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Events

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UK - Winners of the IVCA Clarion 'Corporate Social Responsibility' awards were announced on Friday 29 September at a packed awards ceremony at BAFTA's headquarters in London. The Clarion awards are now recognised as the leading CSR barometer within the event and communications industry and past winners range from BP, Shell, and McDonald's UK, to the achievements of Hotel Rwanda and Billy Elliot the Musical.

Leading design and communication company Imagination received 2 awards at the ceremony including a Special Recognition Award for the Founder and CEO of Imagination Gary Withers. Imagination was also presented with the 'Best Live Event' award for their work on 'Lifetime Lab' - a children's interactive exhibition which deals with issues of sustainable living and environmental issues built in the heart of Irish city, Cork.

Set on the banks of the River Lee, 'Lifetime Lab' was

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Uk - The classical Sondheim musical Follies has returned to the London stage with Robert McWhir's critically acclaimed production at the Landor Theatre in North Clapham. The show was designed for a large Broadway theatre but the Landor is a small fringe venue on the first floor of a South London pub. With a small acting area, a seating capacity of 50 and no financial backing or budget. McWhir's vision was to seat the audience on chairs and tables to be part of the party. The cast of 21 are joined on stage by projected images of their younger days - the synchronisation of all this is done by grandMA.

Andrew Tottle, the production manager explained: "We started looking for solutions ten months ago. The total power capacity for the lighting system is 63A single-phase so we needed very precise solutions designed to work! There would be no spare budget to buy our way out

Doughty - Banner - from 6 June 2025

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UK - For the third year, the Stage Electrics Welsh Trade Show is being held at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff on Wednesday 11 October 2006. Doors open at 11am and the show closes at 5pm.

Leading industry suppliers Apollo, Audio Technica, ETC, Lee, Le Maitre, Mackie, MA Lighting, Martin, Prolyte, Pulsar, RCF, Rosco, Selecon, Sennheiser, Strand, Teclumen and Zero88 will be exhibiting their latest products, offering demos and providing expert advice.

Elaine Peake from Le Maitre will be demonstrating a selection of pyrotechnics at 12 noon and 2pm (weather permitting).

The Stage Electrics Welsh Trade Show is a free event, open to everyone and no tickets are required. The company is recommending you come early to take advantage of the free sandwiches available at lunchtime. Visitors can also take the opportunity to pre-register via the Stage Electrics website

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Europe - Hard rocking punk metallers Atreyu completed a short European and UK tour with LD Ian Bintliff producing a lightshow to match. The California based 4-piece stormed the UK replete with the screeching guitars, howling vocals and the visceral causticity that initially made them such an underground sensation on the West Coast. When it came to the UK section of the tour, Bintliff asked Blackburn-based HSL to supply crew and kit.

It was a short tour playing a selection of completely different venues - from Brixton Academy to Nottingham Rock City, so Bintliff's design had to be versatile.

He is one of those LD's who has the "ability and talent to make even the smallest rigs look really substantial" says HSL's MD Simon Stuart. Bintliff's style is from the more traditional school of stage lighting design that very much believes in starting with basic PAR washes and b

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UK - PRG Europe has supplied lighting, truss and mains for the BBC Proms in the Park in Glasgow. Equipment provided for the event celebrating the last night of the Proms included over 55 Vari*Lite luminaires and 50 conventionals, including ETC Source Four Pars and Source Four Zooms, controlled from a Wholehog II plus a Catalyst media server. Lighting director for BBC Scotland was Jim McNamee, while PRG Europe's project manager was John McEvoy.

(Chris Henry)

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UK - Northern Light have announced the arrival of Calder Sibbald as their new events manager. Prior to joining the company, Calder was branch manager of Tower Productions South where he worked on glamorous A-List celebrity parties and events.

Calder possesses a degree in Stage Management and Theatre Production gained at Queen Margaret University College. Whilst at university, Calder moonlighted as technical manager for two Edinburgh institutions - The Venue and Liquid Rooms nightclubs.

Calder says: "This is an exciting opportunity for me to develop Northern Light's Events division. Since I was at school, I have worked in various fields of production in Scotland, the UK and Europe. In conjunction with Gregor Murray, our events services manager, I'll be working to build up Northern Light's market share of corporate and celebrity event production."

Northern Light's ma

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Italy / China - During the recent Italian Government mission to China, the Prime Minister - accompanied by four ministers and the Chairman of Confindustria (the Confederation of Italian Industries), and with 600 businessmen in tow - met with top Chinese leaders.

Formal events alternated with festivities on a grand scale, such as the concert to mark the opening in Guangzhou of the Third International Small and Medium Industries Fair/Chinese-Italian Small and Medium Industries Fair. This memorable event was staged in a vast auditorium, where a battery of Coemar iSpots S was well able to handle a show of such gigantic size. This typifyies a market (China) where Coemar's presence is constantly growing, thanks to some dynamic joint ventures. The lighting for the event was provided by Hu Jia (lighting designer), the Guangdong Singing and Dancing Performer Group (lighting contractor) e

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USA - Tomcat is giving away one scholarship to its Annual Hoist and Rigging Workshop to be held February 21-24, 2007 in Midland, Texas. Register to win at the Tomcat Booth #271.

The scholarship will be awarded after the LDI tradeshow and may be used for the Hoist and Rigging Workshop held February 21-24, 2007 which includes instruction on hoist, rigging, truss and fall protection or the Advanced Hoist and Truss Workshop on February 23-24, 2007 that includes advanced instruction on truss and motors. The Scholarship package includes all instruction materials and fees, plus lodging, lunches, dinners, snacks and all transportation for the various workshop events. Both workshops culminate with a steak dinner and tour of the Tomcat USA facilities. The winner of the Scholarship will be responsible for transportation to and from Midland, Texas.

(Chris Henry)

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USA - Kish Rigging, main rigging contractor to the MTV Video Music Awards, used a CyberHoist / InMotion 3D motion control system to animate a spectacular set for the event in New York's Radio City Music Hall on August 31.

MTV's flagship show has been treated to many ground-breaking visual designs in the past and this year's set was no exception.

Director Hamish Hamilton and designers Mark Fisher and Anne Brahic along with lighting designer Allen Branton based the design on a flown array of 16 LED video screens of various sizes, each mounted in a classical ornate gilt picture frame and flown from CyberHoist CH1000 one tonne motors and CH500 half-ton motors. The screens, nine of which were constantly in motion throughout the show, were used to show a combination of Imag footage, specially created graphics, captions and visual effects.

Kish Rigging's project manager JR Cassidy

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UK - The Event Show has announced that Michael Eavis, the Godfather of Glastonbury, will be speaking at the Access Sessions, hosting a question and answer seminar for event organisers at Olympia in London on 24 January 2007, day one of the two-day exhibition.

The Event Show is established as one of the leading exhibitions in the industry for anyone organising indoor or outdoor events. The Show attracts some of the most prestigious names in concert promotion, sound and lighting, festivals and live entertainment.

"This is a major coup and we expect a packed audience for his seminar," explains Michelle Tayton, manager of The Event Show. "The continuous evolvement of Glastonbury is one of the event industry's greatest success stories. The fact that we have been able to provide event organisers with access to one of the industry's most prestigious figureheads is test

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USA - Bandit Lites have announced their recent involvement in Farm Aid 2006. The event took place on September 30, 2006 at the Tweeter Center at the Waterfront-a 25,000 capacity outdoor amphitheater in Camden, New Jersey.

Farm Aid 2006 featured Farm Aid president and founder, Willie Nelson, board membersNeil Young, John Mellencamp and Dave Matthews, as well as Jerry Lee Lewis withRoy Head, Los Lonely Boys, Arlo Guthrie, Gov't Mule, Steve Earle, Allison Moorer, SteelPulse, Shelby Lynne, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Jimmy Sturr & his Orchestra, Pauline Reeseand Danielle Evin.

Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp organised the first Farm Aid concert in1985. They wanted to increase awareness about the loss of family farms and raisefunds to keep family farms in business. Dave Matthews joined the Farm Aid board ofdirectors in 2001. To date, Farm Aid has raised over $29 million t

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USA - Royal Philips Electronics (AEX: PHI, NYSE: PHG) today announced that it will present its latest innovations in entertainment lighting technology at LDI 2006, being held in Las Vegas Convention Center from October 20-22, 2006.

At the Philips booth #1455, the company will present its complete Philips FastFit range. Initiated by the launch of Philips MSR Gold 1200 FastFit and Philips Hi-Brite 1200 FastFit, at the beginning of this year, Philips has completed the product range with Philips MSR Gold 700 FastFit and Philips Hi-Brite 750 FastFit. This rear load lamp base system has been co-developed with Bender & Wirth.

The benefit of this new lamp concept is not only a fast lamp replacement due to the unique lamp and lamp holder design, it also includes an increased brightness, provides the opportunity to reduce fixture size and weight, assures reliability due to pinch protect

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USA - Launched at London's PLASA Show in September, TurboDrive network control software - a new software package from Turbosound that will help to make the jobs of live sound engineers easier - was also shown for the first time in the US at the 121st Audio Engineering Society Convention at San Francisco's Moscone Centre from 5 to 8 October.

The TurboDrive package gives online access and fast, intuitive control of Turbosound controllers and powered speakers, either individually or in a BVNet network of up to 100 devices.

User control of input EQ, delay and mute is available, while key factory settings such as limiters and driver correction are locked out to ensure maximum flexibility to the user, whilst maintaining consistent voicing and driver protection in the field.

Every parameter of an LMS-D2X controller is allowed, either by typing in exact values or by using on-screen

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France - With an IP-65 rating and a modular design for optimal flexibility and ease of installation, the DVwall HR is a robust LED display system for distant viewing in entertainment venues, stadiums, theme parks, billboards, as well as the rental and staging markets. Delivering 16 million colours with a pixel pitch of 31mm, it displays high-resolution graphics, animated gifs, Flash, PowerPoint, video and images to delight viewers and maximise the return on investment. It is compatible with Windows Media Player.

The system consists of 0.5m x 0.5m DV modules, each fitted with 2,304 LEDs ingeniously grouped in clusters to enhance brilliance. Each module comes with mounting hardware designed to allow multiple configurations, offering a wealth of creative flexibility. Pixel density is 256 per module or 1,024 pixels per sq.m. With endurance in mind, even the mounting system and conne

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The thundering launch of the Vari*Lite VL500 by PRG Europe at last year's show (£1m in orders before the show closed) continues to resound with continued sales.

The enhanced X Box, now titled X Box Extreme, has the long-awaited Pixel Mapping function, improved 'transition' functions and lots of new tiling effects, as well as some slick new keystone, 3D generator, and masking functions.

Added to the 'for sale' product range is the Sea Changer from Ocean Optics, an easy add-on in-line colour changer for ETC Source Four profiles. Built to insert between lamp house and lens tube on any model, this dichroic colour mixer comes in two versions: 'Extreme' includes green as well as the usual CMY; beside greatly enhanced greens it also extends to blues, ambers and golds. The standard version has a dimmer wheel instead of green.

Also licensed to PRG for distribution throug

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Australian DMX tools specialist Enttec Pty Ltdshowcased its latest product, the E-streamer. An Ethernet show recorder, it is capable of recording up to 64 universes of DMX per show. It can record or play multiple shows at once, featuring a built-in scheduler, which allows programming of every conceivable schedule spread over days, months or years. The product Supports ArtNet and ESP protocols, allows simultaneous show recording and playback of up to 1,000 shows.

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Legendary reverb manufacturer Lexicon (Harman Pro) presented two new products, seen for the first time in Europe. The MX400 and MX400XL are both four-in four-out hardware reverb units for studio and live use. The 1U rack-mounted units have an independent processor on each channel, with the only difference between the units being the connectors on the XL sporting XLRs while the 400 is fitted with quarter-inch TRS jacks. The four inputs and outputs also allow for surround processing and effects are included, making the units an affordable way to enter the surround sound processing arena.

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Roland Systems Group and its Digital Snake system has been gaining market share since its relatively recent launch. On display at the show was a new interface for the unit, an AES/EBU module with internal and external sync' options and word clock. Also on display for the RSS was a REAC (Roland's Ethernet data transfer technology) ASIO driver, allowing 40 channels of audio to be connected directly into a PC and into a multi-track recording system - in this case Cakewalk's SONAR 5 or 6.

Nestling unassumingly in a nearby rack were the AR-3000R and AR200R audio announcement system. The AR-3000R will record, playback and edit samples for announcements and voice alarms, while the AR-200 is a half-rack playback-only version.

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Smoke connoisseurs were impressed by Swefog's latest high-power T26 smoke machine which offers very smooth output between 1 and 100% in 1% increments. Very compact in size, the machine includes an integrated fan outlet and DMX fan control, so it can be ramped up to impressively mega levels of 1800 cubic metres per minute for outdoor applications.

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ShowTex's see-through mirror is a mirror film that acts a mirror surface when in standard mode, becoming transparent when illuminated from behind. It comes complete with a frame, in lengths of up to 24m wide by 12m high, and is popular in theatre, film and television markets. They also showed their Chain Track scenery moving system.

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The judges also felt that there were three other products which deserved a special mention. These were:

Adam Hall's SM707 adjustable top-hat louspeaker mount - to adjust the cabinet angle, simply lift it slightly and lower again at the desired angle; an internal sprung-notch system uses the cabinet's weight to hold it in place.

Sennheiserpicked up two commendations, for its A5000 Antenna(for more on this, see this month's Technical Focus feature, beginning on page 124) and its TourGuide 2020D system - the first visitor guidance system with digital wireless transmission in the licence-free band.

No Environmental Award was presented this year, leaving the field open for new products that fit that criteria in 2007 . . .

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Mackie proudly displayed its new flagship subwoofer at PLASA. The SWA2801z 18" Active is said to provide greater performance than mere 'powered' loudspeakers. Mackie's Active electronics are customised for each new product, providing monitoring and real-time control over critical functions such as crossover and equalisation. The SWA2801z can be stacked or pole-mounted and can be easily integrated with other full-range Mackie products.

For the club scene, Mackie previewed its new four-channel mixer, the d.4 Pro. Due for launch in early 2007, the mixer features Onyx mic preamps, VCA and analogue filter effects and 3-band EQ.

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Zap Technology from Paris, France were in exceptionally good humour and demonstrated a prototype of their new Littlebig 3.0 3kW automated Xenon searchlight fixture - the latest in the BigLight range and the little brother of their flagship BigLite 4.5. The Littlebig 3.0 offers designers real-time CMY colour-mixing, diffusion with electronic strobe and many other customisable effects. With the current design style penchant for high-powered searchlight effects incorporated in larger stage shows, this should attract plenty of interest.

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ShowMagic highlighted their new Version 11.0 PC show control software, complete with new-look graphics, surround sound and "live" mode, allowing operators to work on the fly as well as in a pro-programmed domain.
  1. Moving LED
  2. MBN Event Products
  3. Lee Filters
  4. Wybron - InfoTrace System
  5. Martin Professional
  6. Green Hippo
Page 180 of 322
Astera - Large MPU - June 2025
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