Germany - Everything Flows was the motto of September's Drinktec exhibition in Munich, Germany, where G-LEC installed its biggest LED PhantomFrame system ever.

International market leaders in the field of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle production and labelling, Krones AG, took over an entire hall at the popular exhibition, central to which was a striking and dynamic two storey construction known as the Think Tower. Used as a meeting and business centre, the tower was clad with 288 1m x 1m PhantomFrames, creating almost 300sq.m of video and moving graphics.

The video content comprised a combination of solid colours flowing through to graphics and video footage, ensuring that the activity going on inside the tower was complimented by the liveliness of the images on its fascia.

G-LEC provided six of its own trained technicians to construct the T

UK - HSL supplied lighting and sound for all main performance areas at the Isle of Wight's Bestival festival. The event, produced by Loud Music, was enjoyed by over 25,000 people across three days of music. This is the second year that Lancashire-based HSL has supplied Bestival. In addition to the main stage, HSL provided lighting and sound for the Big Top, the Bollywood Bar, The Hidden Disco and the JD Lounge. It was co-ordinated for HSL by Mike Oates and followed hot on the heels of HSL supplying the majority of the sound and all the lighting production to Creamfields 2005.

The HSL site crew consisted of 15 lighting and sound technicians, crew chiefed by Ian Stevens. The event was production and site managed by Lee Charteris and Jo MacKay for Loud Music. Bestival 2005 was headlined by Magic Numbers, Mylo, Royksopp, Soulwax, Howard Marks and the Super Furry Animals.

"The

UK - Le Mark has been 'short listed' for a 2005 Cambridgeshire 'Hunts Post' Business Award. This particular award category was introduced in 2002 when Le Mark won for the development of its Gel-Tak Filter fix product.

The 2005 nomination is for "Innovative Management Approach" or "how to improve staff and directors motivation and performance" This followed Le Mark's application and selection to BBC TV 3's new business programme Office SOS to be aired in December this year.

The company was filmed over a 6 month period, both 'in' and 'out' of working hours. This also included a day at Le Marks booth during the PLASA show.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Ali Baba is a major new creation to the tableaux this year at Blackpool Illuminations. Designed by Graham Ogden and the Blackpool Illuminations team, eleven James Thomas Engineering PixelPar 90s saturate the feature in continuous colour.

The all-weather PixelPars are rigged facing the construction, animating the characters via complex programming sequences - bringing the busy seafront traffic to a halt.

The huge complex scene features moving illusions, authentic sound effects and a giant illuminated waterfall. Housed deep in the water, a submersible IP68 PixelPar 90 provides the radiance to light up the waterfall.

Illuminations manager, Richard Ryan enthuses: "The PixelPars were selected for this project due to their outstanding build quality and technical flexibility. Blackpool promenade is an extreme environment and to be frank only high quality well desig

UK - As reported in the October issue of Lighting&Sound International magazine, Slingco has installed the largest CABLEnet tensioned wire grid system in the world to date at the newly refurbished Bournemouth International Centre. The 2500 square metre installation covering the entire roof space of the BIC's main Windsor Hall was part of an £22 million refurbishment project for the building, undertaken by Warings Contractors Limited from Portsmouth for Bournemouth Borough Council in partnership with the South West Regional Development Agency.

It expands the seated capacity of the Windsor Hall to circa 4,200 and the seated/standing capacity to 6,500, making the BIC a truly world class multipurpose venue suitable for all types of productions - from conference to arena sized stage shows. The CABLEnet installation pips Slin

Austria - dBLuX has been appointed the Austrian distributor for LSC Lighting. Following the appointment, Thorsten Sattler of dBLux visited the LSC Melbourne headquarters to undertake three days of intensive training on the LSC range of lighting equipment.

"It was great to see inside the company and to meet all the people who work there," said Sattler. "Now I understand what will happen inside the company when I send my orders through to them. Richie Mickan spent a lot of time with me and he has showed me so much - products, people and anything else I was interested in.

"It was a great start for both of us. I have had the chance to get to know the guys more than I can do over phone. We had many discussions on what we can do together in the future and I am looking forward to a long term partnership."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Digital media specialist Projected Image Digital has supplied the Hard Rock Café London with a bespoke Element Labs VersaTILE installation for their newly refurbished Basement Bar. Hard Rock Café London, the first and most famous venue of this landmark brand, has just reopened after extensive renovations. Its interior was designed by Paula Reason of Cadmium Design, a London-based designer involved in creating many of the Hard Rock Café interiors worldwide.

Reason wanted a central light feature in the bar to continue an ongoing theme of using light to interact 'live' with the people within specific Hard Rock spaces. This had been started at previous Hard Rock projects and has taken many different formats. However for the new-look London venue she wanted something completely different.

Reason became aware of PID, and the VersaTILE product, and contacted

UK - Blitz provided technical staging expertise for The Gordon Ramsay Scholarship Award held recently. Blitz supplied equipment for both the Final at the Restaurant Show in Olympia and for the awards ceremony at the Claridge's Ballroom. The Scholarship was created in 2001 by Gordon Ramsay to encourage and recognise the talents of young cooks across Britain.

Blitz's equipment included 61" and 42" plasma screens, DV cameras, a PA system and lapel mics. At the Restaurant Show the DV camcorders were placed to catch all the action taking place within the Cookery Theatre. The close ups were relayed to the plasma screens and the footage was edited onsite using an Avid for the evening's Awards Ceremony at Claridges.

Paul Hutton, managing director of Blitz, explains "As there were large crowds gathered around the stand, using trailing cables for the cameras to transmit t

China - China's third 'Love & Share' Beach Party was recently held at Haibin Beach, Zhuhai, using an Allen & Heath GL3800 multi-purpose live sound mixer and a Xone:62 DJ mixer to manage the numerous musical acts performing during the two-day event.

The party - a highlight of the National 'Golden Week' Holiday - was organized by the Zhuhai Tourism Administration, the Xiangzhou District Government, and the Zhuhai Broadcasting Station. The event attracted more than 20,000 visitors, who had come to see bands and DJs from Beijing, Tibet, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Australia, and USA perform a range of musical styles from rock to hip-hop.

Allen & Heath's Chinese distributor, Eastern Acoustic Development Ltd (EAD), provided the sound equipment for the event, selecting a 32-channel GL3800 for the bands, and an industry-standard Xone:62 mixer for the DJs.

"The 'Love & Share' beac

UK - A 5.1 surround system comprising ATC SCM Series Professional Monitor Loudspeakers anda wraparound Studer Vista 8 digital audio console have been installed has been installed in Studio One at BBC Television Centre in west London. The facility combines space of over 10,000sq.ft and audience seating for 384 people with technical capability for fast turnaround productions and live programmes such as coverage of national elections, awards ceremonies and charity telethons.

The new multichannel monitoring system uses a mix of large and small active 3-way monitors from the SCM Series. Left and right speakers are SCM 150ASL Pro monitors, using 15" super-linear bass drivers to give extended bass, headroom and dynamic range. The centre channel is an ATC SCM100ASL with soft dome mid-range driver and 12" bass driver. ATC SCM50s are used for the rear channel speakers.

The 72-

Norway - i-Vision has supplied Norwegian lighting design and installation company Oslo Lysdesign with a mixture of their Lumos LED products for several high profile hotel projects, including the conference rooms at the newly refurbished Royal Christiana Hotel in Oslo.

Oslo Lysdesign's Gier Ove Langlo was asked to design and specify a new scheme for the conference spaces by hotel group Choice Hotels, of which the Christiana is a new flagship venue.The main conference space is a large area with sliding room dividers that break it down into three smaller spaces as required.Langlo illuminated the paths of these dividing walls from below with Lumos in-ground Spots. Around the sides of the whole room, he chose to light from the top down, using 58 of i-Vision's Lumos 3 fittings as down-lighters. In the foyer outside, he installed 26 Lumos 1200 mm LED strip fixtures into the roof soffit

UK - British Harlequin's association with The Wells Summer School has continued into a fourth year, converting three major areas used for dance at Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells into suitable performance spaces

.Harlequin's roll out dance floors were laid in the main hall of the school, where the parquet floor was covered with Harlequin Studio. Harlequin Cascade, which is the same flooring that The Royal Ballet dances on at The Royal Opera House, was used to cover the wooden floor in the Auditorium and also for the large marquee erected in the school grounds.

Artistic director of The Wells Summer School Francesca Filpi, worked closely with British Harlequin. She said, "The wooden floors on their own are too hard and slippery for dancers and potentially dangerous, too. I am glad our students are able to enjoy the same quality of dance floors that we have

UK - Forge Europa has been named the winner of The Pride of Cumbria 2005 Business of the Year Social Responsibility Award. The award was presented to Forge Europa's Directors Peter and Julie Barton by former Blue Peter and Songs of Praise presenter, Diane Louise Jordan at a special awards ceremony dinner held at Carlisle Race Course.

Forge Europa, an electronics company from Ulverston specialising in the design, manufacture and supply of LED lamps, displays and lighting, was particularly pleased to receive the award as it acknowledged its community work, charitable activities, positive attitude towards the environment and commitment to social responsibility.

"The Social Responsibility Award reflects the importance Forge Europa places on putting something back into the community and it challenges the often portrayed image of business being uncaring and purely financ

UK - Soundcraft reports strong worldwide sales over the past year for its GB4 and GB8 mixing consoles.

In Ireland, Redhouse's Vinnie Higgins has taken delivery of a 24-channel GB4, while over in Kilkenny Ray Brophy has added the same to his sound rig and engineer/producer Paul Gurney has installed a 16-input desk in his Longford sound studios.

On the other side of the world, Jeff Shoesmith at Jands in Australia reports that the GB4 is finding its home in a number of different locations, while inThailand, distributor, Mahajak, reports that a 24-channel GB4 has gone into Driftt Pub in Bangkok, and a similarly-configured desk has been sold to Ban Line Mai Restaurant in Phuket.

In Calgary, Canada, contractors Allstar Show Industries have been responsible for sales of GB4's and GB8's into tour sound companies, as well as equipping a live music venue in Calgary and the campus bar

UK - Specialising in event production within London's listed Unique Venues of London heritage sites, Wise Productions has become a leading player in this sector of the industry.

Coupled with Camco amplification, Nexo PS8's and PS10's - all supplied through Fuzion plc - have become David Wise's frontline solution for the high-end corporate market in venues like the British, Natural History, Science and Victoria & Albert Museums as well as Kensington and Hampton Court Palace.

"The control systems are pre-rigged off site because we generally only get 60 minutes set up time," says Wise, who started his company in 1992.

Most of the company's work is speech reinforcement, for which the PS series is ideal he says. "We tend to run these at low volume, and where there's a bit of punch needed we reinforce this with the LS500 subs. These are also great when we are

UK - It is becoming increasingly common to find live CDs on sale at venues minutes after the band leaves stage, and FX Rentals has acted as technical consultants to the first British company offering this service, Live Here Now.

FX's technical manager Adam Pope worked closely with the live to CD company at its inception, recommending that the best way for Live Here Now to proceed would be to source a soundproofed, air conditioned truck into which duplication equipment could then be installed.

After further research, and to supply the required CD output, Pope also advised Live Here Now to invest in 50 seven-bay Magellen CD duplicators, together with a total of 14 Tascam CDRW750 and HHB CDR830+ single CD-R burners for creating master CDs, plus outboard equipment including limiters and compressors. Working in partnership with Will Shapland Mobiles, a Live Here Now engineer mixes

The Netherlands - In Holland, the Dutch police have adopted Marantz Professional's PMD660 Compact Digital Recorder to handle the critical job of recording interviews in interrogation rooms in police stations around the country.

17 of the PMD660 field recorders have been supplied so far by Niehoff High Tech Sound & Light, chosen by the Police because of three primary factors. The PMD660 offers exceptional recording time, three hours of mono recording on a 1GB card, but, by switching between different presets, over 17 hours of stereo MP3 and almost 36 hours of monaural MP3 audio is available. The unit will operate for up to four hours on four standard AA batteries. Due to its solid-state design, the unit has virtually no moving parts is therefore dramatically more reliable than cassette, DAT, or other tape/disc formats.

And it is simple to use. According to a police spokesman, &

UK - Leading London nightclub Pacha has recently upgraded its entire effects lighting system three years after opening. All apart from their Avolites Azure 2000 lighting console that is! Foresight and intuition in 2002 meant that no updating was necessary in the control department, as one of the reasons the Azure was originally specified was because it had more than enough headroom for future expansion.

The Azure 2000 console was chosen when the club opened by house lighting designer and technician Brian Kell. He chose it because it's "absolutely my favourite lighting console. It's perfect for club work, giving extremely quick access to lots of playbacks. It's also great for improvising and working 'live' - which is essential for any club environment." Kell knew at the time of the initial installation that the club would upgrade the lighting at some point in the near f

UK - Northampton-based sound and lighting installer Fabtronic has completed an extensive and flexible ElectroVoice sound system installation in the Barratts Club in Northampton, where a large sports bar and snooker hall have been created out of a former shoe factory.

Barratts' owners, the MacManus Group briefed Fabtronic designers to come up with a sound system that would fit in and around the multiple plasma TV screens that form the core identity of the sports bar. The objective was to have six discrete audio zones, allowing different sports to be shown in different areas of the bar.

Using Electro-Voice's EViD compact loudspeakers, Fabtronic has provided a system that is capable of far more than just background music replay. Powered and processed by Electro-Voice, with 8x 12.1 subwoofers in support, the EViDs are powerful enough to handle live bands, DJs and karaoke entertain

UK - Kevin Madigan, monitor engineer for Eels has been working for the band since May 2004 on a fairly constant tour across most of the world. He is a recent convert to the DiGiCo D1 after playing with a D5 owned by Jon Lemon. "I love it, you can really give the guys the consistency they want. Everyday I start off from a good point. Little tweaks are needed, but I am not coming in and having to deal with different consoles everyday," Madigan enthuses.

Madigan bought his own D1 through his company, EQ Audio, and tours it with the band. "The Eels is definitely the most pressure monitor gig I have ever had," he said. On the current show, Madigan has to deal with around 30 open sources, mostly acoustic, making feedback a real possibility. "With the analogue consoles, all the channels were open all the time because it was so much work to organise mute groups

UK - Dick Tee worked as production manager at The Baby Show at Olympia, designing and overseeing production of the exhibition's main stage.The Baby Show, now in its third year, brought together a selection of baby brands and products, mixed with parenting specialists and guest speakers to offer expert advice and fashion options for mother and baby.

Growing in size since the show began and adding a new city for each year it has taken place, this year The Baby Show visited Glasgow SECC, Birmingham NEC and London's Olympia. The live element of the show has also developed in line with the show's growth, with it now taking a 'main stage' position within the exhibition hall.

Creative consultancy Eight Freestyle managed the creation and choreography of the shows, bringing in production manager Dick Tee to design and oversee the production of the stage. The stage had to

UK - This month, Soundesign's new 12.5 ton truck is launched, complete with an audio spec comprising a Studer Vista 8 console and two Pyramix H/D recording systems. Designed and built by Conrad Fletcher, the truck has a fully floating control room which incorporates a moveable wall that means the rear can be used as a studio, edit suite, internet TX area or DVD copying suite, or pushed back for maximum space in the mix area; as well as a separate machine room.

"We set ourselves the task of building a true multi-use vehicle with a serious listening environment, but we needed a desk that would be user-friendly to guest engineers and excel in any role, be it a radio talk show, a simultaneous stereo and 5.1 broadcast of a music festival or an on-site dub of a TV show. The Vista 8 fulfils these criteria perfectly" says Fletcher.

Fletcher made his first acquaintance with a

USA - Color Kinetics Inc has published its results of operations for the third quarter of 2005. Revenues were a record $14.1 million, a 27% increase from the $11.1 million reported in the third quarter of 2004. Net income rose to $1.3 million, up 47% from the $853,000 reported in the third quarter of 2004.

"We are very pleased with our strong third quarter performance, which reflects a broad and growing base of customers worldwide," said Bill Sims, president and CEO. "Once again we achieved record revenues across both business units, driven in part by market adoption of new RGB systems, increased traction for the IntelliWhite series, and escalating licensing activity."

He continued, "As LED technology progresses, fuelling adoption in both new and existing markets, we believe that Color Kinetics is well-equipped to advance the intelligent solid-state li

Azerbaijan - PRG Europe has supplied lighting solutions for the grand opening of the $3.6 billion BTC oil pipeline linking Baku in Azerbaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, via Georgia, in its first collaboration with oil company event specialist Neos Creative.

At the 'first oil' event, hosted by the Government of Azerbaijan and the pipeline's major shareholder BP, production manager and lighting director Steve Nolan actually worked on four events: one at the oil terminal at Sangachal 40km south of the Azerbaijan capital Baku and three in the city centre at the presidential Gulistan Palace. Neos Creative sent 12 40ft truckloads of equipment to the event, which included two full of lighting equipment from PRG Europe's facility in Greenford, west London.

At Sangachal Terminal on the shores of the Caspian Sea, the first oil event was marked with a ceremonial valve turn which set

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