The PLASA Show got off to a flying start in London on Sunday this week, with a host of high-profile product launches from many of the entertainment technolog business's leading manufacturers. The draw of new technologies and a string of other highlights has made this a visibly successful event as we enter day three.

Tour News - With a canon of classic songs, unbowed enthusiasm and his musical faculties still sharp, Stevie Wonder has opened his first European tour for a decade. The US star took fans at Birmingham's National Indoor Arena on a two-hour journey through almost 50 years of songs that helped shape soul and pop. A sold-out crowd of 13,500 saw him play with a 10-strong band and four backing singers, including his daughter Aisha. Wonder, 58, now visits Manchester and London before other European cities.Festival News - Amy Winehouse has played her last scheduled show of the year

UK - John Stadius, technical director of Soundtracs/DiGiCo, was confirmed as the second winner of the prestigious Gottelier Award.

Presented during the PLASA Awards for Innovation on the second night of PLASA08, and named in honour of the late designer, developer and commentator Tony Gottelier, this award aims to recognise innovative developers who have made a significant contribution to the advancement of the equipment and tools that enable entertainment technology practitioners to continually push the boundaries of event production, presentation and installation.

Voted for by the industry, the Award was presented to John Stadius by Tony's wife Susie.

Stadius is a distinguished audio designer: in 1978, he joined Soundtracs PLC, designing disco consoles, mixers, power amplifiers and speakers. As technical director between 1980-1994, he continued to design a wide range of ana

Norway - Last month saw the first show with the new Soundcraft Vi Series V3.0 software in use as Norwegian band Secret Garden finished off this year's tour with a special concert including a symphony orchestra.

Secret Garden has been touring China, Korea and Norway since April with two Soundcraft Vi6 consoles and AKG microphones. The last concert of the tour was a special outdoor show incorporating a 27-piece symphony orchestra in the band's hometown of Kristiansand, Norway. With the orchestra and nine musicians/singers on stage, the need for more than 64 channels was obvious.

"When we planned this gig earlier this summer we aimed to use a third Vi6 for the orchestra, but the timing for a stable beta version of the new V3 software was perfect to make it possible to just add, a DSP card in the FOH local rack and a second stagebox to run the required 95 channels from one co

UK - Aviom is exhibiting with its new UK distributor Polar Audio at PLASA 08.

John Midgley, Polar Audio's managing director, says, "We look forward to educating UK markets about Aviom's solutions and to creating additional business opportunities for Aviom's full line of products. Because Aviom systems are modular and scalable, they are ideal for a broad range of applications, including those requiring high-fidelity digital snake and audio networking solutions."

With its expanding applications from monitor mixing and digital snakes to networking and audio conferencing solutions, Aviom expects to increase its market share in the UK as it is introduced to Polar Audio's broad customer base, which ranges in market segments from broadcast to conferencing, to live sound and recording, to audio visual installations.

"Because of its vast experience in design and custom

France - Brit-Award winning Mika's larger than life personality was reflected on stage at his one-off appearance at the Parc des Princes in Paris, with the help of a set designed by multi award-winning set designer, Es Devlin (TMA Best Design 1998, Oliver Award for Best Costume Design 2005).

Production manager for the event, Chris Vaughan, once again approached Brilliant Stages to build and supply the 68m wide x 20m high solid fascia which was to provide the substantial backdrop for the show.

Devlin's design for the fascia was that of a clown's face, the mouth of which was to form the proscenium arch with the forehead, nose and eyes covering the main stage whilst the ears and hair extended off-stage and across into the wings.

Oli Metcalfe designed the lighting using 1500 Color Kinetics IColor Flex SLX units to outline the mouth, nose, eyes, ears and hair whilst James Thomas

Germany - Oktoberfest 2008, which takes place in Munich later this month, features four major tents equipped with audio technologies from Crown Audio, Soundcraft, JBL Professional, AKG and BSS Audio.

The systems for the Hacker, Weinzelt, Armbrustschtzen and Lauenbrau tents are provided by Max Ihm and Andreas Wallisch of LUTV of Forstinning.

At the Lauenbrau tent 12 JBL Professional Vertec VT4887 compact line array elements and eight JBL P744 1x18" subwoofers will be powered by eight Crown I-Tech IT4000 Series amplifiers with mixing by a 48-channel Soundcraft Series 4 console and processing by BSS Soundweb 9088 networked signal processor. Four JBL SRX712M monitor wedges will be joined onstage with a battery of AKG microphones.

At the neighboring Armbrustschtzen tent, a similar loudspeaker lineup of 12 JBL Professional VT4887 compact line array elements, eight JBL P744 s

USA - When John Mayer drew up plans for his 2008 summer tour, the singer-guitarist-songwriter expressed a strong desire to get back to his musical roots and make the show more "organic."

"On previous tours, we had video in the show," says lighting designer Michael Keller. "But John decided he was tired of doing video. We were going to go more straightforward rock 'n roll - the type of feeling where you're watching a band, not video. John wanted to keep everything very organic."

Keller, who has been Mayer's LD for three years, achieved the desired stage impression - and other organic benefits, too - with Elation Professional's Impression intelligent LED moving head. A small and compact, yet high-output, RGB colour-changing fixture, the Impression is the main lighting unit being used on the 30-city tour, which plays at 10,000-20,000-seat indoor and

Spain - Five students of ESAMA (Superior School for AudioVisual Media) in Andalusia, Spain, have been awarded the John and Helen Meyer Scholarship.

The scholarship programme was announced in 2007 by Meyer Sound Laboratories, Inc., in conjunction with Meyer Sound España, S.A. and ESAMA, to recognize the academic excellence of five first-year students.

This year's awards were presented to David Carrasco Santos, Manuel Lazaro-Carrasco Sierra, Jose Carlos Martinez Salas, Antonio Ramos Garcia, and Alonso Velasco Tavora during the graduation ceremonies held at the Hotel Silken Al-Andalus. They each received a grant of 1,000 euros toward tuition for the following semester.

"The award is a great motivation," said award-winning student David Carrasco Santos. "We're grateful to Meyer Sound not only for the money, but for the recognition."

Meyer Sound's ever-expa

USA - FreedomFest has continued to grow; each year almost doubling in size. Accordingly, this year's event was moved to Florida Classic Park, and with close to 30,000 people in attendance it became the largest event of its kind held on Florida's West Coast.

Adamson and Hire Company Atomic Professional Audio based in Rutland, Vermont, sponsored the 2008 concert sound system. Adamson concurrently hosted a clinic on sound system design and technology aimed for church facilities of all sizes and styles of worship.

The clinic which was held immediately following Matthew West's sound check on the FreedomFest main stage, featured Benoit Cabot (Adamson tour support) and Adam MacGillivray (Adamson sales & support) covering fundamentals of system design, demonstration of Shooter, Adamson's predictive sound design software, along with various Adamson speaker products.

Sound design for

UK - Stage Electrics provided all intelligent lighting for the recent live Big Brother 9 final. Stage Electrics supplied all moving lights, LED lighting, control systems and crew for the duration of the live eviction shows, from the main launch night back in June, through to weekly Friday night live eviction shows, including the studio interviews hosted by Davina McCall.

For the final, Stage Electrics' crew moved the inside studio (normally used for evictee interviews) to the outside and onto the Orbit stage provided by Serious Structures, ready to host the live interviews as the finalists left the house. The exterior studio set included eight VL 3500, eight VL 2000 moving lights, and chroma strip from Pulsar on the eyebrow of the stage. Stage Electrics' crew had to perform a quick turnaround after Tuesday's surprise double eviction show, having to relocate the studio and

UK - The PRG stands at this week's PLASA08 exhibition were "a triumph of success in the face of the happiest of adversity", the company reports.

Simon Cox, PRG Greenford's deputy warehouse manager, has long been the crew chief and organiser for the company's extensive PLASA stands. However, after three years on a waiting list for a kidney transplant, Simon was given "the call" just seven days before PLASA and rushed into hospital. The rest of the PRG team rallied to the fore and were delighted and amazed to see Simon well enough to visit the show to see how they were getting on.

Everyone at PRG is delighted to see Simon doing so well and look forward to having him back to work after the great work by the transplant team at Hammersmith Hospital.

Pictured from left to right are Chris Henry (freelance), Phil Sharp (grubby lampy), Simon Cox (complete with new

UK - HSL supplied and co-ordinated lighting for the Main Stage and the massive Cream Arena at Creamfields 2008 - marking the leading UK dance festival's 10th anniversary - for producers Loudsound Events.

The event featured a host of international DJ's and bands including main stage double headliners Fatboy Slim and Kasabian, and took place at the regular Creamfields site in Daresbury near Warrington.

It is the seventh year that HSL has supplied lighting to the festival, which was co-ordinated by Mike Oates in the office and crew chief Simon Lynch on site. Oates comments, "This year, being a special year, we really concentrated on ensuring that production values were the highest yet. We had a strong team on site who really made it happen very smoothly despite challenging weather and a tight schedule."

The Main Stage was a 20m wide by 15m deep Vertech roof supplied b

UK - HHB has appointed Syntec as exclusive distributor of its products in Australia and New Zealand with immediate effect. The move comes at a time when HHB has announced important new products including the UDP-89 Professional Universal DVD/CD Player and CDR-882 DualBurn CD Recorder, and as the company ships its 10,000th FlashMic Digital Recording Microphone.

"We¹ve known Ian (Jones, HHB managing director) for many years and have admired what HHB has achieved with its location recording products," says Syntec managing director Bob Sloss. "When the FlashMic came along we just had to get involved, and we¹re equally excited about the UDP-89 and CDR-882 DualBurn."

HHB's Ian Jones says: "It makes a lot of sense to consolidate our distribution in Australia and New Zealand and Syntec was the obvious choice. In terms of product range, philosophy and even co

Germany - ChainMaster Bühnentechnik GmbH of Eilenburg now has a distribution and sales partner in Australia with a head office near Brisbane on the Gold Coast and branches in Melbourne and Sydney.ChainMaster can already point to its first reference project in Australia - the Gold Coast Convention Centre, which has just taken delivery of 12 electric chain-hoists - each with a lifting capacity of 1,000kg. These hoists will be able to adapt flexibly to the differing demands of the various events staged at the Centre.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - After nearly five years in Las Vegas, Celine Dion has returned to the international stage with her Taking Chances tour, which started in South Africa in February 2008. Every show features six Pandoras Box Media Servers from Cologne- based coolux to help create the visual design of the show.

Lighting designer Yves Aucoin is using Pandoras Box Media Servers and Pandoras Box Media Manager, all communicating with a grandMA lighting desk. The three Media Server GREEN systems render the imagery in real time, all of which are running simultaneously as well as independently on different display technologies.

One system is controlling the extensive LED stage-floor, the second is feeding the Element Labs Stealth package and the third is used for the video switcher that is mixing the camera-feeds with the contents from Pandoras Box. Every Pandoras Box Media Server system

UK - A total of four iLive digital systems were used across three stages at the recent Surfstock festival in Cornwall. Organised by festival stalwarts, Mean Fiddler, the event included headline performances from Santogold, The Go! Team, Alphabeat and The Gossip.

Howard Marks was compere for the event, which involved two days of music across five stages - three for live music and two DJ tents - and the annual surf awards.

SPS Systems managed the PA requirements for the event, with support from fellow hire companies APR Audio, Evosound and Fearless Audio. Two iDR10 stage racks with iLive-144 control surfaces were selected for the FOH and monitors on the main stage, with an iDR10 and iLive-112 surface on the second Local Heroes stage managing both functions. Also managing FOH and monitors, there was an iDR10 with the compact iLive-80 surface for the Rabbit Hole tent, which requir

USA - Bandit Lites recently wrapped up a lighting renovation project at the Nashville Convention Centre. Bandit design and consultation associate, Chris Barbee collaborated with Wolf and Travis Electric and ARDEE Design Group on the project.

The convention centre requested that proposals be submitted to replace the dimming and control equipment from the original installation in the eighties. The team from Wolf and Travis Electric, ARDEE Design Group, and Bandit created a system that would function to the specifications that the convention centre clients had outlined in their request.

The team decided to use ETC Sensor dimming equipment and their Unison architectural control system to replace the existing dimmers and control stations. Lutron XP Panels were used to control the switched loads. One of the prime client requirements was to have front-end control software that allowe

Tanzania - On 5 July 2008, six adults with different disabilities set off on an amazing journey to scale Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Accompanied by their individual "buddies", a medical crew, a team of guides and porters as well as a world-class film crew, the explorers set out to demonstrate what can be achieved when people with disabilities work together to overcome their individual limitations. The project was organized by Enham, a UK charity that aims to give disabled people the opportunity to fulfill their ambitions.

To aid the filming of the feature documentary, The Mountain Within, Rosco provided the crew with 6 units of Rosco LitePad HO 12" x 12" and 6 units of 6" x 6" as well as accessories. The thin light source generates a soft even illumination which is dimmable - a feature which proved invaluable during the expedition as it en

UK - An Avolites Pearl 2008 console has been touring the summer festivals with Firefly Solar, claimed to be the UK's first fully mobile, reliable solar power solution for the outdoor events industry, based around the Orion solar powered generator.

The console was specified by Firefly's production manager Andy Mead and lighting designer Doug Currie to control all lighting on the Firefly Stage throughout its extensive summer festival tour, which started in May and has included Glastonbury, Shambala in Northamptonshire, Lovebox, The Secret Garden Party, Retrofest in Scotland, the Loop Festival in Brighton and many others.

Firefly puts high production values at the top of its agenda along with the utilisation of solar energy. Mead explains, "We've been working with a number of different companies and organisations over the years to find high end, low energy technologies with

UK - Stage Electrics reports "outstanding success" at this year's Edinburgh Festival. Some 14 trucks (13 artics and one 18 ton) full of technical equipment including lighting, sound, rigging, staging, drapes made the long journey to Scotland from the company's Bristol headquarters. For six weeks over the summer, Stage Electrics serviced all venues operated by Assembly, Gilded Balloon, Underbelly and Universal Arts, as well as most productions for the Edinburgh International Festival.

Almost 30 miles of cable, 600sq.m of staging and over 2000 generic lanterns from Stage Electrics' rental stock were employed to transform a variety of spaces including churches, student unions, masonic lodges and assembly halls into professional theatre venues.

Stage Electrics' long association with the various Edinburgh festivals, was strengthened this year with Underbelly and Universal

China/UK - Chinese manufacturers PR Lighting made a massive advance on the world stage at this year's PLASA show, reporting an excellent response to both their new range of automated moving lights and LED displays. This was backed up by some major orders from both installation and rental customers - including literally hundreds of PR Lighting's popular XL 250.

Cui-Lin, director of international marketing and sales, stated that the company had sold 100 of their XL 1500 projectors to Belarus distributor, FE Belimlight, whose Maxim Yugov confirmed that these will be used on a major project in Moscow. This versatile, feature-packed fixture utilises a powerful 1500W short arc discharge lamp, optimised by the use of a high quality and efficient optical system - making it one of the brightest projectors in the market, say the company.

Meanwhile, on the adjacent stand, PR Lighting's U

The Netherlands - This month's IBC exhibition in Amsterdam sees Audio-Technica host daily presentations focussing on the brand's involvement in the 2008 Beijing Games and launching new models in both its studio and broadcast and production microphone ranges.

Unveiled at the show are the AT2035 large-diaphragm condenser, AT2050 multi-pattern large-diaphragm condenser, AT4021 cardioid and AT4022 omni-directional condensers - the new broadcast and production models are the AT8022 X/Y stereo microphone and BP4025 X/Y stereo field recording microphone.

Sound designer of the Games Dennis Baxter is giving daily seminars on the Audio-Technica stand throughout IBC.

Richard Garrido, Audio-Technica Europe's president said, "We are very pleased that Dennis Baxter is able to join us at IBC this year. To have someone of Dennis's expertise being able share his knowledge with visitors

For the fourth consecutive year, Prolyte awarded its best performing distributors at the PLASA show.

This year's distributor award was received by Xaxier Drouet of Axente, while the award for special contribution went to Jan Siemons of Relight.

According to Fokko Smeding, Axente won the Award due to "their long-term and non-relenting promotion of the Prolyte products in France". Axente has been Prolyte distributor for almost 15 years and has grown steadily over those years.

Jan Siemons of Relight received the award for special contribution for his dedication to the Prolyft products and critical and in-depth product testing and reviews.

Displaying three new products at the show, the rotating stage, the mammoth truss and the Stage DEX support frame for multi-level stages, Prolyte reports much interest from visitors.

(Jim Evans)

UK - - Radial Engineering confirms that Shure Distribution UK (SDUK) has been appointed the exclusive distributor for Tonebone in the UK.

Peter Janis, president of Radial, commented, "Over the past few years, SDUK has been tremendously successful with our Radial professional products. They have done a terrific job at elevating the awareness of our direct boxes and audio distro systems throughout the UK. Recently, SDUK also took on our Primacoustic brand with vigour. It only makes sense for us to consolidate the last piece of the puzzle and bring our Tonebone pedal range into the fold.

"The timing could not be better either. We've just released the Radial PZ-Pre acoustic instrument preamp to our international customers and it has immediately leaped to become our best selling Tonebone pedal. We also anticipate to deliver the new Bones pedals within the next 60 days whi

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