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Turkey - On 3 March 2009, the newly completed Ahmed Adnan Saygun Arts Centre in Izmir, Turkey, designed by Arup and Tozkoparan Architects, opened its doors to the public for the opening performance of the 16th European Jazz Festival. Grammy award winning American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater was accompanied by the Istanbul Big Band at the event.

Arup Acoustics and a multidisciplinary engineering team from Arup worked closely with Turkey-based Tozkoparan Architects to deliver the new Centre. The acoustics and venue planning were an integrated part of the design from the outset with the goal of providing a building with world-class facilities within affordable budgets.

The new arts centre, known as AASSM, is named after Turkish composer and musicologist Ahmed Adnan Saygun, who died in 1991. The Centre incorporates a 1100 seat concert hall, a 300 seat recital hall as well as v

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UK - For two years running, Envy has won the title for Best Post-Production House at the UK Broadcast Awards. Handling projects for all the main broadcasters, the company has just opened its third facility in London's West End, featuring an open-plan reception - lounge bar space and 750sq.ft roof terrace, fitted with an Electro-Voice EviD sound system.

This is the 100th EviD fit for installer Clive Alexander of Empire Sound & Light. It is also the second installation of EviDs that he has done for Envy.

The new Foley Street facility, which has 34 offline production suites, boasts exceptional relaxation areas for its clients. Four pairs of white EviD 6.2s are wall-mounted below the roof beams in the reception and bar area, with another pair of 4.2s outside, catering for the huge roof terrace that overlooks central London. The system accepts iPod input, and operates primarily in

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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Lighting rental company HSL is supplying lighting, a 26-point Kinesys automation system and crew to Snow Patrol's One Hundred Million Suns world tour.

This has kicked off in the UK and Europe with a mix of four dynamic visual mediums - lighting, digital lighting, video and movement .

The imaginative force behind this show comes from Davy Sherwin (lighting & visuals designer), Robin Haddow (live visuals director) and video director Blue Leach. The aim of their seamless teamwork is to ensure that all the lighting, video, visuals and movement cues contrast, compliment, match and juxtapose in complete harmony.

Project manager Mike Oates says, "It's just brilliant to be involved on a show that looks this good. An incredible amount of hard work, ideas, imagination and intelligence has gone into making it work, and the end results speak for themselves."

Sherwin

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Germany tarm Showlaser GmbH recently staged a highlight at the German music award ceremony Echo 2009 at the O2-World in Berlin.

Lighting designer Al Gurdon, who is well known for large scale productions such as the MTV Awards and the Brit Awards, designed in the performance of popular German act Silbermond in collaboration with tarm Showlaser to mark the presentation of the band's new song Irgendwas bleibt.

A total of four high-power green and four full-colour lasers were used for the production at the O2-World.

(Claire Beeson)

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USA - Behringer has launched a major hiring initiative in support of continuing expansion and business development. "Over our 20-year history we have developed technologies, core competencies and processes that we can now apply to a growing number of markets", states chairman Uli Behringer. "We will be serving new market segments with new means of marketing. We're looking for talented, creative and passionate people to make this happen."

Opportunities exist at all levels of the organization, says the company. Specific areas of expansion for Behringer are the commercial and installed sound markets.

"Of course, like any company, we're going to say that we're looking for highly-motivated people, driven to succeed, and are passionate, energetic and enthusiastic," continues Uli Behringer.

(Jim Evans)

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UAE - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics, local distributors for Electro-Voice speakers, amplifiers and processors in the United Arab Emirates, has recently supplied the Dubai World Trade Centre's rental division an additional set of the EV XLC line array cabinets. The rental division already boasts a number of EV products in its inventory such as the XLC line array cabinets and Tour Grade amplifiers. The new purchase includes a dozen more line array cabinets from the XLC range, more Tour Grade amplifiers that include the RCM DSP module, Phoenix monitors and Plasma Series powered speakers.

DWTC's purchase includes the latest version of the XLC system, which features the all-new DVX transducer platform. It utilises the same high output ND6-HYDRA HF section, but provides more LF capability with the DVX3121 12-inch forced-air-cooled LF driver, along with lower distortion and more headr

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USA - Biamp Systems has announced the twelve companies that received the 2008 Biamp Distributor of the Year Awards, recognising business acumen and drive to mutually grow business worldwide. Biamp developed the Distributor of the Year awards to showcase the "best and brightest" in the AV industry. The winning companies are selected on various criteria including: Business acumen; Strength of partnership with Biamp Systems; Service; Overall professionalism; Technical experience; Sales volume; and Passion for the AV industry.

The 2008 Distributor of the Year award recipients represent a broad range of companies that demonstrated excellence throughout the year, say Biamp.

Winners are: Europe West - Audiopole (France); Europe Central & East - Prase Engineering (Italy); SE Asia/Pacific - Audio Products Group (Australia/New Zealand); Latin America - Almacenes Audiovisuales/

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UK - The National Outdoor Events Association's Annual Tribute Celebration Evening, held on 26h February 2009, saw AP Security add another award to its growing list - the Training in Events Tribute.

The Tribute was awarded to AP in recognition of the results its training programme has produced at events such as Leeds Festival. Each and every AP employee attends a pit training course held during non-show days at the O2 Academy Brixton, one of the many venues at which AP is responsible for crowd safety.

Leeds Festival 2008 marked AP Security's tenth year of providing crowd safety at the event. As the festival has grown, so AP's role has developed alongside it, as has a solid relationship with promoter, Festival Republic.

"Attending the course doesn't guarantee work in the pit," says AP's general manager, Andy Stevens. "But you definitely can't work there u

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UK / South Africa - Gearhouse South Africa - the country's leading supplier of presentation and event technical equipment - is a long-standing XTA user and supplier, so when the time came to upgrade their loudspeaker processing inventory, they naturally turned to local XTA distributor, Tadco.

Offering services across all disciplines including lighting, audio, structures, power, staging and set design, Gearhouse takes an imaginative approach to project design and prides itself on its state-of-the-art equipment.

Dave Tudor of Gearhouse explains the background to this recent purchase: "With the sale of equipment into Nigeria, we needed to replace and upgrade our stock of audio processing. XTA has proved a very reliable product in the past, which contributed to the decision to make the purchase." He continued: "We currently have in our inventory a number XTA DP224s

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Serbia - Touring their latest release A-Lex, a new album based on the book A Clockwork Orange, Brazilian heavy metal band Sepultura's appearance in Belgrade made the most of a new Nexo S12 line array system purchased by PA company Light And Sound Design. Sepultura's front-of-house engineer Stanley Soares stated, "If you have a PA that sounds this good, even the most challenging acoustic venues can be tamed using almost no EQ."

Despite levels reaching 120dB at the mix position, there was not a single complaint about volume, and the system, configured with six cabinets a side plus four CD18 subs, demonstrated CD-quality detail. Using two NX242-ES4 TDControllers, the system was controlled by an EtherSound network. Milan Scepanovic, general manager of Light and Sound Design, happily notes that even colleagues from competing sound companies were impressed by i

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UK - DB Systems is gearing up for a busy few months providing bespoke AV and IT solutions at shows in the UK, Europe and even as far as Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. DB Systems will be attending more than a dozen events and exhibitions between April and June, including nine as the official AV & IT supplier.

DB's expertise will be showcased at events such as Latin America Aero and Defence (LAAD) 2009 in Rio de Janeiro in April, ITEC in Brussels in May, which is Europe's leading event showcasing products and services for purposes of defence, training, education and simulation, as well as the Paris Airshow in June.

Oliver Richardson, DB's sales director, commented: "We are approaching a very busy period operationally but our customers know full well that we always deliver. This is demonstrated by the fact that we are attending so many events as an official supplier.

"We've

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UK - A Panasonic 103" plasma screen was chosen by the United Colours of Benetton's flagship store on Oxford Street, to deliver an eye catching display for its London shoppers.

This eye-catching addition to the store's vibrant and distinctive design was selected for its ability to work in portrait, reproduce accurate colours naturally and for its new anti glare surface, which allows the screen to perform in high ambient light environments essential for this store.

The 103" plasma's high contrast, brightness and true colour reproduction means it replicates the "perfect skin tones and vibrant colours featured in Benetton's famous adverts relayed on the screen", say the company.

The screen was installed by 103" experts PSCo, using a bespoke stand to secure the screen onto the wall. PSCo's managing director Stuart Holmes explains: "The opportunities

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China - Leading connector manufacturer Neutrik, based in Liechtenstein, reports that thanks to tireless efforts Ningbo Neutrik succeeded in taking legal actions against shops in China which sell Neutrik product copies. In close cooperation with the authorities in Guangzhou, a search in the Guangzhou Component Distribution Center took place on 2 March 2009. This concerted action was accompanied by the quality manager of Ningbo Neutrik Electronics Co. Ltd. who clearly identified the confiscated product copies on site. In total more than 100,000 connector copies were seized and destroyed.

Neutrik says the success of this measure exceeded its expectations considerably, and that it will "continue in suing product copiers in a calculated and adamant way and to strike back at them with all means and instruments that are available for this purpose".

(Lee Baldock)

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Macau - Situated on Macau's glittering Cotai Strip, a peninsula known as "Asia's Las Vegas" that connects the islands of Taipa and Coloane, the City of Dreams is steadily climbing skywards. Melco-PBL's glamorous casino resort will include Hyatt, Hard Rock and Crown Towers hotels, as well as an apartment hotel, that will offer 2,200 rooms and suites for visitors from nearby Hong Kong, mainland China, and further afield.

The crowning attraction of the many multi-media and live entertainment venues within the complex will be the Dragone aqua spectacular, which is scheduled to première towards the end of 2009. The resort's permanent show is expected to dazzle audiences with the same imaginative flair as previous Dragone productions such as Le Rève and A New Day.

Designed by the renowned architectural office, Pei Partnership of New York, the City of Dream'

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USA/UK - Designers on both sides of the Atlantic have been signing up to support Behind the Scenes and Light Relief By Design Day, the day the industry comes together to celebrate its successes and to give back in thanks.

On 24 April, designers with shows around the world will be donating their royalties to support one or both of the two charities dedicated exclusively to helping entertainment technology and design professionals, Behind the Scenes in the US and Canada and Light Relief in the UK. Designers and others not in royalty situations have also stepped forward in support of By Design Day with direct donations.

By Design Day champions Ken Billington, Rick Fisher and Ken Posner have already been joined in donating their royalties by Mike Baldassari, Paule Constable, Don Holder, David Howe, Tim Mascal, Paul Miller, Brian Monahan, Peter Mumford, Peter Nigrini, Paul Pyant, M

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies has given its web site www.ac-et.com/bargains a major facelift to provide customers with an improved online experience, following the continued success and expansion of this area of the company's business.

A.C. updates the bargain stock website on a daily basis with ex-demo and second hand equipment available. To reflect the web site's much expanded stock inventory, the site features dedicated lighting, audio, rigging and video product pages, based on the popular format of the distributor's 24-hour online shop. The Just Landed page enables customers to see at a glance what stock has been added in the last seven working days.

Most items on the Bargain Stock list are stocked in the company's Leeds Warehouse and can be viewed by arrangement.

(Jim Evans)

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The Netherlands - The numbers are huge: 125mwide stage, 4000sq.m palace façade set, 400 plus Martin Professional automated lights, 80 containers of transport. What is being called the biggest transportable touring set ever graces Andre Rieu's World Stadium Tour: A Romantic Vienna Night.

The 34m high stage - a reconstruction of the Schonbrunn castle in Vienna - includes a ballroom with gilded chandeliers, majestic fountains, and even ice for skating. Lighting the massive set is an equally impressive Martin lighting rig made up of 30 MAC III Profiles, 185 MAC 2000 Washes, 58 MAC 2000 Wash XBs, 114 MAC 250 Washes, 10 MAC 2000 Performances and 14 Exterior 200s. Lighting contractor is Rent-All BV, one of the largest rental companies in Holland, who have been supplying lighting for André Rieu shows for years.

Lighting design for the tour is in the hands of Maurice Ver

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USA - Bandit Lites began 2009 with a large number of high profile special events working with some of the biggest names in the industry.

The year kicked off with designer Mark Carver and the Stellar Gospel Music Awards in Nashville at the Opry House. This year the show was hosted by Sinbad along with Grammy winning entertainers Donnie McClurkin and Dorinda Clark Cole. The show is broadcast globally on television and is the pinnacle of the gospel Music year. Carver used an array of technology including VL 2500s, 3000s, 3500s and Coemar Halos as well as Coemar infinity XL.

In Europe Bandit was very busy with a wide range of events including UFC Pay Per View, PURE Fashion at London Fashion week, FA Carling Cup Final and Ringling Brothers Circus events.

Belmont University in Nashville again called on Bandit to light their 2009 Belmont Country Showcase and its Rock Show

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USA - The broadcast of the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 22, saw Oscars awarded for outstanding sound achievements in film, but there was one more audio accomplishment that evening: at the famous Governor's Ball after-party, where the EAW UX8800 Digital Signal Processor optimised the sound system in the Grand Ballroom on the top level of the Hollywood & Highland Centre. The sound system was provided and operated by Goodman Audio Services of Santa Fe Springs, California.

For the Governor's Ball, Goodman Audio positioned two UX8800s as system processors at the FOH position. Signal from the Yamaha PM5D FOH mixer fed the UX8800 processors in loudspeaker mode, paired with various speaker/amplifier rack locations such as catwalks and amp world near the stage. A typical amp rack will have one UX8800 and four QSC PL236 amplifiers, and these were configured as left and right, with a

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UK - Martin Professional invites you to experience their brand new lighting and fog offerings at the new PLASA Focus show at the Royal Armouries in Leeds on the 28 -29 April 2009.

Visit Martin Professional's stand (B2) in Saviles Hall for the opportunity to get up close and personal with their latest products and talk to staff.

On display will be the brand new MAC III and the new K1 Hazer. Also, some of the company's industry standard MACs will be available for visitors to have a closer look at along with a few key new products from the Visual Solutions range, including the new EvenLED panels.

"So, don't wait, register for free online at www.plasafocus.com/leeds/register; then come by and visit us to see our new products," say the company.

There is also a two day programme of free educational seminars and workshops. The seminars are designed and delivered by a co

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Changing of the Guard - The value of the live music scene has overtaken that of recordings, according to the Performing Rights Society (PRS). Figures state the recorded music industry generated £896m during 2008. This compares with the estimated worth of the live music, increasingly vital for new and established bands, which amounted to an estimated £904m. The PRS, which collects royalties for live and recorded music on behalf of artists and writers, called the landmark a "changing of the guard".

Speaking to BBC 6 Music, the organisation's chief economist, Will Page, said: "We've been doing some maths back at the office. We have all the data on live music at the PRS because we license all the live performances that go around the country, so we're actually able to put a number on how much live music is worth." For their final calculations, Page exp

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USA - The most notable thing about weekly services at Christ's Church at Mason, Ohio, is that each service is in a distinctly different style - traditional, contemporary and blended. The church's 1300-seat sanctuary was recently renovated with a new sound system to handle the contemporary and blended services, while a smaller chapel was built to handle the traditional service.

Long time integrator, Worship Resources, was brought in to develop an appropriate audio design, and Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system was chosen to handle Front of House and monitors for the larger sanctuary.

With a volunteer technical staff and a large musical presentation, it was essential that the new console be easy to learn and use. "Previously, the sanctuary had an analogue console but Sunday morning worship now comprises two back-to-back rehearsals and two services," explains T

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UK - Following many months of discussion, Lighting Effects Distribution has been appointed exclusive UK distributors for the wide range of lighting solutions produced by the company Colours in Italy.

The pact marks a reunion for L.E.D. managing director Ian Kirby and Ivano Burato, who was most recently with French company Ayrton (distributed in the UK by L.E.D).

Burato, in conjunction with former colleagues from Coemar spa, set up the new company in the north Italian lighting hotbed of Castelgoffredo, and this month presented its innovative range in the UK at an open day held by television specialists, Richard Martin Lighting.

Ivano Burato said: "It was always my intention to approach Lighting Effects Distribution to handle our products after meeting at last year's PLASA Show, and once the Ayrton contract ended in December we started talking."

"This is a hig

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Qatar - LCI Productions provided a 'light show' for Qatar's National Day in December 2008, in Doha. LCI was contracted to provide a turnkey service for the project, from original concept through to delivery.

The brief for the show production was to "grow" the national pride of the nation, by depicting its history and heritage, to show their progress and make the audience reflect on the country's national heritage. The elements included the History of the Country, Pearl Diving, Desert Living and the Craft and Art of Qatar.

On winning the tender, LCI set about creating a storyboard and sourcing original material shot in Qatar in both stills and HD video as well as using archive material from Qatar, working in conjunction with local agencies. The majority of the show content was then developed at LCI's in-house Avid editing studio, and demonstration studio, using Wings

  1. More exhibitors for PLASA Focus
  2. Hillsong Church rocks with G-LEC at the Dominion
  3. Mississippi State Stadium upgrades with Meyer
  4. Martin EvenLED backdrop for Oliver!
  5. Slagerij van Kampen tours with ETC Eos
  6. BankAtlantic Centre upgrades with EAW
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