Robe - Leaderboard - 27 Aug25 - Jan26

Business

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Star Hire Event Services supplied its Vertech 25 metre stage to ClearChannel for Ozzfest at Donington during May and was the first UK staging company to install a safety net fall arrest system.

Twenty artists appeared across two stages, whilst 48,000 heavy metal devotees partied hard as Castle Donington was reclaimed by the new generation of rock fans. As well as protecting the bands, the 25-metre Vertech stage protected the PA and monitor system (supplied by Audio Rent), the huge lighting rig (supplied by Light & Sound Design) and gave the production team plenty of room to prepare equipment to ensure the tight schedule of 10 bands was kept on time throughout the day. The main stage area was then extended with Vertech PA towers, which flanked the stage and housed 28 tons of Clair Brothers’ PA. Outside of these were the screen supports housing Screenco’s LED screens, and cre

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The Queen's Award for Enterprise 2002 was presented to Theatre Projects Consultants in the Vanbrugh Theatre at the Royal Academy for Performing Arts (RADA) on 12th June 2002. The presentation was made by Major Charles Winstanley on behalf of HM the Queen to Richard Pilbrow, chairman and David Staples, managing director of Theatre Projects Consultants.

The Queen's Award is conferred each year upon a limited number of companies for international trade, innovation or sustainable development. Over 150 guests attended the presentation including Lord Attenborough, the President of the Royal Academy of Performing Arts, and many people from the theatrical and architectural professions.

(Ruth Rossington)

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A new feature film The Water Giant has just completed shooting in one of the more remote locations on earth - around Queenstown, South Island, New Zealand - under the direction of UK veteran John Henderson. As the name suggests, the film was shot in and around boats and production sound mixer Tony Johnson was kept busy managing a complex Audio Ltd multi-mic set-up often on a rolling boat.

Johnson - whose impressive list of film sound credits include The Piano and Hercules - recently purchased the RK4 system from Sound Techniques in Auckland, New Zealand. The Water Giant required a lot of radio boom since running a cable was not practical. With two cameras being used, overlapping dialogue and Henderson keen to retain as much original sound as possible, there was also a lot of radio mic use. "The Audio Ltd system was essential for retaining as much of the original sound as possible,

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From its now established base at the Royal Horticultural Halls in London, the ABTT Show continues to underline its role as a key event for the theatre industry. The trade show, which took place last week, attracted well over 100 exhibitors from across the wide spectrum of supplies and services, as a result pulling in over 2,500 visitors.

ABTT’s emphasis on training and education was demonstrated by the wide-ranging seminar programme which accompanied the event, but the highlight was the ABTT Dinner staged on the first evening where Major Sir Michael Parker, famed for his work on such events as the Royal Tournament and more recently All the Queens Horses, was the guest speaker. The Awards announced during the Dinner recognized the work of sound designer Andrew Bruce of Autograph Sound who collected a Lifetime Achievement Award, whilst the Technician of the Year award went to Nick

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Wybron has added two Scandinavian lighting companies to its worldwide dealer network - Bico Professional A/S in Denmark and Stockholm Lighting in Sweden.

One of Sweden's leading lighting sales companies, Stockholm Lighting had been looking to add colour changers to its existing range of lighting equipment for some time and negotiations with Wybron were finalised this spring. Originally concentrating on selling lighting equipment to the film and TVindustries, Bico expanded into the theatrical market in 1999 and has been looking to extend this part of its product range ever since. After making initial contact with Wybron at last year's NAB show, Bico now has a range of Wybron's lighting accessories in stock.

(Lee Baldock)

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Britannia Row really pushed the boat out for the PSA, transforming its London warehouse into a mini venue for a PSA Get Together on the evening of June 12th. Mike Lowe and Bryan Grant demonstrated their corporate hospitality expertise, laying on food and drink and providing audio and visual entertainment for the near 100 attendees. Brit Row’s warehouse, usually home to flightcases and equipment was completely cleared and 'dressed' so that it resembled a well appointed night club. No mean feat!

Guests ranged from well-known industry figures to those at the beginning of their careers: whatever their background or experience, the evening gave an opportunity for everyone to mix and talk over the recent Jubilee celebrations. £400 was raised for the Welfare & Benevolent Fund in a raffle organised by Brit Row with prizes donated by Telex Shuttlesound, Yamaha and Brit Row.

(Lee Baldoc

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The annual music industry Great Googly Challenge cricket event, which raises money for the Music Therapy Charity, will be bigger and better than ever this year thanks to the addition of two extra teams. Eight teams will compete in the one-day league that takes part at the Brondesbury Cricket Club, North London, on Thursday August 22, 2002. Teams already confirmed include event sponsors Pro Tape, last year¹s winners Sanctuary, the FX Group, Arrogant Behaviour, Jolly Singh and Sky Broadcast.

The money raising efforts will be assisted by a raffle with high value prizes, including some exceptional prizes that will be announced on the day. Pro Tape’s ’Butcher’ Bob Matthews will be manning the BBQ again, with all proceeds going to charity. Nick Dimes, one of the event organisers and managing director of PR agency Dimes & Sillitoe (who will be playing for the FX Group) say

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A pair of giant Lighthouse LED video screens are relaying the World Cup action throughout the tournament to fans outside the Korean Convention Centre in Seoul. Two 5.12x3.84, 20sq.m 20mm pixel pitch Lighthouse outdoor screens have been erected on behalf of Korean Telecomm Corporation in Seoul by AV rental company Hibino Korea and have been in use since the opening ceremony and will continue until the final itself on June 30.

KT Corporation is one of the World Cup’s sponsors and has secured rights to provide the screens, which are officially sanctioned by world football body FIFA. Seoul was the venue for the World Cup’s first match, when France faced Senegal. Jimmy Lo, at Lighthouse’s Hong Kong office, commented: "It’s a fantastic honour that Lighthouse screens have been chosen to show the tournament in Korea during the World Cup."

(Lee Baldock)

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Entec Sound & Light has purchased its first Yamaha PM1D digital mixing console. The desk’s first outing will come with the series of David Bowie performances planned for the summer. At the helm will be Pablo Wheeler as front of house sound engineer and desk technician Tristan Johnson.

The addition of the PM1D to Entec’s stock, complements a growing list of audio control systems which now includes the Midas’s XL4, Heritage 3000, XL3 and XL200, along with desks from the Soundcraft range. These are accompanied by a stock of d&b audiotechnik loudpeakers and amplifiers, together with the legendary Entec manufactured APW212 Floor Monitors.

Established in the late 1960s, Entec provides sound, lighting and production services to the concert touring industry, and has grown over the years to service TV, concerts, conferences, theatre, exhibitions and outdoor events.

(Ruth R

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The festival season kicked in for DPL Production Lighting at Maldon in Essex, for the Maldon Promenade two-day event, staged against the picturesque backdrop of the tidal River Blackwater.

The festival was production managed by the redoubtable Dick Tee, who was engaged in other projects when the site build started, so the co-ordination of the Maldon event fell to his associate Laura Sands. DPL were called in to suppy lighting production for the fifth time. The first night had a pop cabaret theme and starred Jaki Graham, Rose Royce (with Gwen Dickey) and The Three Degrees, rounded off with a specially choreographed Techno Show son et lumière number, complete with fireworks and projection, directed by Sean Canning from Hotcakes UK. The following event was dedicated to popular classics.

DPL’s lighting rig was shaped to follow the curves of the Orbit stage (supplied by Serious Str

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The newly renamed Warehouse nightclub, on Friar Gate in Derby, has just taken delivery of a Nexo Alpha E system supplied by Showcom Audio. The system comprises four stacks of Alpha E driven by the new lightweight Vortex 6 amplifiers from Camco with Klark Teknik EQ. An NX241 digital controller from Nexo completes the line-up.

Mike Symes, the club’s owner, commented: "This system represents a great investment for us. The audio quality of an underground club like ours is hugely important. With a lot of the larger clubs down-sizing, potential customers/promoters need a venue of this size to build up a solid core of faithful punters. With resident DJ Jools associated with the club it can only strengthen our position in this market as a growing high quality venue. This is reflected in the fact that we’re the only club in Derby to be granted a 6am licence every Friday and Sat

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News has come in this week that Nexus Media (part of the Highbury House Communications Group) has decided to put on hold the publication of two of its titles serving this industry - Live! and Disco International (DI) - part of the portfolio which also includes DJ magazine and Making Music. Both titles are well known in the industry - DI has been one of the main magazines addressing the late night venue market, whilst Live! has concentrated on the live performance industry.

Although we’ve contacted Nexus for comment, there has been no official announcement from the company as to why the decision has been taken. We’ll feature more on this story in our July issue.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Bandit Lites UK supplied lighting to the European section of Neil Young’s latest ‘Are You Passionate’ tour, which visited Brixton Academy for two nights as part of an extensive European jaunt.

Despite his worldwide profile and his stage presence, Young is relatively shy as a performer, always wearing a hat onstage, and disliking spotlights so LD Keith Wissmar, who has worked with Young for nine years, has his work cut out. The tone of the Are You Passionate tour - a retro Motown style - much softer and more rounded than much of the material that Young has produced in the past, inspired Wissmar to design a pseudo 1960/70’s TV set look into his show lighting, typical of the US Bandstand teenage music shows of that era. Simple in presentation when compared to the slick productions of today, they nonetheless yielded a certain aesthetic charm. Wissmar reproduced this

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The British Airways London Eye was turned Gold between 31st May until 9th June to highlight a charity fundraising initiative over the Jubilee period. Once again, Park Avenue Productions, working with producer Ajay Parekh and lighting designer Paul Cook, called on the services of Vari-Lite Europe. Cook specified a rig of 80 VL5 Arcs at the base of the Eye, to create a gold wash capable of dynamic colour and intense chases in harmony with the many Jubilee beacons being lit around the country.

Paul Cook commented: "The combination of the Whole Hog control system, pre-focusing work in Vari-Lite Europe’s WYSIWYG suite and the use of the VL5 Arcs enabled a stunning sequence of looks to be created with only limited on-site time. The shimmering golden effect was created with complex sequences of fast colour changes. The 10-day run of this event meant that we had to take tidal chang

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A.C.T Lighting Inc dealer, C.I. Tronics of Blumenau, Brazil, recently staged the first in a series of workshops at the highly regarded ‘Chips’ music venue in Porto Alegre in the South of Brazil. The workshop tour is to publicize the Zero 88 Frog range of consoles to Brazilian lighting professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds. The highlight of the workshop was a live performance by a local band with the automated lighting controlled by a Fat Frog console.

The Frog range of consoles offers low cost, high quality moving light and conventional control while maintaining and simple and intuitive operating syntax. Amongst the assorted professionals checking out the range of consoles from the Frog to the Bull Frog were designers from the State Theatre, a large number of representatives of local lighting rental and production companies and music venues, as well a sprinkling

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In conjunction with French company Skylight, Fourth Phase London has taken on board the new CE marked and approved Syncrolite SX3K, to add to its already extensive rental stock. The automated SX3K has been developed to meet the needs of lighting designers, directors and producers of tours, film premieres, festivals and major events. A compact, high-performance fixture, the SX3K is the only 3000W Xenon searchlight that can be either suspended head down from truss, or used on the ground in the traditional way.

The new Syncrolites were specified by Durham Marenghi and supplied by Fourth Phase to bring the Queen Victoria Memorial to life and to back-light its fountains for the Queen's Jubilee celebrations, as well as highlighting performances on two stages each side of The Mall outside Buckingham Palace. Fourth Phase also used the fixtures on the recent Destiny's Child tour. Their next sto

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Over 100,000 Irish fans welcomed their team home from the world cup following their 3-2 defeat in a penalty shoot-out against Spain. A special concert was organized in Dublin's Phoenix Park, where manager Mick McCarthy and the Irish players received a rapturous reception from loyal fans. The event, including a headline performance from Westlife, was put together in just four days by Mikam Sound and Britannia Row with event management from Aiken Promotions.

"We were working against the clock from the moment we received our first call from Aiken on Friday morning and realized that there wasn't enough equipment available in Ireland to handle an event of this magnitude," said sound designer Paul Aungier. "By Saturday lunchtime we had confirmed Brit Row's involvement with their X-Line rig, but it meant the truck would have to set off before we knew the outcome of the match! S

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The Ambassador Theatre Group (ATG) and Glasgow City Council have signed the deal awarding the management contract and a 21-year lease of the King’s Theatre to ATG. As a result, the company takes over the operation of the theatre on 28 September 2002, the date of contract completion.

Rosemary Squire, executive director at ATG said: "We are delighted that all the negotiations have been concluded successfully, and we are very much looking forward to taking this historic theatre forward under the guidance of the new chief executive David Williams and his team." ATG’s central aim for the King’s is to present high quality and accessible entertainment. This means programming well-known musicals, popular drama, variety, comedy, amateur productions, work for children and a traditional Scottish pantomime. The autumn season therefore includes visits from West Side

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D.A.S. Audio reinforced its international network recently with a series of seminars and factory visits for clients from around the world. Two important groups of clients from Latin America and France were flown in for a complete factory tour and seminars on products specifics including a presentation of the new self-powered Compact 2 System.

Fifteen guests from part of D.A.S.’s Latin American network representing Venezuela, Ecuador, Honduras, Guatemala, Colombia and El Salvador were on hand for the event. Hector Morel, Gonzalo Aguirre and Ramón Franco from the D.A.S. Audio of America office in Miami base chaperoned the very lively bunch. Sennheiser France was also at D:A:S recently with 30 guests from all around the country; the D.A.S. distributor in France brought its most important clients to see and hear what D.A.S. is all about first hand. Many of the French visitors had be

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Very early on the morning of Wednesday, 26 June, an ISCE (Institute of Sound and Communications Engineers) party jetted off to visit DNH's manufacturing plant, situated by the beautiful fishing and holiday village of Kragero in southern Norway. After a cordial welcome from Harald Edwardsen, chairman of DNH and son of the original founder, the group was shown over the production and technical departments. They were able to see at first hand the meticulous way in which raw materials, piece parts and sub-assemblies were fabricated into loudspeakers and associated units, and then each finished item was inspected and tested to ensure performance and reliability within DNH's rigid parameters. Later, the group enjoyed exploring Kragaro and being lavishly entertained at the Victoria Hotel before being coached back to Torp airfield for the return flight to Stansted.

(Ruth Rossington)

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Marquee Audio has installed the sound system in the recently opened Lifthouse - a three-floor restaurant/DJ bar in the Smithfield area of London. The company installed a Bose system on the ground floor restaurant and bar, and specified five F10 Martin Audio Blackline 8" speakers for the first floor lounge and bar. A Pioneer six-disc magazine player was also installed on both the ground and first floor areas.

For the DJ area on the second floor, a combination of F10 Blacklines and Turbosound subwoofers provide the speaker set-up, alongside a pair of Technics SL1210 decks, an Allen & Heath DJ mixer, plus CD player and monitor. The system is controlled and mixed by a Cloud four-zone mixer, backed by a Formula Sound noise level limiter and two Bose Business Music amplifiers. The owners of Lift House contracted Marquee Audio after previous experience of working with them at their Chart

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Cox Audio Engineering’s co-founders - Jeffrey Cox (the company’s COO) and Christian Heil CEO of L-Acoustics - have announced that with immediate effect Cox Audio will now trade as L-Acoustics US.

Cox Audio was founded in 1994 and is based in Oxnard, CA: "We were waiting for the right timing to unify the company names," explains Jeffrey Cox. "On the two sides of the world, we’re pursuing the same goals - we’re teaching the same classes, winning the same battles, dealing with the same concerns and representing the same products. But absolutely nothing has changed with regard to the infrastructure of the company." Christian Heil added: "With this name change, it becomes more obvious to everyone that Jeffrey and I have always pursued the same strategy, resulting in a unified trademark policy for L-Acoustics worldwide."

(Ruth Rossingto

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Following our earlier news piece on Lightfactor’s involvement with the new Madame Tussauds venue in Amsterdam, we have more details on the role the company played in a new exhibition section within the Tussauds attraction in London.

Feel The Goal is based around the goal scored by David Beckham in the 90th minute of last year’s World Cup qualifier against Greece. There are just two figures in the exhibition - Beckham and England manager Sven Goran Eriksson. Lighting is a crucial atmospheric element of the piece as it leads up to the goal, complete with dramatic sound effects and a pulsating floor, replicating Beckham’s heartbeat. The rationale behind Tussauds new exhibition area is to be able to re-theme the space every two or three months, allowing the highlighting of topical issues of the day, and enabling visitors to re-live ‘magic moments’. Dealing wit

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ECA2 were honoured on 13 June this year at the annual awarding of FICHE prizes, organised to recognise French companies in the field of special events. ECA2 obtained the competition's two most prestigious prizes. Firstly, the ‘Grand Prix’ for an Institutional Event, won by the ECA2 evening spectacle ‘Luces y Voces del Tajin’ (Lights and Voices of El Tajin). This ECA2 production, commissioned by the government of Veracruz state, Mexico, took place in March.

Secondly, the ‘Grand Prix’ for a General Public Event - designated by a unanimous jury - for the evening show at Expo 01 in Yamaguchi, Japan, entitled ‘Kirara Starlight Fantasy’. On the same day in Berlin, at the TILE (Trends in Leisure and Entertainment) International Conference, Yves Pepin, ECA2's president and creative director, was honoured with the Award for Product of the Year for

  1. De Montfort Hall opts for ML5000
  2. Back A-T Big Brother
  3. Maltbury's Metrodeck in a tale of two churches
  4. To Russia with Opus
  5. Marquee helps Arranpaul at Blackpool Tower
  6. Intellivox proves double dutch is a thing of the past in Derry!
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