UK - The organizrs of the PLASA Show have advised that pre-registration for this year's show )11-14 September) closes today at 5pm so today is the last chance for visitors to benefit from the half-price tickets. However, visitors will still be able to purchase tickets on the door at the full price of £15. To pre-register today, please visit the website below.

(Lee Baldock)

Sweden / UK - Wireless Solution Sweden AB, the producer of the award-winning W-DMX product at PLASA 2004, is again entering the PLASA Awards for Innovation with the new W-DMX IP65 Repeater - "a new and innovative product in the W-DMX family that brings the wireless technology for lighting one step further", say the company. The repeater solves a lot of problems for productions and installation companies, for example differences with very long distances or physical obstacles, the company claims, as it supports a distance up to 20km between each repeater.

Wireless Solution Sweden is also showing the W-DMX IP65 Transceiver, which supports RDM. All W-DMX products offer talk-back function, and the plug and play solution can be set up in less then 60 seconds, the company says. W-DMX follows the standard of ETSI and FCC to cover the European and the North American market.

L

Italy / South-East Asia - Italian pro audio manufacturer Outline has appointed Discovery Lights & Sound Pte Ltd as its sole distributors for Singapore and Malaysia, with effect from 20 July 2005. The sales and technical staff of Discovery have around 30 years experience in the entertainment industry and Outline has told LSI Online it has every confidence in their capability to support its customers in these territories.

(Lee Baldock)

USA - Boston's AVFX serves clients such as Medtronic, Philips Medical, IBM Software and TJX (the parent company of retail chain TJ Maxx), and has gained a reputation for having the latest media technology, the know-how to use it, and the experience to understand how to best service corporate needs.

Although much of AVFX's emphasis has always been on visual media (multi-image projection was the rage when the company started in the early 1980s), the company has also supplied sound systems for years. One of their long-time audio mainstays has been the classic UPA-1A loudspeaker, which AVFX started using many years before the self-powered UPA-1P became available. The versatility of the UPA-1A insures that those conventionally-powered legacy speakers not only remain in AVFX's inventory, but continue to see constant use.

As AVFX continues to grow, the firm's Meyer Sound inventory ha

UK - London PA and Promotion company, Up All Night Music, employed its new Allen & Heath GL3800 live sound console at the recent Reading Festival. The mixer was installed in the Tiscali VIP tent, which hosted exclusive sessions from a variety of the artists performing on the main stages over the weekend.

The 32-channel mixer managed 20 bands over the three days, providing live sound reinforcement for acts such as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Graham Coxon, The Rakes, The Subways, Echo and the Bunnymen, the Futureheads, Funeral For a Friend, and Mondo Generator. The select 100-capacity audience even included some big names such as Dave Grohl and Pete Doherty, who came to see their celebrity associates perform.

"The GL3800 performed flawlessly - it's a fantastic desk," commented sound engineer, Ed Shackleton. "I particularly love the new EQ, which has a great range

UK - Shortly before the official UK launch of the ADB Warp/M at PLASA 2005, Glyndebourne Opera House in East Sussex, England became the first British venue to acquire the new luminaire. An advance consignment of the Motorised Warp was built and installed in time for the legendary opera house's summer season.

Glyndebourne's lighting manager, Keith 'KB' Benson, organized a head-to-head 'luminaire shootout' when the venue's management decided to make its first long-term investment in automated lighting. He explains: "We've used generics for years because I never felt that the moving light for opera was there, although we have tried a few - we used a couple of 2K PCs for a few years and they performed pretty well. But we have never really gone for anything else; I am not so keen, personally, on colour mixing, as it can be difficult to get a really pure specific colour. But usin

Norway - Now in its 51st year, the annual St Olav Festival in Norway is held to mark the historic battle of Stiklestad in 1030, which marked the country's transition from paganism to Christianity and established the cult of St Olav after the slain king. Central to the festival is the St Olav Drama, performed in an outdoor amphitheatre at the Stiklestad National Cultural Center before an audience of 6,000, with over 20,000 people watching the drama over four performances. For the first time this year, the sound was handled by local PA rental company Stiklestad Lyd & Lys (SLL) who chose to use a large quantity of DPA microphones for the performers and musicians.

The St Olav Drama, which unfolds in the last 24 hours before the battle, revealing the transition between paganism and Christianity, is the largest and oldest open-air play held in the Nordic countries, encompassing elemen

UK - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light will be at the PLASA Show once again this year, showing new products from many of the companies for which it is the exclusive UK distributor as well as its own Digital Festoon System, a winner of a PLASA Award For Innovation at last year's show.

In order to demonstrate its full potential, the Digital Festoon System - a radical re-think of conventional festoon lighting that allows each lamp along a festoon's length to be individually dimmed without the aid of external dimmers - will be put through its paces in a two square metre demonstration rig featuring a 27 x 27 square grid of bulbs - 729 in total. The arrangement will show some of the many dramatic possibilities offered by what, at first glance, appears to be just a collection of light bulbs.

Alongside DFS, White Light will be showing the new White Light/ETC Smart Touring Ra

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Sweden - Based at Krylbo, near Avesta, about 160km north-west of Stockholm, Starlight is one of Sweden's leading providers of full-service touring production, a position boosted by its merger with the Stockholm-based VLSC AB (formerly VLPS Scandinavia) in 2003. Today, the yellow trucks and tour buses of the company's growing transport fleet are a regular sight on Sweden's roads in summer.

CEO Per Eriksson first began DJ'ing in 1974 at the age of 14, and started Starlight Disco in 1980. With a bus, a lighting rig and a Cerwin Vega sound system, he found regular work providing lights and sound to events staged in Sweden's 'People's Parks' - something of a national institution in the 1980s.

It was during this period that Eriksson first encountered Ulf Brynte. The pair worked together in 1989-1990, when Brynte rented Eriksson's van, some equipment and an employee to help service a

UK - The Methodist Central Hall in Westminster, London, has commissioned a new sound and projection infrastructure from Marquee Audio. Used for a variety of events, the Hall is now fully equipped for concert reinforcement.

In the Great Hall itself, Marquee has installed a central cluster of Meyer M1D self-powered loudspeakers. Marquee offered two alternative PA designs, explaining the pros and cons of each. "We took a view based on the inadequacies of the old system, which had been systematically adapted over a number of years," says venue manager Michael Sharp. "Particularly poor had been the facilities for the hard-of-hearing. The induction loop was subject to a lot of interference - and we were recommended a Sennheiser infra-red system."

Marquee's project manager, Scott Wakelin, needed to provide evenly-distributed coverage for a hall with a ground floor

USA - Eminem's lighting director Benny Kirkham used 60 James Thomas PixelLine LED batten fixtures for the artist's recently concluded high profile Anger Management Tour. It played arenas and amphitheatres throughout North America.

Lighting designer Dan Boland specified the PixelLines, then programmed and directed for the road by Kirkham. Ed and Ted's Excellent Lighting of Oxnard California supplied the gear plus much of the tour's rigging, with 10 Vario motors overhead provided by Show Distribution of Quebec City, Canada.

Boland used 37 Pixelline 1044s on the ground in DMX mode, broken down into 666 separate "cells" of control. The 1044s lined the entire downstage edge, fully outlining three 16 x 4ft stage thrusts.

Overhead, there were 22 of JTE's latest 110ec PixelLines, which were broken down into five cells apiece, giving a total of 110 "cells"

UK - Denon DJ has confirmed a high-profile DJ line-up which will add an extra to buzz to DJ Sunday at the PLASA Show this year. The company has confirmed that the 'experimental' DJ Jonathan Lisle from MTheory Records and John Digweed's Bedrock organization, will be demoing on the stand (after taking part in one of the seminars - see here for full programme) at 2.30pm. Lisle will be using the DN-S5000 table top CD players, which he used on the Bedrock label's OS:02 original series CD mix album launched earlier this year, as well as the new DN-S3500, which Denon say everyone's shouting about on the forums right now. Joining Lisle will be the guys from online radio station www.cheekyhalf.net, as well as the Angels of Dex, who have their launch party at Turnmills (alongside Eddi

UK - In order to make full use of your days at the PLASA show, the show's organizers are encouraging visitors to 'check in' early. The doors to the exhibition will be open from 9am every morning and you will be invited to go up to the Top Deck to collect your show catalogue, and have a cup of coffee at one of the outlets around the PLASA stand while planning you day, prior to the show's official opening at 10am.

Please note: due to the current security situation, there will be full bag checks as you enter the show and all visitors are being asked for their co-operation. In the meantime, to help you plan, don't forget to check out the show website - see address below - for all the up-to-date news in the final run-up to the show.

UK - As sound designer for UK Productions' hugely successful touring musical adaptation of Disney's classic animated movie, Beauty and the Beast, Glen Beckley collaborated with Funktion One to deliver a system that met his high specifications.

Over 130 sound effects are used in the show, and the score is one of the most popular of the modern Disney features. It was important to both Beckley and musical supervisor Gareth Williams that every part of the complex arrangements was present and audible, even during moments of underscored dialogue. This, along with the need to maintain the attention of a young audience, led Beckley to opt for a sound that was clearly amplified, rather than simply reinforced.

Beckley explained that the great paradox with an amplified show is the need to exercise more control over the acoustic elements in the first place - essentially to make things qui

UK - The new wall-mounted, compact lighting controller from Artistic Licence simplifies customized performance and venue lighting. Artistic Licence's new 'Dimmer-Switch' joins 'Light-Switch' as part of a new range of Wall Mount DMX Controllers.

'Dimmer-Switch' provides the ideal solution for varied lighting requirement in pubs, clubs, conference rooms, retail outlets, trade shows, museum exhibits and domestic environments. Six independent LED illuminated faders are capable of playing back a static look or a dynamic sequence with the seventh 'Grand Master' fader providing overall intensity control.

The output is DMX512 with control over all 512 channels. Housed in a two-gang wall mount panel, Dimmer-Switch has all its electronic components mounted on the rear panel so there's no need for bulky or cumbersome external control boxes. The entire system can be programmed in two ways

UK - CBS News recently decided to move its London studio from Knightsbridge out west to leafy Chiswick and upgrade the studio's lighting rig in the process. CBS called on the services of consultant Alan Bermingham to assist with the specification. His brief was to design the lighting system - including the suspension system, the control system and the luminaire package. he also oversaw the installation, set up the lighting and trained the staff to operate the system.

Bermingham, who spent over 20 years providing training in television lighting at the BBC and is the author of several books on technical TV production, worked closely with David J. Fairweather, CBS' director of operations for Europe to ensure the new studio was capable of meeting all the needs of a live 24-hour television news service. After initial discussions, Bermingham specified an ETC SmartFade compact lighting

USA - A solo tour by Tori Amos is not what immediately comes to mind when thinking about a high technology production, but then again, Tori is anything but predictable. On this month-long tour of US theatres in support of her latest album, The Beekeeper, she performed over 90 different songs - a challenge for all concerned.

"I program, on average, three new songs every afternoon," sighs Dan Boland, Tori's long-time lighting director and, for the last few years, lighting designer. "It keeps the afternoons very interesting." Each night, Boland receives the ever changing set list minutes before Tori takes to the stage. Even then, the set can change midway through a show. Boland, however, incorporates this unpredictability into his design, and this was a key factor is his decision to use video.

"Every time that it's just Tori and a piano on stage, she can

Germany - Sound designer Peter Jehle from Neomy Sound & Light had more than one reason for choosing a Camco-powered Nexo GEO S tangent-array system for the Open Air festival in Reutlingen, south-west Germany.

With more than 60 open microphones on stage, the festival's Classic Night opening event at the Kreuzeiche stadium was a major project. Peter Jehle's first choice of PA was Nexo's GEO S. "Besides the first-class sound characteristics, we were particularly impressed by the compact, inconspicuous shape of the Nexo GEO S system and the fact that the software support enabled the volume in the auditorium to be predicted exactly. That's what convinced us. In retrospect, the sound reinforcement quality was exactly what we expected. On stage, there were as many as 60 open microphones in use simultaneously. That could only be done without great difficulty because of the GEO S sy

Russia - Nearly 100 Robe Show Lighting fixtures of various types have been installed in Moscow's Crystal Casino - one of the largest casinos in Eastern Europe - as part of a major technology upgrade aimed at providing a visually stimulating environment as part of a high quality guest 'experience'.

Crystal has three restaurants, several bars, a nightclub and dancefloor, and offers nightly onstage entertainment including a variety of singers and bands. The club also has its own permanent cabaret/musical show once or twice a week, and the dancefloor is in use five days a week. The new installation was designed by Sasha 'Eagle' Vasilyev - the club's chief LD - and Slava Savin, LD and desk programmer/operator, and undertaken by Moscow-based Light Sound Contractor (LSC), one of Russia's leading installers.

Robe fixtures were chosen for the primary moving light elements of the upgrad

UK - The chain of supply in any industry is a fascinating animal, one mistake or miscalculation along the line can screw up numerous other businesses in that same chain. However, it is something most end users rarely consider.

In the lighting industry one of these links is Mico Lighting. Started in 1972, when it was run from a small unit and an upstairs bedroom in Pudsey, West Yorkshire by Michael Kitching and Colin Durber, it is now one of the largest privately-owned distributors of lamps in the industry and boasts in excess of 100 years of lighting experience by its three directors (Kitching, Durber and Graham Waite-Pullan).

Today, the Pudsey-based company distributes, in the main, to UK-based commercial end users and specialist suppliers from a 30,000sq.m warehouse. The company's dedication to customer support and total quality is the key to its success, say Mico, an ISO 90

Canada - XL Touring Video's Des Fallon from the company's London office and John Wiseman from the Los Angeles office worked together as the video contractor for Coldplay's Twisted Logic Tour 2005. Video content consists of two of the new Barco SLM R12 Plus Performer projectors, a Sony 5 camera system, and a Lighthouse LED screen provided by Pete's T.V.

Production design was conceived by Bryan Leitch, Hangman and Coldplay. Touring on behalf of XL Video is Andy Bramley as video director/creative consultant, Alan Yates as video crew chief, Mark Antonuik as camera man, Jimmy Johnston as projectionist/camera perator and Mark Wilkinson as camera operator. Tour production is under the management of Mark Ward and tour management is Andy Franks. The North American leg of the tour began 2 August in Toronto and wraps up on 9 September in Bristow,Va.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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