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Yates Group is striving to give a more contemporary feel to its traditional Wine Lodges, using the latest technology to add a younger, metropolitan concept to its brand portfolio. The new-look venues will give higher priority to dynamic music and lighting, as demonstrated by the most recent conversion - in Peterborough’s trendy leisure strip, The Broadway.

The Yates Group has a long association with Martin Audio loudspeakers, and the company’s technical manager Les Farmer, had no hesitation in returning to their catalogue to create even coverage across the new 525-capacity, 3000sq.ft bar. The requirement from the designers, Mason Wood Architects, was for discrete lighting and sound reinforcement. Thus four recessed white C516 ceiling speakers, with their own volume control, have been concealed in the far corner chill-out area of the four-zone venue, to complement the eight

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Dutch performer Frans Bauer recently played seven dates at the Ahoy in Rotterdam, the experimental nature of his stage set matching that of the music produced by the vibes/marimba percussionist. The production called on 81sq.m of 25mm LED screen, supplied by Screenco Holland, to present a graphics display in line with the music. But what was so unusual was that this display was set at an angle of 20°, enabling the orchestra to sit within the screen itself, creating a type of virtual décor environment. Explained Screenco’s Jeroen Jongenelen: "At the front of the stage a further 30 modules of 15mm LED screen were set under a plexi-glass floor, allowing the artists to walk over the screen."

This was the first time that a screen had been positioned at an angle of 20° to form a vibrant part of Hub Berkers' imaginative set decor and the overall stage environment. "It

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French PA System manufacturer L-Acoustics has announced the appointment of several new distributors. Representing the company in the territories of Belgium and Luxembourg is ASC, one of the leading multi-brand pro audio distributors in the region, involved in the sale of high quality products as well as complete audio systems since 1978. ASC also designs and services turnkey systems for the pro-audio industry as well as leisure facilities such as theatres, entertainment centres and multi-purpose venues, interior and exterior paging systems for public areas, broadcast radio and TV studios and music recording and AV studios.

On the other side of the world, Random Audio has been appointed as the Australia and New Zealand distributor for L-Acoustics. Random Audio was established in the late 1980s to service a growing demand for consultative services to the Australian professional audio ind

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CT-NEC recently provided an array of AV equipment to the official opening of the newly-built Arup Campus, attended by 500 guests, including the Lady Mayor of Solihull. Arup Group is a multi-disciplinary firm of consulting engineers offering independent advice and innovative designs globally. The new premises based in Solihull accommodate specialist divisions in rail engineering, bridges, geotechnics, advanced technology manufacturing and most recently communications and IT. Despite hosting its own 150-seater auditorium with in house AV facilities, Arup’s AV consultant David Lakin required the assistance CT-NEC to provide Sharp LCD projectors and associated sound systems to relay the events in the auditorium to the remaining guests throughout the building.

Further satellite projectors showed off presentations from each of the specialist divisions within the company. The package wa

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Not content with dragging most of the aristocracy of rock all over the world, EST, probably the best known logistics experts in the industry, can still find time to get involved with other interesting and unusual projects. Currently, EST is touring with Walt Disney around most of the UK's major shopping Malls. Aficionados of Friday night's 'Later . . . with Jools Holland' might, if they were there, spot one of the well known purple and yellow trucks outside the BBC delivering and retrieving all of Jools equipment every Friday night with tireless regularity.

EST were also in the thick of things on 4 November when the World Premiere of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone took place at the Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square. EST trucked in screen support and barricades (by ESS and Mojo), presumably to keep thousands of screaming wannabe wizards back.

Forthcoming attractions for

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Live touring video specialists XL Video were video equipment providers on the highly successful Depeche Mode Exciter world tour, supplying all projection equipment and crew. The tour featured a unique and groundbreaking visual element created by show designer Anton Corbijn. Corbijn has designed the band’s live stage show since 1989, with moving image playing an important and provocative role. Corbijn - a renowned photographer and film-maker in his own right - is a guru on the international arts scene. He has also been involved with producing Depeche Mode's promotional videos, album artwork and graphics.

Lee Charteris, who was responsible for much of the pre-production and team building for the Exciter tour, asked XL Video's Des Fallon to an initial meeting with Corbijn, lighting designer Paul Normandale, set consultant Charlie Kail and himself. They saw Corbijn's stage design, an

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Out Board Electronics, the manufacturer of sound and power control products, is to go into creditors voluntary liquidation. The Cambridge-based company, founded in 1987, has designed and developed a number of audio control systems, most notably the award-winning TiMax matrix system, together with the SS2 fader automation system, the Octopus automated sound effects console and the QP4 manual quad panner. A shareholders’ meeting will be held on 30 November ar 10.30am when a resolution to wind up the company voluntarily will be proposed and a liquidator appointed.

Directors of the company include managing director Robin Whittaker, operations director John Drake and commercial director David Haydon, who joined the company from BSS Audio in July 2000.

Further information can be obtained from chartered accountants Martin Sklan & Co, telephone +44 (0)20 8455 8248

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Peter Boizot MBE, the man who made his fortune from Pizza Express, has unveiled his opulent new leisure extravaganza - a £15 million restoration of Peterborough’s Odeon cinema, as part of a larger, fully-featured leisure complex.

Architect Tim Foster set about fulfilling Boizot’s dream of recapturing the splendour of traditional cinema in a state-of-the-art modern facility.

Strand luminaires, control and networking components form the lighting backbone in the 1,200-capacity art deco auditorium - specified by Northern Light, who won a competitive tender issued by Theatre Projects Consultants. Northern Light also undertook all the house electrical contracting, working with builder Marriot Construction, while for the specialist lighting they reported directly to Peter Boizot’s company, Mistvalley Ltd over the duration of the 10-month contract. The lighting designer on

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TSC Music has announced a new partnership with Smith and Western Restaurants. TSC recently fitted out Smith and Western’s restaurant at Boxhill, Surrey with a state-of-the-art Hard Disc music management system to select and play the finest in country music to enhance the restaurant’s ambience. TSC will also be providing similar music systems to restaurants at Chichester and Horsham in the near future.

Douglas Scheller, TSC account manager for Smith and Western said: "When Smith & Western met TSC at a recent exhibition they were looking for a music system that was not only more reliable than their existing CD players but one that could virtually run itself. They also required very specialist country and western music to create the correct atmosphere in their authentic American themed restaurants. The perfect solution was our soundserver hard disc player, which is design

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Well-known American lighting designer Warren Flynn knows what it's like to be behind a lighting desk when the power suddenly cuts out. This is exactly what happened when Mercury Record's new signing Andrew WK appeared at 'the garage' in north London on the evening of Tuesday 23 October 2001. As Andrew and his band took the stage, a band member accidentally kicked a trip on a distribution unit feeding power to the front of house position. Fortunately, Flynn had specified an MA Lighting grandMA console and as the power disappeared the console instantly switched over to its integral uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and a screen message alerted Warren to the situation, giving him the option to save the show data or continue working for up to 15 minutes. During this time a technician was dispatched to the stage and quickly realized where the problem lay and restored the power. Flynn comment

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As part of an on-going strategic review of the services offered to clients, Earls Court & Olympia Limited (EC&O) has announced new arrangements for the provision of rigging services in its venues. Following a competitive tendering process, EC&O has appointed Unusual Rigging as exclusive supplier of rigging services for Earls Court, whilst at the same time awarding the Olympia contract to Outback Rigging. The contracts will be three-year rolling appointments, which will be reviewed annually. "We are determined to provide our customers with the very best levels of service and delivery. By appointing different companies we believe that we will be able to get real focus in each venue. Unusual and Outback are perfectly placed to provide the levels of service we’re looking for," commented Jon Sellins, group halls director for EC&O.

As a new supplier to EC&O, Mark Surtees, man

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Autograph Sound Recording, the Londonbased theatre sound design and equipment rental specialists, have recently built a substantial portfolio of work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, including the forthcoming musical premier of Alice in Wonderland, which opens at the Barbican Theatre on 13 November.

Andrew Bruce, Autograph's founder and Chairman has co-designed Alice in Wonderland with Autograph's Matt McKenzie. This beautiful family production will transfer to Stratford just in time for Christmas. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, another RSC musical production, is being revived this winter at London's Sadlers Wells and is designed by Terry Jardine, Autograph's managing director.

While these two musical productions benefit from Autograph's design and equipment rental supply, four other RSC plays are currently on tour with an Autograph sound and communications system. T

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O-Town, one of the music industry's biggest success stories this year, recently filmed one of their live shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City for an upcoming, MTV-produced DVD. The band signed with J records last September as the grand finale to their first season as stars of ABC's 'Making the Band'. The original touring show, which was lit by Ted Downing and programmed by Joe Allegro, used 18 Martin 918s, 28 MAC 500s and 14 MAC 600s, supplied through Premier Global Productions. For the recording of the New York concert, MTV producers Jackie French & Chris Williams brought in John Broderick to flesh out the design for television with gaffer Michael Callahan looking after the additional rig brought in for the filming.

Broderick's main concern was to keep the lighting in check for the seven isolated cameras: "All the cameras were simultaneously recording, to give the d

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Known for decades as ‘Hollywood’s talent factory,’ the legendary Pasadena Playhouse launched the careers of dozens of notable actors, writers and directors. But in recent years, the Playhouse’s ageing audio system had fallen far short of the venue’s tradition of excellence. To design a new system on rather short notice, Tom Ware, producing director for the Playhouse, called on independent sound designer and audio engineer Rick Boot. Working closely with Lori Burke at Delicate Productions in Camarillo, Boot created a system design based around Martin Audio Wavefront loudspeakers. The main left and right systems each comprise two Martin Wavefront W8C full-range three-way cabinets augmented by a single W8CS bass cabinet. A removable centre cluster utilizes two Martin Wavefront Theatre WT3 three-way systems. Sub-bass comes from a pair of discreetly-placed Martin

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Wybron has announced that its colour scrollers have been specified for Kiss Me Kate, which recently opened at Victoria Palace Theatre. Cole Porter’s famous masterpiece is a play within a play, featuring a theatrical company rehearsing and producing Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Transferring from Broadway, where it swept away the best part of the Tony Awards as well as several Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, Kiss Me Kate has received glittering reviews. Lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski was also shortlisted for this year’s Tony Awards for Kiss Me Kate - but beat himself to win for his remarkable design for the Broadway hit The Producers.

Lighting rental company White Light was chosen to supply a large rig based around ETC Source Fours, fitted with 80 Wybron Coloram IIs which created the varying atmospheres in the mu

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On September 15, 2001, exactly a year since the start of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Sydney’s Olympic Cauldron was re-kindled in its new, permanent home at Homebush Bay.

The cauldron was re-lit to beating drums and resounding cheers in The Overflow Park on Olympic Boulevard. The stainless steel bowl will stand as a permanent reminder of the success of the Games. The project was conceived and designed by Barry Webb, Iain Clark and Fiona McVicar of Barry Webb & Associates, with Show Technology’s architectural products manager Jonathan Ciddor assisting with the configuration, control and integration. Installer Beyond AV was responsible for the co-ordination, installation and programming of the lighting system.

The cauldron sits upon a concrete slab at ground level and beneath it is a large chamber, 5 metres deep, housing the lighting equipment, pumping and gas controls,

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A cast of hundreds, with armies, horses, camels and even an eagle: this was the ‘mega-opera’ spectacular ‘Aida’ staged for a sell-out crowd of 78,000 at the Stade de France in Paris. The huge circular football stadium, home to the last World Cup, is an unusual setting for Verdi’s monumental opera, but Dutch production company Companions Opera took full advantage of the 75m x 120m pitch, presenting a 130-piece choir, the 90-piece Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, and more than 550 extras.

Louis Buskens was responsible for the choir (from the Sofia Opera House in Bulgaria), who would be moving around as well as singing during the performance. The job of choreography was critical because of the microphone technique: a DPA 4061 miniature mic was mounted on the shoulder of every fourth choir member, for his or her own voice and that of three other singers. S

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The Training Initiative, White Light's popular training and education scheme, has enjoyed a successful autumn, with a further 25 different training courses scheduled in the run-up to Christmas. Many of these courses will take advantage of extra room and facilities offered by the White Light Group's new building in Wimbledon; others will see the Training Initiative visiting other venues around the UK. "We feel that training is essential, but currently undervalued in the industry. At White Light we believe we should be offering a complete service, and our Training Initiative - whether providing a course on a control desk or a seminar by one of our industry's leading lighting designers - is a vital part of that service," says Jason Larcombe, White Light's training co-ordinator.

Recent courses have included the regular Strand 500-Series training courses, covering different levels

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Marquee Audio hs supplied a Trantec S5000 8-way radio system - including CTX handheld transmitters, active antenna distribution units (ADUs) and splitters - as part of a communications upgrade at The International Convention Centre in Birmingham. Currently celebrating its 10th anniversary, the ICC is a long-standing customer of Marquee Audio, who in turn are main dealers for the Trantec award-winning UHF diversity systems. The order was placed by the venue's technical facilities manager, Paul Dipple, for use in the main Hall 1 of their 11-hall complex. "We use several radio systems throughout the Centre and we systematically identify products for upgrade," said Dipple. "In this instance price wasn’t an issue - we bought the Trantecs purely on the quality of the product."

Having carried out their own research the ICC arrived at their decision after witnessing t

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Nearly four months after revealing its new 37,000sq.ft corporate headquarters in High Wycombe, AC Lighting announces a major opportunity for people with limited budgets to acquire a diverse range of items at substantially reduced prices. The completion of the task to relocate all of the stock from the company's previous locations and the introduction of a sophisticated computerized stock management system has revealed a substantial number of items which are now surplus to requirements. The items on offer include luminaires, Par cans, moving lights, followspots, control equipment, smoke machines, trussing, stands, rack cabinets, flightcases and general lighting equipment and associated accessories. These items are ex-demonstration, ex-showroom, ex-rental equipment as well as a wide range of new equipment.

A full list of the items on offer can be obtained by contacting Jonathan Walters (

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SigNET AC Ltd, an electronics manufacturer in Tyne and Wear has been named North East regional winner in the Trade Partners UK National Languages for Export Awards 2001, in the category for small business, sponsored by NCM credit Insurance. The company won the award for noticeably changing its attitude and ways of doing business in a number of export markets.

The company which specializes in the design and manufacture of voice alarm, paging and background music systems, believed that early exporting initiatives were conducted tentatively. Richard Sice, marketing manager said: "In order to be more competitive in international markets we have taken a strategic approach to the use of our human resources and polices. We have taken steps to hire people with native language skills and also to employ UK graduates who have studied a foreign language. In addition, we are taking a fresh loo

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Adam Hall has announced the opening of their new Spanish sales office, based in Barcelona. The company has been targeting the Spanish market for the past two years in preparation for this event and says it is confident, even in the current economic climate, that this is the right way forward. The Spanish sales office contact is Gabriel Medrano Bultel, known as 'G' to his friends and colleagues. Bultel has been with Adam Hall for two years and has become and important member of the team in this time.

Adam Hall can be reached in Spain on tel: +34 93 213 3644.

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PCI LiveDesign, the London-based production company which recently merged with Ultimate Events, was commissioned in October for two Microsoft events. Following a long-standing working relationship with Ultimate Events combined with the success of Blackout Triple E’s involvement with the Microsoft Tech-Ed Conference 2001 in Barcelona, PCI LiveDesign again contracted Blackout Triple E, and project manager Chris Brain, for the project in Cannes.

Brain and his six-strong team made the journey to stylish Cannes to drape a drinks reception and party as part of a weeklong Microsoft conference. The theme required the team to turn their hands to more unusual drapes - plastic fish, to compliment the famous Palm Beach. The company also provided and installed 30 fibre optic starcloths (proving that it isn’t just at the annual Film Festival where the Stars come out in force), as well as

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In the wake of the recent launch of Midas's latest innovation, the Legend 3000, the Klark Teknik Group hosted a two-day event at their Kidderminster factory for over 30 customers of EVI France in order to introduce them to the new console. The company also took the opportunity to present an in-depth, hands-on demonstration of the Klark Teknik DN9848 loudspeaker processor, as well as give their guests a full factory tour.

Guest enjoyed both presentations and the factory tour with ample opportunities for Q&A sessions in just one afternoon. Delegates were shown a full DVD presentation of the new Legend console in French, and French-speaking staff were on hand throughout in order to minimize communication difficulties. According to EVI France's Cecile Dehlinger: "Events like this where we can really concentrate one-on-one with our customers and offer them the opportunity to meet the m

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