Vine-Lott. "I was looking for a desk with up to 16 channels, easy headphone monitor mixing, effects sends, stereo mix bus, which would work for Post and Music, and wouldn't cost more than £2.5k," he explains.

It took about an hour of research on the Internet to find the Midas Venice. "Although I know Midas and its reputation through live work, my main concern was the mic pre's, as we needed pre's that would work for ADR and band overdubs. We were very pleasantly surp

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New Zealand - dbx Professional Products, a Salt Lake City-based manufacturer of professional signal processing products and a division of Harman International, have provided a flexible routing solution at the heart of a new museum installation in New Zealand.

Jands (NZ) Ltd of Auckland and Deacons Retrovision of Taupo, have designed, supplied and commissioned a new audio system for the highly acclaimed Taupo Museum of History and Art, with a dbx ZonePRO 1260 digital zone processor at the hub.

The town of Taupo is situated in the central North Island of New Zealand, on the edge of the largest freshwater lake in the Southern Hemisphere. Lake Taupo is actually an active volcanic crater that was formed some 200 million years ago in what has been described as the world's largest explosion. Taupo is thus a tourist mecca and attracts thousands of visitors each year as it is the gatew

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UK - Gary Campbell of Campbell Lighting Design, and Barry Hannaford and Nick Hoggett of dpa Lighting Design, have announced the amalgamation of their respective lighting consultancies. The combined company will be known as dpa Lighting Design. This merger brings together two of the leading lighting design practices to form the most substantial lighting consultancy in the UK and perhaps the world. Both practices are "enjoying an immensely successful period", each with varying strengths that will combine to provide a unique human resource in terms of experience and scale, the company says. When further recruitment is completed to fill current design vacancies the combined practices will have a team of 50 people.

The joint statement says: "Ensuring clients and other professionals still experience the same personal service that both practices have provided to date is

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South Africa - Gearhouse (PTY) Ltd and Ashraf Omar (AV Network) this month announced the launch of a new company, Inhouse Venue Technical Management (Pty) Ltd (IVTM). Part of the Gearhouse group of companies, Inhouse VTM was formed to facilitate the supply and management of technical equipment and personnel within key venues across the Western Cape. The service enables venues to rent in the latest equipment and technical expertise without incurring expensive capital outlay. Cutting edge lighting, audio, staging, audio visual, daylight screens, power and rigging equipment coupled with experienced technical staff ensure that the event is seamless and there is also the additional benefit of an onsite branch to resolve any last minute eventualities.

The joint venture is the culmination of years of discussion between Inhouse managing director Ashraf Omar and Gearhouse directors, whic

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USA - Since being founded by John and Helen Meyer in 1979, Meyer Sound's dedication to producing products of consistent quality has dictated that manufacturing be at the company's headquarters in Northern California, where it can be overseen and developed. The company's first years were spent at a location in San Leandro, but since 1984, manufacturing has been at the company's base in Berkeley, Calif.

In the beginning, Meyer Sound bought drivers and modified each one to meet the company's specs. By the mid-1990s, with the company growing and introducing self-powered systems, this was no longer a workable system. So, Meyer Sound made a commitment to fabricating its own loudspeaker drivers. Since the company was already bursting at the seams in its original building, the decision to make drivers meant making a major expansion and constructing an entirely new facility.

Meyer Soun

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UK - For the 12th successive year, Hawthorns were contracted by East Midlands based The Christmas Company to provide the technical solution for it's Christmas party events held at Marquee venues in Bracknell, Leicester and Nottingham.

The Christmas parties take place over 20 nights in December and attract up to 1200 guests per night at each venue.Each Marquee is individually themed for the parties, with Bracknell hosting One Night in Bangkok, Leicester with its Russian-themed Gatecrash the Kremlin and Plunder the Pyramids in Nottingham.

Hawthorn provided all lighting, sound (Bracknell only), power distribution, drapes, star cloths (not Bracknell) and rigging.

80 days of manpower and effort were required by the Hawthorn team to rig each marquee and 30 days for de-rigging once the party schedule has been completed. Furthermore, Hawthorn provided operating

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UK - In December 2006, for the fifth year running, A&O Lighting Technology of Bremen, Germany, installed a seasonal display at the Volkswagen Autostadt theme park, using high-powered alpha one Falcon fixtures to create visual effects. The winter production in Wolfsburg, Germany features illuminated factory buildings, a searchlight display, and lighting for an ice-dancing show featuring skating star Norbert Schramm.

This year's Autostadt theme was 'A Russian Winter Journey'. Designer Max Wehberg and technical administrator Christian Kiel specified 20 Falcon Beam 7K Xenon fixtures to illuminate the landmark Volkswagen factory chimneys, simulating giant candles. The display also used a variety of other products in the Falcon range for special effects, including: Sky Falcon Arc white 1.2K HSR, Sky Falcon Arc colour 1.2K HSR, and the Falcon Static Arc white 4K Xenon. In all, one hund

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UK - Lighting designer Nick Jevons of Electric Fly Productions has bought a new Avolites Pearl Expert lighting console - which has gone straight out on Jarvis Cocker's sensational solo tour.

The new purchase is Jevons' first Avolites console - although he has enthusiastically specified and used Avo products many of his shows and tours. He says "When the Expert came out, with it's increased power and flexibility, I knew that it was the perfect desk for me and the type of shows I design and operate. Apart form that,I thought it was about time I owned an Avolites desk!"

A number of things swung it for him - one of which is the split roller. Jevons has always embraced the integration of lighting and video - right from the off - during his early days with the Super Furry Animals nearly a decade ago.

Now his shows always feature a mix of conventional, moving and digital

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Russia - Moscow-based systems integrator and distribution specialists, MS Max, have recently been named EAW distributor for Russia. MS Max is one of the largest distributors and installers of professional audio and AV equipment in Russia, and also has offices in Beverly Hills, CA.

MS Max's managing director Katherine Shesternina is looking forward to the collaboration. "EAW is a prestigious international loudspeaker brand that both complements and adds value to our existing portfolio. It has just the sort of high-end, high-tech profile we were looking for, yet at the same time, offers a huge variety of products that will be of great interest to our installation wing. EAW is an excellent fit for us."

EAW's European sales manager, Sean Martin, agrees. "Furthermore, the timing was perfect for both if us," he explained. "MS Max were looking for a major pro

  1. HME adds distributor in Turkey
  2. Finalists announced for Lighting Awards
  3. Radical Lighting is 10
  4. More sign up for PALME Middle East
  5. Outline opens training academy
  6. Wybron awarded Patent
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