Italy - On 8 May, a large delegation from the British association of directors of photography (STLD) visited the Italian Public television (RAI) studios, for an interesting exchange of experiences with the company management and their professional counterparts.

The STLD (Society of Television Lighting and Design) visit was made possible by Clay Paky, which has been profitably working for years with the British association and, most recently, has partnered with it in organising the annual competition called The Clay Paky Knight of Illumination. The competition gives awards to the best British LDs in the TV, theatre and live event sectors.

The professional relationship between Clay Paky and RAI is equally well consolidated. It is based on mutual respect that has built up ov

Channel Islands - Since its inception in 1985, the Guernsey Awards for Achievement has focused on celebrating corporate and personal success. Now in its 23rd year, the initiative continues to attract the interest and support of companies and individuals island-wide.

This year's event reached its climax recently at a glittering Awards gala evening, held at Beau Sejour Leisure Centre; attended by close on 800 people it again proved to be the highlight of the Island's corporate calendar.

Production company Joy's were brought in to provide the spectacular projection backdrop. The company fielded Christie's high-definition projectors and Vista Spyder dynamic processing as part of a purpose-designed show, created and produced in Joy's own '3DLive' graphics system.

Joy's supplied an impressive 20m widescreen, centred on the landscape side of the room, and constructed from floor to

UK - MTFX expanded in to additional new premises earlier this year in order to improve the storage facilities for its extensive range of equipment.

The new unit has meant that all the storage and customer areas have been re-arranged so that they now have a demonstration area for their Aquagraphics water screen where it can be viewed by potential clients, together with storage and a demonstration area for the new high voltage special effects equipment.

There are also larger storage and maintenance areas for the ranges of confetti and special effects equipment enabling them to carry an increased stock holding. All contact details remain the same.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Technomad LLC reports that the local government for Coweta County Georgia in suburban Atlanta is using three Technomad Turnkey PA systems within its Fairgrounds and Conference Centre. The organisation recently installed two 70-volt Turnkey systems inside the Conference Centre for events covering 6,000sq.ft of meeting and exhibit space, delivering intelligible voice and high-quality musical audio to attendees.

According to Tom Corker, administrative and operations director for Coweta County Georgia, the new Technomad 70-volt systems replaced a poor quality in-ceiling audio system. The decision to upgrade to Technomad was partially based on the longevity of the outdoor Turnkey PA system in operation since 2004 at the W.C. Adamson Horse Arena, an uncovered horse arena show ring with large spectator and concessions areas.

"The outdoor system has been untouched since ins

Canada - Ross Video has officially announced Blackmagic Design's partnership to expand the openGear terminal equipment platform.

Blackmagic Design manufactures video editing products, converters, and routers for the post production and television broadcast industries. Blackmagic introduced eight new converters that support the openGear platform at NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) that will be shipping July 2009.

"We are excited to be part of the openGear platform," said Grant Petty, CEO, Blackmagic Design. "Our high quality converters fully support the openGear rackframe standard, making us compatible with a wide range of third party equipment from openGear partners worldwide."

"We are pleased with the addition of Blackmagic Design to the openGear platform," said Stephane Gauthier, marketing product manager - openGear Platform, Ross Vi

USA - Medialon has been selected to go on tour with Tina Turner, the eight-time Grammy Award winner. The star has recently made her long-awaited return to arenas with more than 80 dates scheduled throughout North America and across Europe.

The mission for Nocturne Productions - the production crew - was simple and challenging at the same time: make the stage show as powerful and exciting as the performer herself.

Tina's Production selected Geodezik - a video content designer and producer company - who put their trust in Nocturne Productions and Medialon to be part of the project for the video installation.

On stage, a large, 27ft high and 36ft wide LSI-Saco V9 LED wall has been specially designed with motion control to split into eight movable sections. An array of 80 Clay Paky Alpha Beam 300 fixtures appears when the LED wall splits.

A single Medialon Manager V5 Show & Me

Egypt - The Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh, as well as being one of Egypt's top tourist destinations, hosts the region's most sophisticated conference facilities, in the shape of the Maritim Sharm El Sheikh International Congress Center, whose 2,000 main conference hall been equipped with a Renkus-Heinz Iconyx Digitally Steerable Array loudspeaker system.

Since its opening, the Congress Center has hosted numerous glittering occasions, including the International Conference of Foreign Ministers on Iraq Security and the World Economic Forum Conference. At the heart of this gathering place for politicians and power brokers, operated by the German Maritim Hotel Company, is its 2,000 seat main hall, fully equipped for world-wide broadcast and teleconferencing.

With a demand for high speech intelligibility and clear sightlines for TV cameras, its main stage has been equipped with

UK - The new M-48 personal monitor systems from RSS by Roland have made their debut in the UK, providing direct mix control for band musicians of the Life Church in Folkestone, Kent, and playing a key role in an extensive AV refurbishment being implemented by installer Midas ProSound.

The dynamic Life Church ministry regularly reaches capacity with nearly 800 people attending every Sunday. Growing congregation sizes, and an increasing focus on music and performance in its services, led the Church into consultation with Midas ProSound, the Salisbury-based installation specialists, who helped them draw up an extensive upgrade schedule for all audio and video facilities.

Midas ProSound was able to provide the team from Life Church with system designs and in-situ demonstrations of all the main components save for one: the M-48 personal monitor mixers from RSS which, together with

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France - Richard McHardy has joined Innovision as business development director and becomes part of the Innovision senior management team.

Richard's key responsibility will be to further develop and implement Innovison's new business strategy domestically and internationally.

Andrew Douglass, chief executive, Innovision said: "Richard has had a very successful career to date and worked with some of the best agencies in the industry. I believe he is one of the best and very much at the top of his game. I am just delighted to welcome him to Innovision, where I know he will thrive."

"I am really impressed and excited by the culture and vision at Innovision, which are very much in tune with my own aspirations" said McHardy. "The breadth and quality of work the company is producing is genuinely exciting and I believe the new business potential is exponent

UK - 5 Star cases has supplied a flight case solution for the 2009 BBC's Blast on Tour outreach project, which is undertaking a 7 month tour visiting 27 cities around the UK.

Blast on Tour is a programme of workshops and activities supporting the development of creative skills in 13 to 19-year-olds which takes place in and around the BBC Blast Truck and performance marquee 'village' which is established at each new site.

The flightcase project included a selection of standard and custom cases from 5 Star to cover a number of areas in the whole physical Blast On Tour set up, including the first-point-of-contact registration and reception area.

"We needed a special set of cases for this," explains Tony Kavanagh, operations manager for Blast On Tour. "They needed to look good and accommodate all the necessary equipment, tools and mater

The Netherlands - The recently launched Prolyte Space Roof saw its first use during the Liberation day concerts in Zwolle, the Netherlands.

"Setting up a new roof system with these huge dimensions within four days, without even a trial build, is a daring accomplishment! We would not have taken this risk with any other company than Prolyte," explained the owner of the Prolyte Space roof, Gino Spijkerman of Interstage, shortly before the concert started.

Prolyte engineers Marc Hendriks and Ruud de Deugd were responsible for getting the roof ready for the show. "Ideas and negotiations for this roof started a couple of months back, but coming close to the final building and seeing it all come together, still is a thrill. Even though you are 100% certain of the design and the materials and every detail is calculated through and through, with a roof with these dimensi

Australia - The Exchange Hotel, built in 1863, has become one of Brisbane's most iconic venues. Located in the centre of the CBD, the building has undergone many changes but none as impressive and extensive as the renovations completed this year. Under the guidance of renowned architects Brand & Slater, the Exchange aims to set the standard for Brisbane establishments. With a multi-million refurbishment, sophisticated ambience, cutting-edge AV equipment and a new and exclusive roof top terrace, the Exchange Hotel is set to revitalize the inner city social scene.

With responsibility for the audio design, JVG Sound Lighting & Visual recommended a Crown driven JBL sound system. "JBL has such a good sound and offers a really competitive price," said Jade Golar, managing director of JVG. "We've been using JBL powered by Crown on quite a few installs. We've also been us

UK - After two sold-out seasons at the National Theatre, the atmospheric and emotional War Horse, directed by Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris, is now playing at the New London Theatre in the West End.

The award-winning hit show is based on a poignant book by Michael Morpurgo and has reopened to resounding success. The book was inspired by a conversation with a First World War veteran in Morpurgo's home village in Devon, and relates the extraordinary journeys of Joey, a horse sold to the cavalry, and his inconsolable young owner, Albert, who sets outs on a mission to rescue his much-loved animal companion from the trenches and killing fields of war-torn France.

War Horse was designed with the drum revolve stage in the Oliver Theatre at the National in mind; however, when the production moved to the New London Theatre, different stage dimensions and dynamics had to

UK - Trantec, the UK wireless microphone manufacturer, has introduced the latest addition to their popular Racked'n'Ready range. Compact, rugged, and extremely user-friendly, the S5.3 Cube has been designed to fill the needs of wireless mic users who prefer not to be overwhelmed with complex arrays of sound equipment, says the company.

This 1/2U system comes ready installed with 4 UHF channels of Trantec S5.3 which can operate up to 12 simultaneous channels within an 11MHz window (854-865MHz). An antenna distribution unit is included, and built-in mains distribution provides power to each receiver and the ADU. For larger events a remote antenna kit is also available.

Both handheld and beltpack transmitters operate for up to 10 hours on a single AA battery, and computer monitoring software means that users benefit from realtime system status. "The S5.3 is already recognise

UK - Lighting designer Kevin Adams put MA Lighting's grandMA consoles to extensive use at the Al Hirschfeld Theater when Hair reappeared on Broadway.

The production, which the New York Times called "an emotionally rich revival," is innovative from a lighting perspective because the team chose to program the conventional lights, automated lights and LEDs from a single platform, the grandMA console. This enabled the production team to have fewer consoles on site during set up and rehearsals and allowed the programmers to work on any console at any time while always having specific access to their part of the rig.

"We decided to run the whole show off the grandMA for two reasons," says Aaron Sporer, Hair's associate lighting designer. "It was more cost-effective than renting two moving light consoles and a conventional light console. And by

USA - The surviving members of The Grateful Dead have just completed their first tour in almost five years. The space themed lighting design - featured 108 rectangular PixelArc compact wash luminaires and 21 PixelLine 110 wash battens. The six-piece, which now calls itself simply The Dead - hit the road in April, playing 19 shows across 16 cities across the USA.

Lighting designer Dan English has worked with the band on and off since 1982. Over the decades, English has experienced the evolution of rock and roll lighting and toured with many pioneering fixtures. The Dead are famous for their psychedelic shows and their lighting rigs have continuously boasted the latest technology.

English reports, "The band wanted a space theme. This tour was scheduled for arenas selling 360° - so the entire scenic concept was limited to the overhead lighting rig. The design had to offe

USA - Work was proceeding normally in the design and construction of the new 550-seat sanctuary for the Vineyard Church in Duluth, Minnesota, when something unexpected occurred. Dan Redman, president of Spinnaker Multimedia Solutions (Malvern, PA), audio-video-lighting (AVL) integrator for the project, reports, "Everything had been moving forward nicely when the builder hit bedrock in the foundation causing a delay in the project. About that time, our rep called to say Allen & Heath had announced the iLive-T at the NAMM show. We looked at the specs, looked at the numbers and realised the digital console we'd been waiting for had finally arrived, and we would be able to have it installed by the Easter launch of the new facility."

The Vineyard Church does a contemporary rock presentation, with two guitars, keyboards, bass and drums, usually with three vocalists. With a l

UK - The new musical production of Oscar winning Australian movie The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of The Desert at London's Palace Theatre has a grandMA full-size console controlling the moving lighting rig.

The show's lighting design has been created by Nick Schlieper, and the stage adaptation, Priscilla Queen of the Desert - The Musical was initially premiered at the Star Casino in Sydney in late 2006. From there, it toured Australia and New Zealand before coming to London, where it is being produced by Back Row Productions and the Really Useful Group (RUG).

Lighting equipment is being supplied by PRG, and freelance programmer Stuart Porter was asked by RUG to programme the moving and intelligent lighting components on to a grandMA. Porter has a wealth of experience and many West End productions under his belt, however this is the first time he's programmed

The Netherlands - With more than 20,000 in the audience and not a spare seat in the house, Nick & Simon used its 9 and 10 May Rotterdam performances to cement their status as the hottest act in the Netherlands. The tumultuous reception that followed the pair's performance on the second night seemed to last forever - an indication of the passion the duo inspires. The venue's management reported the applause was the longest any act has ever received in the Ahoy.

The success of the two concerts was due largely to the outstanding sound quality provided by Triple Show Techniek, the same company that recently provided reinforcement to the successful Jan Smit concerts in the same arena. To create the best possible sonic environment the Techniek team employed an extensive and highly sophisticated sound system from Electro-Voice. The concert rig included X-Line and XLC array cabinets, TG

Italy - Audio system provider Madema SpA deployed a large, multi-array JBL Vertec system for the Primo Maggio festival in Rome on 1 May. The free annual public event commemorates the Italian Labour Day. Held in Rome's Piazza San Giovanni in Laterano, the temporary stage for Primo Maggio is traditionally set up in front of the historic Basilica of St. John Lateran, the first church to be built in Rome, with first construction dating to 313 A.D.

Once each year the historic religious site comes to life as hundreds of thousands of live music fans converge on the plaza. Many arrive early, camping in the square to claim the best seats. This year's event drew a crowd estimated at more than one million spectators, largely due to the special appearance by legendary rock singer Vasco Rossi. In addition to Rossi and his band, performers for 2009 included Edoardo Bennato, Alessandro Mannari

UK/France - Rosco has announced that it has acquired Paris-based GobosFactory. Joanna Shapley, France development manager at Rosco says: "We believe in investing when times are tough. This is an excellent move on our part, in the right place at the right time. It is a perfect match to enhance synergies and values for both companies."

Rosco and GobosFactory have united their efforts and resources and, combined with its existing market share for custom gobos in France, this acquisition now gives Rosco a solid position in the French gobo-market.

GobosFactory are the French market leaders for custom gobos. Their manufacturing capabilities will now be expanded with Rosco's worldwide production processes. With the high demands of the live events- and television market, Rosco/GobosFactory are well equipped to meet these high-quality demands and significantly reduce delays f

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