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

Business

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Slovakia - Slovakia's top lighting designer Martin Kubanka has once again chosen Robe moving lights as the main workhorses of his design for Hviezdy na Láde(Stars on Ice), Slovakia's version of top live TV production Dancing On Ice. All lighting equipment is being supplied by leading rental house Q-99, who are also supplying a Bose sound system for the series.

The show is a roll out of the Dancing On Ice series that took the UK's ITV by storm. A celebrity and a professional skater pair up and hone their dancing skills on the ice, with 14 hopeful couples starting the series. There's a studio-based judging panel to offer their professional opinion, but the winners are actually voted for by the public via SMS. The Slovakian show is staged at the Koliba Studios in Bratislava, directed by TomᚠEibner.

Kubanka, a designer of many high profile Slovak T

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Iran - ARX signal processing products featured heavily when newly formed five-piece Iranian rock band Nira performed the country's first two licensed live concerts in the past 18 months. ARX's Iranian distributor ZiroBam supplied the audio system, featuring products from ARX, Martin Audio and Crest Audio - all manufacturers represented by ZiroBam in the Iranian market.

ARX signal processing and interface products used included Sixgate 6-Channel Optical Noise Gates, Afterburner dual-channel dual-band compressors and ARX DI Plus and DI Plus 2 direct boxes. For the 400-capacity venue, six Martin Audio W8LM and two WS2Aloudspeakers were driven by Crest Audio power amplifiers with a Crest Audio console out front.

The two sold-out shows featured covers from Jamiroquai, Arcade and Audio Slave, as well as Nira originals.

(Lee Baldock)

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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USA - Opened in 1998, Bellagio is located squarely on Las Vegas's Strip, and epitomises the incredible scale and lavishness that has become the city's hallmark. With more than 10,000 blooming flowers and a wide variety of other plant life, plus fountains and themed displays, the conservatory is located in a large atrium with a glass ceiling. The conservatory installs new displays five times a year: spring, summer, autumn, Christmas, and Chinese New Year. The displays feature plantings appropriate to the theme (including sculptures of people and animals made entirely out of flowers), along with scenic elements, active props, and other related items.

Music and sound design are key to creating the conservatory's atmosphere. For each display, sound designer Jason Rauhoff of Goes To Eleven assembles and masters a music programme, as well as sound effects. Original sound designer Jona

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UK - The Palace Exchange is a brand new retail development in the centre of Enfield, which has attracted several new retailers to the town, as well as existing stores extending their shops. A key feature of the 160,000sq.ft area is the Enfield Word Wall, which - measuring at approximately 120m - imposes over the northern side of the development and features passages of conversations from the town past and present.

Hoare Lea specified the lighting, with the concept of backlighting the wall behind the large text, whilst simultaneously illuminating the wall with LED projectors from across the street. Specialists Architen Landrell were drawn in to carry out the entire installation.

A total of over 100 Tryka Strip Module Optic IP67 in a variety of lengths were used on the project, with 27 Tryka IDS-4s - the Intelligent Drive System capable of running large numbers of LED fixtures w

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UK - Fuzion plc have taken over the UK distriibution of Compulite digital lighting control desks, dimmers (and associated lighting products) with immediate effect. Under Stagetec Distribution, the Israel-based company's penetration of the UK market has gone from strength to strength over the past few years, claiming hundreds of installations in theatres, TV studios, schools and colleges up and down the country. It has been particularly successful with the Vector range of consoles, the company reports, which are currently used on major TV productions such as Big Brother, X-Factor, Dancing on Ice and many more.

Andrew Stone from Stagetec Distribution, the Compulite UK distributor for the past 11 years, comments: "After many years of distributing the Compulite range in the UK we have been looking for some time into ways of increasing sales in the UK market. After carefu

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Australia - The Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) has recently installed a dimMA system into their Concert Hall. This is one of the largest theatrical dimMA installations worldwide. Show Technology Australia, who realised the project, opened an office in Brisbane to assure local support.

The installation consists of seven MA Digital Dimmer Racks, each with 72 circuits, distributed throughout the Concert Hall. This rack distribution went away from the traditional central dimmer room design. A large saving was made with the cabling infrastructure, as the racks are now closer to the outlets. There are four racks with four Network dimmer Processors (NDP's) in the ceiling, two behind the side lighting positions each with a back up NDP and one in the basement with a back up NDP. Each rack has a redundant processor capable of controlling 144 dimmer circuits.

QPAC's lighting ma

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UK - Pyrotechnics specialist company Pyrojunkies reports that it has been flat out since November last year with a number of high-profile tours and events including McFly, the World Music Awards, Pussy Cat Dolls, Shayne Ward, X Factor and Westlife.

Since purchasing Wells Fireworks, the company is now also manufacturing and using Wells Pyrotechnics on all its tours, as well as distributing the Wells range worldwide. The company is looking for more distribution partners around the globe - any enquiries should be directed to the company via the web address below.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Six Alpha One Falcon 3k Flowers will be used to enhance the forthcoming 79th Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006, presented at the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network on February 25.

Debuting in the US this year, the Falcon has already featured in high profile events such as the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards, and now, the Oscars. Alpha One of Oyten, Germany, designs, constructs and produces a range of professional high power lighting, specializing in xenon, metal halide and LED products. TMB is the worldwide distributor for Falcon and other Alpha One products.

(Lee Baldock)

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Japan - The first Midas XL8 live performance system into Japan is now up and running at the Shibuya-AX live venue in Tokyo, supplied by EVI Audio Japan.

Located in the Shibuya district, home to the city's leading music, cultural and arts venues, Shibuya-AX has a long tradition of being on the cutting edge of sound technology. As such, it attracts leading domestic and international artists and is well-known by Japanese PA companies, sound technicians and music industry personnel. Back in 2004 the sound crew at Shibuya-AX began to discuss a future upgrade to digital technology. Head of sound, Mr Tsutomu Hashimoto, drew up a list of criteria, which first and foremost included the traditional Midas sound quality, as well as Ethernet networking capability and analogue-friendly operation - the latter of which wasn't available on any other digital console. Having heard about Midas' pla

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South Africa - Stage Audio Works has been appointed as the Southern African distributor of Rubber Box products. Stage Audio Works is based in Port Elizabeth South Africa supplying turnkey entertainment and architainment technology solutions in Southern Africa.

Stage Audio Works will be stocking standard pre-built boxes and splitters, custom solutions are also possible. Stage Audio Works will also provide technical support, spare parts and training for Rubber Box products in Southern Africa. The new Powercase from Rubberbox offers industry professionals in Southern Africa a revolutionary design in 19" racking systems.

Stage Audio Works will be showing all the Rubber Box products at the Mediatech Africa tradeshow in Johannesburg in June this year.

Gustav Barnard for Stage Audio Works says: "Rubber Box's products offer revolutionary and high quality power distribution

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Sweden - Leisuretec Distribution has supplied Pulsar Chroma LED fittings for a unique interactive exhibition stand for Swedish automotive company Trelleborg.

Traditionally used in bar, club and hotel installations, Design Company KXK, used the fittings to build a high-tech interactive stand using Pulsar Chroma's & Pulsar control - a unique application opening up design opportunities to the exhibition industry.

The brief from Trelleborg, a World-wide industrial manufacturing company producing thousands of components for the automotive and aerospace industries, was to showcase their range of products in a way that people hadn't seen before.

The stand was revealed at Trelleborg's Investors AGM in Stockholm. The key was to be interactive, using LED and innovative technology to bring the stand to life in colour. Eight boxes each containing real products were constructed using tec

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UK - The University of Derby Students Union Graduation Ball 2007 was held on Saturday 20 January. The Snowball" as it is known is renowned for providing a quality evening for graduating students and partners a great venue with some fantastic entertainment. Last year's event was enjoyed by nearly 3000 students and their guests and included entertainment which in the past has included establishes acts such as Colin Murray, Jools Holland, Happy Mondays and Edith Bowman.

Panda Hire Ltd provided and installed the various Martin products that were used to light the event, and included MAC 500s, MAC 600s, MAC 250 Entours, MAC 250 Washes, MX-10s, Atomics Strobes and two Jem smoke machines.

Peter Davies from Panda Hire Ltd, was the lighting designer for the event, he says: "The MAC 500 and MAC 600 units were ideal for the stage lighting for this event and as such were

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UK - Sunday 11 February was a great day for royalty as The Queenand The Last King of Scotland scooped the BAFTA Film Awards at London's Royal Opera House. Vertigo Rigging gave the stars a suitably glamorous entrance with a specially designed and built roofing system that spanned the breadth of Bow Street outside the theatre's main entrance - commissioned by event production company West Design and Production on behalf of BAFTA (the British Academy of Film and Television Arts).

Briefed to create a glitzy grand entrance to the red carpet evening at London's Royal Opera House, the Vertigo team designed and built a 660sq.m. roof on Bow Street, using Vertigo's UK-exclusive Libera Flat Truss system to create the roof and supported on 68 Thomas Supertruss legs. The structure had to be designed to allow access room for the public to buildings on Bow Street.

The temporary

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UK - The latest Take That music video, Shine, is one of the first designs to feature the Chroma-Q Color Web125, a new higher resolution version of the multi-purpose LED web visual effects system.

The video is the second single from the band's number one, million selling album Beautiful World, and sees them performing in an 1920's style musical featuring top hats and tails, and a host of showgirls.

Production design was by Lisa Hall, with direction by Justin Dickel of Streetlight Films. When Hall wanted a unique visual element to provide a 'big look' for the song's uplifting finale, she contacted entertainment technology distributor A.C. Lighting. After reviewing a number of LED solutions at A.C.'s head office, the production team were convinced that the Chroma-Q Color Web 125 offered them the most powerful solution for their creative vision.

With only a single

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Benelux / Turkey - DPA Microphones has reviewed its distribution structure in Benelux effective 1 March 2007, resulting in long-standing Belgian partner Amptec taking on responsibility for the entire region. Martin Goosen, DPA product specialist at former Dutch distributor TransTec, joins Amptec to work with existing staff, affording DPA clients in Holland and Luxembourg the continuity of dealing with a familiar and established DPA expert.

An exclusive DPA distributor since 2001, Amptec, is well placed to expand its geographical footprint.

"We have enjoyed a long and fruitful business relationship with the very professional TransTec organisation in Holland, and wanted to simplify the distribution by having only one distributor handling the Benelux region," says DPA's director of sales and marketing, Morten Stove.

Amptec managing director Bart Willems, says: "O

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UK - Leading audio-visual equipment and services provider Blitz Sound has developed a healthy appetite for Yamaha's new LS9 Series digital consoles, snapping up four units prior to Christmas, and coming back to Marquee Audio with a re-order for the same again; two16-channel and two 32-channel versions.

"We identified the LS9 as a 'killer product'," says Blitz's Richard Rogers. "It does everything we'd want it to do, it's really well-priced and so versatile, and it fits into our conference market very well indeed. The first four desks we bought more or less entirely on Marquee's recommendation, and, after a few shows, we thought we'd better buy another consignment before they ran out!

"Fortunately, Marquee Audio is always able to source products in time for our demanding needs, even a hot product like the LS9."

Blitz Sound is gradually replacing all i

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UK - Yorkshire's historic Scarborough Spa Complex has unveiled the first phase of its £3.75 million pound renovation programme, with a team from Fagan Electrical heading a massive technical refurbishment designed to place the venue firmly on the touring map. The project is headed by Fagan Electrical, lead contractors for the entire technical refurbishment programme, with the audio system design and installation carried out in close co-operation with Lo Humm Audio.

This major undertaking was funded by Scarborough Borough Council, the Yorkshire Forward regional development agency and the European Regional Development Fund. The 1,924 capacity Grand Hall, at the heart of the Spa Complex, has already reopened for business with brand new production lighting, audio and video systems.

Aside from the new, installed lighting rigs, most of the new production systems have been fligh

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UK - The success of a recent sponsorship agreement between UK audio equipment manufacturer Formula Sound and leading sound and dance event organiser Trigger has led both parties to agree a new deal. Trigger will continue to promote the Formula Sound brand at the many events it stages throughout the next 18 months and will put the spotlight on the company's recently-launched FF-4000 DJ mixer.

The announcement follows on from the original sponsorship agreement between the two parties which saw Trigger using the Formula Sound FF-6000 mixer at the many large-scale dance events it was involved in throughout the UK. Trigger promotes its own individual blend of bass-driven Electro Breaks dance music and rates the quality of the sound reproduction as an absolute priority.

At the time of the original sponsorship deal, Trigger representative DJ Kosmikneil commented that his organisation

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Poland - Christie projection was tested to the limit during an adventurous production for the recent technological congress staged by Plus GSM - one of Poland's leading mobile telephone operators.

The fifth annual event took place at the Warsaw University of Technology in front of an international audience of 2,000, and since the special guest of honour was to be Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, president and CEO of Nokia Corporation, Christie partner Trias devised a novel concept, using full 360° degree projection onto the walls, along with 3D holography.

To accomplish this they called on a Christie S+20K SXGA with the addition of two other stacked pairs offering 10,000 lumen output, a total of seven projectors were able to provide stunning projections onto the walls of the University: "Using the latest multimedia solutions and advanced technologies we were able to create an ex

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UK - In late December at London's Royal Albert Hall the modern Son-et-Lumiere known as Classical Spectacular celebrated its 200th show beneath a large MAC rig. Lighting designer Durham Marenghi is again at the helm.

"We strive to give the audience a visual accompaniment to the music to which they listen," says Marenghi. "The lighting shifts from subtle beautification of the Royal Albert Hall architecture to dramatic impact driven by the mood of the piece. Classical music purists might decry the use of such technology but the music in the programme was often originally written for firework displays, large scale military events or grand royal and civic occasions, all of which had an important visual element. We seek to replace this with lighting to entertain our audience.

"The core principle of the show is absolute synchronicity and sympathy with the score -

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UK - In an effort to cut fixed costs, The English National Opera (ENO) has announced it is to cut 10% of its staff - around 45 jobs - which will include both performers and technical staff. BECTU, the union representing those working in broadcast, film, theatre, entertainment and leisure, has said it will "strongly" fight any cuts, and representatives will shortly be meeting with ENO management.

ENO says it fears reduced funding if government money to the Arts Council does not increase. ENO chief executive, Loretta Tomasi, was quoted on the BBC News website as saying: "Many options have been considered to achieve increased flexibility and a decrease in these 'fixed' costs and, whilst we believe it is vital that ENO retains a strong core of staff, the contractual overhaul includes the potential loss of around 45 jobs across the company."

Commenting on the co

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UK - The Celtic Connections Festival annually takes place within around a dozen of Glasgow's premium venues (including the popular City Halls and Old Fruitmarket). However, the focal point is the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, where performances take place in every available space, from workshops in the foyers to shows by world-class artists in the main auditorium and Strathclyde Suite.

Wigwam Hire, who have carried out sound systems installations in these venues and have a long association with Celtic Connections, provided the production control for this year's major hosting venue - supplying the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall with a Digidesign D-Show Profile at front-of-house and D-Show in the monitor position.

Wigwam appointed Sean Horsman to offer support to the incoming sound engineers having their first run out with Digidesign, offering an analogue desk alternativ

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UK - The Cambridge Arts Theatre has upgraded its audio control facilities to the digital domain with the purchase of a new Yamaha M7CL mixing console from Marquee Audio.

The 666-capacity theatre first contacted Marquee Audio in September to discuss a range of digital options to replace an ageing 24-channel analogue console that had reached the end of its useful life. Chief electrician Julian Brooks reports that: "We considered analogue and digital consoles, but quickly realised that, although we could have stayed analogue for half the price, we didn't want to accept its functional limitations. We wanted all the benefits of digital."

Checking out the Yamaha range of compact digital consoles, Julian Brooks favoured the Yamaha M7CL, with its touch screen, generous channel allocation and future expandability. "Marquee Audio was really accommodating, keen to demonstr

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UK - Martin Audio loudspeaker enclosures are found in a wide range of applications - but until recently it is unlikely that the list would have included an equestrian centre. All that has now changed thanks to Stroud-based Contract Audio Visual (CAV), who have equipped both the internal and external enclosures of a private Olympic-standard equestrian centre near Windsor with Martin Audio components.

CAV won the contract on the strength of a referral, and immediately carried out a survey on a 60m x 25m enclosure that hosts international show jumping events on the 90-acre site. Previously the Centre had hired in its audio (interfacing with a less than adequate 100V line installed system, fed from a CD) and clearly needed to upgrade.

The company demoed a Martin Blackline system with the option of additional AS118 horn-loaded subs - and the Centre purchased the full package. "

  1. VideoDrive for Mountbatten Music Festival
  2. DPA take jazz onto the high seas
  3. PRG on New York Fashion Week
  4. Sennheiser sparkles at the BRITs 2007
  5. Martin SCX 700s in Barracuda Bar
  6. United Audio Starlight chooses Lab.gruppen
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