UK - As the largest charity in the UK and the second largest medical research charity in the world, the Wellcome Trust is currently spending around £500 million each year to support biomedical research.

Reinforcing this position has been the recent opening of the Wellcome Collection, a £30 million visitor centre in London's Euston Road which combines three exhibition galleries, the Wellcome Library, a conference centre, public events forum, club, café and bookshop.

Installed by Sarner Ltd, a specialist audio visual systems integrator, Ampetronic induction loops form a vital part of the project, being provided in the main circulation area, conference centre auditorium, forum and three seminar rooms.

With the close proximity of several loop systems, minimising crosstalk between each one was of the utmost priority, so Sarner invited Ampetronic to design low s

The Netherlands - Stock Audio & Light recently provided a high-end sound reinforcement system featuring dual EAW UX8800 digital processors in tandem with EAW KF760 Series line arrays for a memorial concert by the Limburg Symphony Orchestra that marked the liberation of the Netherlands in World War II.

The concert, held on the grounds of the American Battle Cemetery and Memorial in Margraten, the Netherlands, was highlighted by a performance of Verdi's Requiem, accompanied by the Vocal Collective, a 60-member choir from Belgium.

Stock Audio, based in Geleen, the Netherlands, worked with the concert's front-of-house engineer, Jo Smeets, to assemble a system providing enough headroom to reach a coverage area spanning beyond 150m, while also capable of presenting a very natural sonic signature.

The sound team responded with a main system featuring dual line arrays, each comprise

UK - The iconic London venue, the Roundhouse in Camden, has chosen to retain Showsec as its crowd management partner. The venue, which earned its place in rock and pop history in the late 1960s, hosting early shows by the likes of Pink Floyd and The Doors, has become a resurgent force in live music since it re-opened in 2006 after a £30.2 million redevelopment.

In the last 12 months it has hosted such prestigious events as the BBC Electrical Proms (which this year features Sir Paul McCartney, the Kaiser Chiefs, David Arnold and Mark Ronson), as well as a regular programme of 80 high profile concerts.

Showsec is to be sole provider of crowd management and backstage security services to all concerts at the venue.

"We are delighted to be renewing our relationship with the Roundhouse," says Showsec's London area manager, Steve Reynolds. "The new contract is

UK - The Corp of Army Music based at Kneller Hall held a festival for the general public. 16 bands performed, with music ranging from the Grenadier Guards marching band to the Army Corp Big Band and supported by rock and pop bands from the ranks.

Sigma AV Ltd were contracted by Qube Productions to supply an Outline Butterfly line array for the event. Two hangs of 10 CDH483s, coupled with two Outline Subtech subwoofers per side were used; while the in-fill was provided by Outline 'Doppia' 9075s. Engineer was Kevin Swain using a Yamaha M7CL 48. On stage Outline's HARD 212 SPs and 115 SPs were used for stage monitoring.

"This was my first outing with Butterfly," says Swain. "The first thing that amazed me was the size and ease of rigging, then there is the performance. I can say this system has no competition, it's very powerful. We had 6,000 people attend this sho

USA - D-Tools has announced that Cambridge Audio has joined the D-Tools Manufacturer Vantage Point (MVP) programme, making it easy for users of D-Tools' System Integrator software to specify Cambridge Audio products for client projects.

Headquartered in London, UK, Cambridge Audio has been at the forefront of British hi-fi for more than thirty five years. Since its inception in 1968, Cambridge Audio has brought some of the most innovative and technologically advanced products to market.

"We are pleased to be a part of D-Tool's MVP Programme," said Daniel Jacques, president of Audio Plus Services, exclusive north American importer for Cambridge Audio. "We are excited to have our product information available to the D-Tools user base and have the opportunity to specify our products for their client projects."

The D-Tools Manufacturer Vantage Point (MVP) pro

UK - A.C. Lighting has supplied a Litec QX30S square truss grid system to Audiomotion, Europe's largest motion capture studio.

Audiomotion is a multi-award winning studio specialising in the provision of motion capture services to the game development, film and television industries. It has a string of high-profile production credits, including work on the Gladiator motion picture and Citroen C4 Alive with Technology TV commercial.

The company had been using a scaffold system to position 50 motion capture cameras in their 6,000sq.ft studio, but was looking for a more practical truss solution as they expanded into full performance capture for the next generation of high definition gaming, film and television content.

Audiomotion's Matt Rank comments: "In the studio, we're constantly changing the camera setups for different jobs, so having the Litec grid makes it m

UK - For the fourth year, the Stage Electrics Welsh Trade Show is being held at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. The event takes place on Wednesday 10 October with doors opening at 11am and closing at 5pm.

Industry suppliers Allen & Heath, Avolites, ETC, Le Maitre, Lee, MA Lighting, Martin, Pulsar, RCF, Roland, Rosco, Selecon, Sennheiser, Strand, Yamaha and Zero 88 will be exhibiting their latest products, offering demos and providing expert advice.

The show is a free event, open to everyone and no tickets are required. Stage Electrics staff will also be presenting products at the show including the Apollo Right Arm and products from Prolyte, Prolyft, Stage Dex, Teclumen, San-Ei & Swisson.

Visitors can take the opportunity if they wish to pre-register via the Stage Electrics website to be entered in the prize draw and to receive a goody bag on the day.

UK - Blitz combined forces with 2LK Design to provide a complete AV solution for the QinetiQ exhibition stand at the Defence Systems Equipment International (DSEi) exhibition held at ExCel London.

Blitz project manager, Stephen Rickard comments: "The QinetiQ stand was particularly noteworthy as it involved the use of the highest resolution widescreen, soft edge projection system yet supplied by Blitz, creating a 15.5m wide display by using four Panasonic DW10000 projectors plus the Watchout GFX system to create an image of 6666 x 1080 pixels."

Blitz also provided 18 LCD screens, 13 plasmas screens and a quantity of laptops displaying various QinetiQ products throughout the stand.

Andy Bowen from 2LK comments: "The DSEi Global Defence Conference was established to provide delegates with insight into the latest approaches to acquiring and supporting capability,

UK - The Moving Picture Company (MPC) based in Soho, London, has taken delivery of two cineo3+ 1080 DLP projectors from Norway's projectiondesign for use in visual effects review suites.

The projectors were supplied by Iain Ambler, product manager at UK distributor RGB Communications via theatre system specialist Kaurus, and installed by MPC in conjunction with Kaurus.

Martin Parsons, head of imaging at MPC, says: "We use a wide range of projectors here and it's not cost-effective to have the big digital cinema projectors in all our visual effects (VFX) review suites as they will be too big for the rooms concerned and too expensive for the tasks we use them for. So we were looking for something smaller and more cost effective, but not compromised on technology."

Anders L°kke, marketing & communications manager at projectiondesign, notes: "The cineo3+ 1080

Germany - 18 October marks the official opening of SAE Institute's new campus in Berlin. With more than 5000sq.m of floor space, SAE Berlin claims it will be the largest state-of-the-art private media campus in Europe.

The newly inaugurated campus will host the third annual SAE Alumni Convention on 18 and 19 October. The two-day event, organised by the SAE Alumni Association, brings together representatives from the local media and arts community, industry, and society at large.

An extensive event schedule features workshops, panel discussions and lectures. Leading companies such as Apple, Sennheiser and Roland will present their newest products at the convention trade show and in their demo suites.

(Jim Evans)

Europe - Dialight Lumidrives has agreed a European distribution deal with ELFA, one of northern European's leading catalogue distributors.

Gordon Routledge, managing director at Dialight Lumidrives, says, "The ELFA catalogue is known as 'the' reference book of the electronics business. Over 134,000 copies are distributed across Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Poland. Associates also supply into the Baltic States, Russia, Turkey, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

"Our agreement with ELFA covers the entire Dialight Lumidrives' product range, with the ELFA catalogue now incorporating Dialight Lumidrives' LED drivers, a wide variety of single and multiple LED light engines, both single colour and RGB, optics, linked LEDs and even retrofit LED units.

"The ELFA agreement follows on from our success in the UK in marketing through established catalogue su

UK - One weekend in the middle of August saw WE Audio's Aspect system adorning not one, but two of London's parks for three new festivals: Victoria Park in East London saw the first ever Field Day and Underage Festival; and central London's Regents Park played host to those very nice people at Innocent Smoothies' Village Fete, the new version of their Fruitstock festival.

Field Day brought together the best of London's alternative live music and club promoters for a day of music and dancing, with bands such as Mystery Jets, The Aliens, 1990s, Bat For Lashes, Pull Tiger Tail and James Yorkston, and DJ's Andrew Weatherall, Erol Alkan and Jo Jo De Freq, as well as those village fete favourites such as hog roasts, tugs of war, tombola, barn dancing, hoedown tent and a largest marrow competition.

Underage Festival, meanwhile, was hailed as "the world's first credible festival

USA - The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has denied Epistar's request to stay enforcement of the US International Trade Commission's (ITC's) limited exclusion order prohibiting importation of Epistar's OMA, MB, and GB products into the United States. The ITC earlier denied a similar request by Epistar.

The Federal Circuit's decision clears the way for US Customs and Border Enforcement to enforce the limited exclusion order. The exclusion order prohibits importation of Epistar's infringing OMA I, OMA II, MB I, MB II, GB I, and GB II LEDs, as well as any other Epistar LEDs that infringe Philips Lumileds' US Patent No. 5,008,718.

The exclusion order also prohibits the importation of packaged LEDs containing the infringing Epistar LEDs and boards consisting primarily of arrays of such packaged LEDs. Companies that use, import, or sell these unlicensed infri

UK - Following the installation of audio systems for Carluccio's in Manchester's Trafford Centre, Kingston-upon-Thames' Bentall Centre and Walton-on-Thames, ADC has recently completed the installation of a Community loudspeaker-based system in the group's new flagship restaurant in Covent Garden.

Carluccio's aim is to provide great quality and authentic Italian food at sensible prices, and now has over thirty locations nationwide. They have just returned to Covent Garden. Good quality audio and specially selected music is a feature of the Carluccio's experience.

ADC designed and installed the system, which is divided into four zones covering each of the main areas; ground floor café, ground floor shop, first floor restaurant and first floor private dining. Centrally supplied from multi-CD and media-player sources, each zone has separate Toa amplification driving a total

Ireland - TSM, a company based in Galway, provided the sound for the Ballina Mardi Gras night held earlier this summer. TSM are specialists in providing theatre and concert sound and have been advocates of using K.M.E. equipment since K.M.E. was first introduced to Ireland by Joe O'Neill Ltd.

Liam Feeney, managing director of TSM (The Sound Man), commented: "We were contracted to provide a sound re-enforcement system for up to 60,000 people, which is fine for a normal arena/stadium with sufficient equipment and the right people, but when we saw the venue and the circumstances we knew it would require something very special, so we turned to K.M.E."

Feeney added, "We made contact with Kerst Glass of K.M.E. and discussed specifications. We were aware of the difficulties involved including the audience area being merely the width of the street (approximately 10m), t

Singapore - MA Lighting recently opened its new office and training facilities in Singapore. By doing this MA Lighting continues its strategy to be closer to the market and strengthens its position in the Asia Pacific region, says the company. In addition MA Lighting has its own competence and support centres in the UK, North America, Latin America and Middle East/India.

"We are very committed because we're not just talking about lighting desks anymore - our products have grown into highly sophisticated control systems, and for a user to fully grasp their potential, they need good quality training from our experts. This is something we're keen to develop here," says MA Lighting managing director Michael Althaus.

The new office, MA lighting Asia Pacific Pte Ltd, is located in Block 10 Ubi Crescent, #06-28 Ubi Techpark (Lobby B) Singapore 408564. Jens Poehlker takes ov

Croatia - NBA stars, friends, teammates, coaches and adoring fans, all gathered at a farewell concert held in Vlade Divac's honour, marking his retirement from basketball. A giant digiLED d11R screen, supplied and installed by Atman, Croatia's leading AV rental company, provided the backdrop for the celebrations.

The giant digiLED screen featured performances from both international and regional artists, all celebrating Divac's career and contribution to international basketball.

Further, a short movie in which several of Divac's friends and colleagues, including NBA stars Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Bobby Jackson, Yao Ming, coach Phil Jackson, rapper Snoop Dog, Red Hot Chili Peppers, actor Billy Crystal and many others, praising his efforts and career, was show on the huge screen.

A total of 128 modules created a giant 99.12m©˜ screen. Measuring 14.08m high x 7.04

USA - GE Consumer & Industrial has announced that it intends to restructure its lighting business "to become more competitive and better positioned for global growth in the dramatically changing lighting industry".

The company says that this restructuring proposal, which would impact plants in Mexico, Brazil and the US, is a continuation of structural changes that have occurred over the last year and included facility closures, work transfers, employee reductions and the sale of operations at GE sites in Europe, China, Indonesia, the US, Latin America, and India that have impacted more than 3,000 positions.

The objective of the proposed restructuring is, GE says, to help the business better respond to customer and industry demands - particularly the global market move to more energy-efficient products - and invest in, and deliver, the high-tech lighting products incr

Europe - In 2006, The Red Hot Chili Peppers began an international world tour alternating between Europe, North America, and Oceania, in support of the Grammy Award-winning album Stadium Arcadium, which became the best-selling CD of 2006 with over seven million units sold.

As a continuation of the tour, the band returned to Europe this year, taking in shows from late June to late August and making stops at various cities and summer festivals along the way. In July they performed three shows in three different cities (Paris, London, Copenhagen) in just 24 hours.

As for their previous world tours the sound specification revolved exclusively around L-acoustics equipment. Long time RHCP FOH Engineer Dave Rat, founder and President of Rat Sound Systems, relied on the European V-Dosc Network to provide V-Dosc systems for the majority of their run.

Dave Rat comments, "I

The Netherlands - One of south Holland's major theatres, the Schouburg Heerlen, has undergone a large-scale refurbishment, transforming it into a multi-purpose venue with three different areas - a large theatre, pop hall and small theatre) - with the addition of a café, enabling the venue to host anything from opera to stand-up comedy, board meetings to rock concerts.

TM Audio was responsible for the new audio requirements, selecting a 24-channel Allen & Heath GL2400 multi-function mixer for FOH and monitor sound reinforcement in the small theatre hall. The console feeds a Martin Audio speaker system. Audio distribution and processing is provided by Allen & Heath's iDR-4 16x16 DSP mixer, installed in the FOH rack.

"The GL2400 will easily fulfill the requirements of the wide variety of performers that the theatre expects to host," explains TM Audio's sales & ma

USA - TransAudio Group has been appointed the exclusive US distributor for Paul Wolff's Tonelux Designs Limited discrete audio products for recording and live production, and ShadowMix motorised fader automation for DAWs. Tonelux manufactures a broad range of mic preamp, EQ, signal processing and master modules that may be combined in the new V8 portable rack or the 19" VRack and configured with the FRack fader package to create a custom console.

Noted Brad Lunde, president of TransAudio Group, says: "Paul knows how to design and build product that sounds better, we all know that. Combine that with the unique Tonelux solution of changeable, configurable, customisable modules to create exactly what you need to complete the analogue side of your DAW-based studio and you have a clear winner."

(Jim Evans)

Brazil - Lang Brothers, with headquarters in Rio de Janeiro, has acquired Adamson True Line Source arrays and complete systems solutions as spec'ed by Adamson's Brazilian distributor, Sotex. Lang Brothers director Marcelo Ferreira took delivery of 24 Adamson Y-10s, 8 T-21 Subs, 12 Lab.Gruppen FP+ 7000 and FP+10000 amplifiers, Dolby LAKE processors and Reference Lab cabling at the end of August. This sale marks the fourth major Adamson sale into the Brazilian market since Sotex took over the distribution just over a year ago.

The entire Lang Brothers audio team attended a week long training seminar. Fabrício Neiva, technical coordinator at Sotex comments: "There are no advantages of having a high tech system, without having a thorough understanding of how it works and how to best operate it. These are resources we can provide them. We accompany new Sotex clients to a series

UK - White Light has announced details of the autumn and winter courses offered by its Training Initiative training and education programme. Between now and Spring 2008, courses are offered covering everything from moving lights to rigging to many types of lighting control consoles.

The autumn training schedule kicked off last month with White Light's popular Level 1 and Level 2 Moving Light courses, Level 1 offering an introduction to the equipment with first-level troubleshooting, with Level 2 offering a more detailed analysis of troubleshooting and repair. These courses will also be run on 19 and 20 March 2008.

For those looking to programme lighting, White Light will offer courses covering the ever-popular Whole Hog 2, the Whole Hog 3, MA Lighting's grandMA, Zero88's LeapFrog and Strand's 500-series console ranges. The Hog 2 courses will be held on 23 October 23 and 5 Febr

Sweden / Australia - Wireless Solution Sweden has appointed ULA Group as exclusive distributors for W-DMX in Australia and New Zealand.

ULA is an industry leading import and wholesale company for specialist lighting products in the retail, professional and architectural markets. In addition, the company offers support services for design, installation, programming, commissioning and ongoing programmed maintenance.

"ULA Group was a perfect distribution partner for W-DMX," says Niclas Arvidsson, international sales manager for Wireless Solution. "They are the undisputed market leader in Australia and New Zealand and we're very excited about the opportunities this provides."

Cuono Biviano, MD of ULA, states: "The ULA Group is very excited to be joining forces with the market leaders - Wireless Solution. ULA are proud to continue bringing tomorrow's tech

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