Robe - LEADERBOARD - Feb 2025
Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

Business

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France/UK - Owned by Bruno Bertrand, Audiopole is a long time distributor of pro audio equipment for a number of leading manufacturers. The company recently found it had a gap in its product range that the MC2 brand could fill.

"When our previous amplifier brand stopped being made, we were on the lookout for a manufacturer offering innovative products to fit both fixed installation and touring applications," comments Bertrand. "These market segments need high powered, compact and reliable amplifiers that few manufacturers can offer today at a high quality level.

"After checking the new E series, we decided that MC2 products fit those needs exactly. Moreover, having been in touch with Ian McCarthy several times, we know the company has a profile that can offer innovation, flexibility and a friendly relationship. We are very happy to see that sales have start

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Germany - Audio specialist Sennheiser electronic GmbH & Co. KG concluded financial year 2004 with worldwide sales of EUR 261.7 million, which corresponds to an increase of 10.3 per cent on the previous year. Sennheiser say that in addition to the positive development of the economic climate, this success can be attributed to the company's consistently high investments in production technologies and research and development; other contributory factors were decisive improvements to its logistics processes and efficient marketing strategies.

The Sennheiser Group, which in the year under report consisted of the parent company plus four domestic and 13 foreign subsidiaries, and the joint venture Sennheiser Communications A/S, raised its sales by EUR 24.5 million in 2004 to a figure of EUR 261.7 million. Profits increased to EUR 13.2 million, which already takes into account a special

Doughty - Banner - ABTT (27 May - 5 June)

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UK - Electro-Voice's chic designer EViD loudspeakers are the ideal fit for the new refurbished interior of Birmingham's leading gay club, The Nightingale, where Matthews Electronics of Birmingham has just completed the installation of high-end sound and lighting systems throughout the venue.

The Nightingale is a unique managed business owned by its members, reinvesting its profits into the business. Now 35 years old and in its fourth location, the venue has recently undergone a £3/4 million redevelopment, evolving into a 'style bar and nightclub', open seven days a week.

Set over three floors, The Nightingale has capacity for 2,000. With live PA on the ground floor, and another large dance club on the second floor, the first floor in the middle features the new B5 Bar and Restaurant, together with a piano lounge and café bar with swanky leather sofas, chunky tables and big l

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UK - ETC has always had a busy, but not large, stand at ABTT and this year Mark White, manager for UK and Ireland, decided the company needed a bigger area to demonstrate its wares. This meant a move into what has traditionally been one of the show's quieter halls, but ETC's presence soon drew the crowds say the company.

The main attraction was ETC's Congo lighting control console - field project manager Jeremy Roberts was so busy doing demonstrations that he hardly had a break during the entire two days. Other products drawing attention were the Source Four Revolution, SmartBar, SmartFade and SmartPack Wallmount with SmartLink and wall stations. However, ETC also said that visitors to the stand were equally delighted with a very British glass of Pimm's No.1, mixed by ETC project manager Iain Quinn.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Interpol, New York's most talked-about rock band, has been touring in Europe with a JBL VerTec system, souped up with BSS Audio's FDS-366T Omnidrive Compact Plus's. The FDS-366T was used as the main crossover unit for the VerTec's low mid-hi cabinets and for the subwoofers that made up the system.

Playing mid-size venues with 1500-3000 capacity, the European dates of Interpol's tour were serviced by British PA company, SSE Hire. Tim Fraleigh, system technician on the tour, praised the sound quality of the BSS unit, especially the facility which allows the engineer to EQ the system beyond the crossover settings.

The FDS-366T's are equipped with the V1T tunings using WHISEWORKS-NTM filters, first pioneered with VerTec by SSE during last years Metallica tour.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

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Spain - When Spanish soccer giants Real Madrid decided to renew their old sound system at the famous Bernabeu Stadium they turned to pro audio specialists Gaplasa/DBM Pro ES, who recommended a Denon/Marantz playback solution.

As one of the best football teams in the world Gaplasa's José Maria Penalba rationalized the club deserved nothing less than the best in sound quality too. "However, it was not only a question of offering them top quality equipment but also the best engineering team and service," he emphasized.

After listening carefully to the club's needs, the D&M Professional Spanish distributors were able to meet all system requirements from the company's catalogue. The background music is now delivered from a Marantz Professional CC 4300P 5-disc CD changer, designed for commercial use. Also installed is a Marantz Professional CDR510 Live Event CD Recorder.

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UK - Latest signings to Parlophone, The Departure, continue their intensive touring schedule with the release of their debut album, equipped with a stage full of Audio-Technica mics.

The band, whose album, Dirty Words, was released on 13 June, has played over 100 shows in the last nine months. With no let up, they have dates, including support slots with Duran Duran, lined up throughout Europe until September, after which they embark on a headline UK tour, followed by a US tour and a further European stint.

With a few days respite before the summer's first European sprint, FOH engineer John Delf, took the opportunity to equip the tour inventory with a full complement of A-T mics. "We played Sonicmania 05 in Japan this year," he states. "The festival is sponsored by Audio-Technica, so we played with a full A-T mic kit. I was especially impressed with the A

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USA - Robe moving lights have been specified and installed at several clubs and venues in Kenny's Alley at the landmark 'Underground Atlanta' retail and entertainment complex. Lighting, sound and AV design and production company, Active Production & Design, undertook all the installations. The entire complex includes over 100 retail stores, restaurants and nightclubs and the entertainment district, Kenny's Alley.

Active Production has worked with owners The Masquerade Corporation for over 10 years, helping with many club designs, consultations and installation projects. This specific undertaking was the largest to date for the client - involving five venues. The Masquerade Corporation asked the company to come up with a series of creative technical solutions and cutting edge designs to suit the five very different venue environments.

When it came to picking lighting fixtures,

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UK - Lite Alternative has installed a full WYSIWYG design suite in its premises to complement the company's lighting design and production services. Having used WYSIWYG to create over 40 different shows during the past four-years, company hire director Jon Greaves recently decided to upgrade the lighting team's software licenses to the WYSIWYG Perform suite so that they could benefit from the new-to-2005 unlimited DMX channels version to pre-cue outputs from any console.

Featuring advanced CAD tools, 3D rendering and comprehensive paperwork and pre-cueing. LD Paul Normandale is currently using WYSIWYG Perform to create new show designs for Keane, The White Stripes, Sigur Ros and Beck. He commented: "I use WYSIWYG to establish the basic building blocks of my lighting designs and get clients' feedback from the renderings. With the upgrade to Perform unlimited I can now see ex

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UK - Clarion Events Ltd has acquired a controlling interest in ATE, the commercial exhibition, conference, publishing and services subsidiary of the British Amusement Catering Trades Association (BACTA), the UK trade association for the pay to play amusement industry.

The newly owned portfolio includes the industry leading events Amusement Trade Exhibition International (ATEi) and International Casino Exhibition (ICE), staged in London; three other smaller exhibitions including Amuse UK in Blackpool and The Betting Show in Birmingham; three European industry conferences; and three leading publications - Coinslot, Betting Business and Casino Review.

Simon Kimble, Managing Director of Clarion Events is pleased to have completed the investment in ATE and said: "We are delighted to have secured what is a fantastic company with great products and people in an exciting market.

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UK - Shuttlesound has made the first UK sale of Dynacord's new Xa-2 horn-loaded high SPL sound reinforcement system to Banana Row, the Edinburgh-based music services company. The new system makes one of its debut appearances in front of the most important people in the political world, when it is used at the Delegates' Ball at the G8 summit in the Gleneagles Hotel.

Banana Row is a multi-faceted music operation, incorporating rehearsal and recording facilities, instrumental teaching and PA/backline rental services for a wide range of customers. Having only taken delivery of the new Dynacord Xa-2 system at the end of May, the rush was on to gain some real-world experience with the system before the high-profile G8 summit event.

The first outing for the new system was at Edinburgh's biggest free festival, the Meadows Festival. Craig Hunter of Banana Row used the complete Xa-2 sys

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Japan - Lying between Tokyo and Narita International Airport, the Makuhari Messe exhibition complex is ideally situated for its role as one of Japan's leading business and entertainment destinations. As with so many Expo centres around the world, Makuhari Messe prides itself in its ability to present a full range of events. Trade shows and corporate events naturally lead the way, but the complex is also home to the purpose designed 9,000 seat Makuhari Event Hall, where rock concerts can easily be staged.

Like its close neighbours Tokyo Disneyland and Disney Sea Park, the Makuhari Messe has become increasingly successful since it first opened, so successful in fact that demand for the Event Hall had exceeded its ability to deliver. This was in part due to its large and heavy PA system that required four people to stack each cabinet. With a constant need to reconfigure the hall fo

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UK - Many companies are finding that recent changes to employment legislation are making their lives more complicated and proving a growing expense they could well live without.

And the situation isn't going to get any easier. Employers' costs are set to increase further when government plans to increase paid maternity leave from six to 12 months and to allow new mothers to transfer leave and pay entitlement to fathers, together with legislation that extends disability rights and allows staff to request flexible working arrangements, comes in. Many small and medium-sized companies have already acknowledged that these are going to prove some of the most challenging aspects of running their businesses.

PLASA (the Professional Lighting and Sound Association) is running two seminars for anyone in the industry who would like to be better informed about the planned changes. Taking p

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Germany - Sixty-three million euro has been spent getting the AWD Arena in Hanover ready for next year's World Cup; the 49,000-seater stadium now complies fully with FIFA regulations.

Among the key items in the modernization programme was the provision of new sound reinforcement and public address systems, with the decision-makers opting in each case for systems from EVI Audio: the centrepiece of the acoustic design is now formed by a PROMATRIX paging and alarm system from DYNACORD and a professional sound system from Electro-Voice in which FRX+PI enclosures and RL amplifiers play key roles.

For a major project such as the AWD Arena, EVI Audio's virtually comprehensive product portfolio offers considerable advantages, since each of the different areas of the stadium - the VIP lounges, the stands, the playing field etc. - poses a different problem, which (naturally) requires a

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UK - The European Headquarters of Digidesign, based at Pinewood Studios just to the West of London, is well-positioned right in the heart of a major film and television production centre. Housed within the offices of its parent company, Avid, Digidesign's entire sales, marketing, training and education resource operates from this site; its proximity to Heathrow allows easy access for UK and international visitors.

The training and education centre offers excellent facilities for its European re-sellers. An array of meeting rooms and two fully equipped studios provide the perfect surroundings for hands-on understanding of their products. Since launching the ICON D-Control and very recently the D-Command, the Digidesign headquarters has played host to many of the company's re-sellers visiting the training centre for training on these new products.The ICON tactile worksurface, D-Co

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UK - Stardraw.com recently announced that it has incorporated support for WebBrick technology from UK-based home automation products and solutions company O2M8 into its award-winning application, Stardraw Control.

Stardraw Control generates standalone, customized control programs that can manage and monitor any type of addressable equipment from any manufacturer using any protocol over any communications infrastructure. This approach frees systems integrators from closed or proprietary architectures and applications, offering instead the ability to create a single application that can control many different products with as much or as little complexity as the end user needs.

O2M8 Ltd is a UK-based company creating innovative smart home products and solutions using standard technologies and open source software to reduce costs and drive growth in the smart home industry. WebBri

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Worldwide - Round-the-world concerts in the run-up to a summit which is already destined to go down in history: before the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, from 6 - 8 July, Live 8 aims to encourage people to speak out against poverty, especially in Africa. A steadily growing number of top national and international stars have agreed to appear at the concerts to be held on 2 July in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Philadelphia, and Barrie in Canada. RF and microphone specialist Sennheiser will make use of its worldwide network of subsidiaries and affiliated companies to equip all the events with wireless microphone and monitoring technology, attending to frequency planning and provide on-site support.

"On 2 July, the curtain will rise on the 'global stage' for what is probably the largest live concert the world has ever seen," says Rolf Meyer, speaker of the Sennheiser E

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UK - New technology, originally developed by AnswerBack Interactive to facilitate audience participation in the 2005 summer show Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Live, is now available at venues around the country.

First UK venue to be 'AnswerBack Enabled' is the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham where rehearsals for the show took place during early June. Over five kilometres of cable linked 2,200 handsets to each other, and to ultra-speedy processors, which identify the players' fastest response to within a thousandth of a second. AnswerBack Interactive's MD Paul Krisman says "During the course of our largest shows we will be processing more than 10,000,000 messages with a peak greater than 7,000 per second - this is more than 10 times that achieved by the London Stock Exchange."

Other venues offering the AnswerBack Enabled facility include the Eastbourne Con

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Poland - Horn Distribution SA has been appointed the new Polish distributors for Marantz Professional products, with effect from 1 June this year. Making the announcement, Mark Perrins, general manager of D&M Pro Europe, said: "Horn has enormous experience and has been selling Denon Pro products since 1997. We are delighted to give Darek Swiderski and Jaroslaw Bronowski the official distribution for Marantz professional products as well."

Horn Distribution in fact, has been operating since 1991, when the two men set out to build a portfolio of brands that they could represent exclusively in Poland. Denon was among its first serious brands in consumer electronics but the company soon realized that there was a huge demand for Denon Pro products.

To implement this, Horn Distribution set up a Pro Division and employed a dedicated sales force. "Adding Denon Pro produ

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Norway - Leading RF manufacturer Trantec recently announced that its sole Norwegian distributor, AVAB, Cac, has acquired a fleet of its internationally award winning S6000 and S6001/2 radio mic systems.

Adding to the potential of Norway's main sound rental company and complementing AVAB Cac's expansive portfolio, the systems' have recently deployed on a musical adaptation of legendary Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's classic Per Gynt.

Staged in Norway's oldest theatre Den Nationale Scene (DNS), the production was directed by Robert Wilson and co-produced by two of Norway's largest theatres Det Norske Teatret and DNS - the score written by Michael Galasso.

Featuring as part of a sophisticated sound system, the Trantec systems' were specified by sound designer, Bjarte Vage. AVAB's Arthur Botnevik collaborated with Vage form the early stages to ensure that all the aspects of

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Germany - Opened on 7 May 2005, the MARTa Herford museum in Herford, Germany aims to provide new inspiration for art, design, architecture and business both in and around the region. The extraordinary building complex is over 8,000sq.m and houses a novel combination of a Museum, a Forum, a Centre and a Café. Zero 88 Chilli Pro Dimmers are used to control the all lighting throughout the complex, integrating with Zumtobel Staff luminaries, Luxmate control system, and Soundlight system accessories to provide a complete building management solution. The Zero 88 dimmers were chosen in part for their convection-cooled design, which eliminates fan noise, and for their reliability. The range of dimmer sizes, ability to control different loads and RCD protection were also key factors in their selection.

The Museum itself is in front of the complex and consists of a 22m high dome and fiv

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UK - Digidesign has appointed Marquee Audio and Orbital Sound as exclusive UK distributors for their innovative Venue Live mixing environment. Designed from the ground up for live sound reinforcement and broadcast applications, Digidesign Venue is a feature packed, purpose-built, modular live sound mixing and production environment. Venue comprises the D-Show mixing console, front-of-house mix engine, Stage Rack I/O unit with recallable, remote-controlled preamps, and a multi-channel digital snake.

As a hugely creative sound design tool, it offers the quality and functionality of highend live sound mixing systems at an affordable price. Plus Venue is the only live sound mixing environment to feature an optional direct digital link to the industrystandard Digidesign ProTools systems. As a modular base system it is infinitely configurable, supporting up to 96 mic inputs and 27 bus

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The Netherlands - Just over a year ago, Dutch systems integrator Hecla Professional Audio and Video specialists met with real estate agent Flipse to advise it on how to get the biggest impact when advertising the company's selection of properties for sale. Now, it has an eye-catching Lighthouse Technologies' LED video screen installed on the side of its building in Dronten, Holland.

"Flipse was looking at using a digital screen to offer its clients a variety of services," explains Hecla's marketing and sales director Jos den Hartog. "There were several options - magazines, photographs in the shop window, etc - but they were looking for new and exciting ideas that would create the maximum possible impact."

Hecla advised Flipse that if it was to achieve the constant attention it wanted, an LED video screen was the ideal solution and should show not only the r

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UK - United Business Media (UBM) has announced an agreement to acquire Theme magazine and the Bar exhibition from Mondiale Publishing, to complement the 'Publican' group of publications and events which UBM acquired in February. Integration of today's titles into UBM's operational infrastructure will reduce overheads and generate cross-selling opportunities, say the company.

The purchase price is £5m million in cash. Theme and Bar Show generated £2.1m of revenue and £0.6m of EBITA in the year to end of June 2004. The proposed acquisition should be earnings enhancing in its first 12 months and is expected to exceed UBM's hurdle rate of return in its first year. The transaction is subject to approval by the OFT.

These businesses will report into Bernard Gray, CEO of CMP Information (CMPi) and United Advertising Publications (UAP). Gray said: "These leading publishing ass

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Astera - June 2025
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