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PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

Business

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UK - In 2014, UK audio visual and electronics distributor CIE-Group is celebrating 50 years in business. This significant milestone is also an opportunity to look forward to new business goals and aspirations that will provide the impetus for future CIE-Group developments.

CIE-Group was established back in 1964 as Canadian Instruments and Electronics, a UK subsidiary of Toronto-based Radio Components. At this time the company specialised in the distribution of electronic testing equipment, components and connectors.

Based in the East Midlands from where it still operates today, the company has a firm foundation in the professional audio market, in particular the public address and professional audio sector. More recently however, product portfolio has been further enhanced with a number of key new distribution appointments resulting in the addition of latest AV signal distribu

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USA - Just a short drive from the Mexican border and southeast of the city of McAllen, Valley International Christian Centre (VICC) recently opened a new, almost 70,000sq.ft sanctuary. This state-of-the-art church is the largest house of worship in the Rio Grande Valley and, in 2013, was recognized as one of the fastest growing churches in America by Outreach Magazine.

Music plays a vital role in VICC's worship services and, to ensure a high level of speech intelligibility and excellent music reproduction characteristics, church officials recently gave the green light to the deployment of a new sound reinforcement system drawn from the catalogue of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.

Simon Estrada Jr. serves as VICC's campus sound engineer and the church's Praise and Worship leader. He also operates a sound services company under the name Supernatural Designz of Brownsville, T

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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Japan - Following 12 successful years with its Meyer Sound MSL-4 loudspeakers, the Takarazuka Grand Theatre in Japan returned to Meyer Sound when it came time to upgrade. With an emphasis on exceptional audio quality and system reliability, the 2,550-seat venue chose a design based on M'elodie and MICA line array loudspeakers.

"In my opinion, the best equipment should be robust and reliable," says Masaru Kirie of Takarazuka Stage Co., Ltd. "The new system's performance lives up to the prestigious Meyer Sound brand, and the sound quality is excellent in all respects."

The theatre's main system is anchored by left and right lower proscenium arrays of 13-each M'elodie loudspeakers and three over-proscenium L-C-R clusters consisting of seven MICA and three M'elodie loudspeakers each. Ten 700-HP subwoofers provide low-end reinforcement, with six placed overhead

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USA - Every EDM festival owes a debt of gratitude to Nocturnal Wonderland. Long before EDM fests became the hottest thing on the entertainment scene, Nocturnal Wonderland blazed the way as the pioneering event in this red hot live entertainment genre.

Produced by Insomniac, this outdoor celebration of music and creativity is now in its 19th year, but it's definitely not resting on its laurels. Case in point is the 2014 event's Sunken Garden stage, which was energized by an eye-popping wall of light designed by LD Steve Lieberman, using 136 Nexus 4x4 panels from Chauvet Professional.

"The lighting on this stage definitely made a powerful statement," said Todd Roberts of Visions Lighting (Brea, CA), which provided all of the lighting, staging, truss and video gear for the Sunken Garden stage "Everything on this stage worked to engage the audience."

Featurin

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UK - When London's Royal Court Theatre sought to upgrade their existing lighting stock they turned to entertainment lighting specialist White Light for solutions that would suit the venue's needs. Concerned with reducing lighting energy use and keen to take advantage of the versatility of new technology, Jack Williams, head of lighting at Royal Court Theatre, went searching for a complete lighting solution that would combine new sources - such as LED - with the theatre's existing tungsten fixtures.

"We've been looking into LED fixtures for some time," said Williams. "Following the technology over the past few years, manufacturers have done a great job pushing it further. With the quality of products available in the market, now is definitely the right time to invest in LED."

Light quality and versatility were high on the list of requirements but matching ne

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Singapore - Mark Rothko, one of the most influential post-war American artists, was famous for using colours and forms to interpret his artistic philosophy. He paid particular attention to the lighting where his paintings were exhibited. That's why Singapore's Blank Space Theatre focused on the lighting design on Red, an award winning docudrama by John Logan which covers Rothko's work in the late 1950s.

ETC LED luminaires, controlled by an ETC Ion console, helped lighting designer James Tan achieve that lighting goal during a production at Singapore's Esplanade Theatre Studio.

Red takes place in spring 1958, in Rothko's New York studio. In order to create natural looking light shining through the window into the compact space, Tan used seven ETC Source Four LED Lustr+ luminaires.

"I decided to use LED fixtures that would be intense enough and could also ch

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UK - Dick Tee, managing director of EnTEEtainment Ltd, has tendered his resignation as Pyramid and Other stage production & area manager. After 18 years at the helm of Glastonbury Festival production, the veteran award winning production manager cites 'irreconcilable issues' and he and his staff will cease their association with the festival with immediate effect.

Says a statement from EnTEEtainment: "In the past two years since Festival Republic ended its involvement with the festival there have been a series of management restructures and operational changes at Glastonbury, which Dick feels leave his team unable to fulfil their role professionally."

Dick states: "I am extremely sad and disappointed that my concerns regarding the way certain elements of the festival are now being structured and managed are not being adequately considered and dealt with, and as

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Italy - With effect from 13 October 2014, Osram has successfully completed the acquisition of leading show lighting manufacturer Clay Paky. All necessary approvals from the respective authorities have been granted regarding the acquisition. With this move, Osram will further expand its position in entertainment lighting. "The successful closing of this transaction is a further step towards strengthening Osram's specialty lighting segment in a highly attractive market", said Wolfgang Dehen, CEO of Osram. Pio Nahum, who has been appointed CEO of the Clay Paky business also with effect from October 13, 2014, explained: "As part of Osram, we have good prospects for further growth".

With the acquisition of Clay Paky, Osram is pushing forward its strategy of technology and innovation. The innovation-driven entertainment lighting market is very attractive, with mid-

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Safety Matters - The Soho Theatre is facing a substantial fine after pleading guilty to two charges under health and safety legislation for an accident that left a stage manager paralysed for life. The incident occurred on 9 June 2012, when Rachael Presdee fell more than three metres through an open and unmarked 'Juliet' door (a second-storey opening on a set) while adjusting stage lights for a performance by the Headlong Theatre Company that evening.

Westminster City Council launched prosecution proceedings and last Wednesday, Westminster Magistrates' Court heard that Presdee had suffered serious spinal injuries requiring a six-month stay in hospital and had been left a paraplegic unable to walk or return to work. An investigation by Westminster City Council after the incident "identified serious safety failings" at the central London venue.

In a statement, Soho The

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UK - On 26 July this year around 2600 Scouts, Guides, leaders and staff arrived at West Moorland Show Ground near Milnethorpe in Cumbria for the Red Rose 2014 International Scout Event. Organised and delivered by volunteers, the event involved a large number of staff all working together to ensure the event was a success.

ProLight Concepts Ltd's product sourcing manager Chris Beesley took two weeks out from his busy schedule to manage the two stages and oversee the on-site installation of 100V background music systems and multimedia information displays.

First port of call for the outdoor stage was local rental company West Coast Hire & Events. The visual impact of WCHE's inflatable stage blended well with the tented village, this was then flanked with two large truss archway style flag and banner stands constructed from Global Truss F34 Series Quad Truss. The archways accom

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USA - Symetrix has announced that Sisme has taken on exclusive distribution responsibilities for the prominent DSP brand throughout Italy.

Beginning operations with a focus on the MI market, Sisme has evolved to place its greatest emphasis on the pro audio and integration sectors. Today its distribution portfolio includes brands such as Audio-Technica, Aviom, Clear-Com, HK Audio, L-Acoustics and Powersoft - while its overall offer was strengthened considerably in 2003 by the opening of a new state-of-the-art facility situated on the central eastern coast of Italy.

"With this facility, we have all the functions for logistics, administration, accounting and more under one roof. It has really made a difference in the way that we are able to support our brands throughout the Italian market," says Sisme CEO Claudio Bugari. "We are also continuing to develop our websi

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UK - Creamfields 2014 featured multiple stages catering to crowds of EDM fans, which exceeded 60,000 daily. Swedish DJ, remix artist and producer Avicii headlined the South Stage at the peak of Creamfields 2014, while his FOH engineer, Wayne 'Rabbit' Sargeant, ran the show using an SSL Live.L500 console. The main North and South Stages both featured large-scale PA systems, supplied by Britannia Row Productions, Ltd., with SSL Live consoles at front of house that kept fans raving for the three-day-long end-of-summer party.

"Avicii has a simple setup, with Pioneer CDJ-2000NXS players feeding a DJM-900NXS DJ mixer," explains Sargeant. "Unlike other engineers, I'd rather keep everything in the digital domain and avoid doing unnecessary A/D and D/A conversions, so I use the SPDIF digital output of the DJM and convert it to the AES digital format (which is accepted by m

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Mexico - Everything about Ricky Martin's phenomenal career has been written on a grand scale. His success has been nothing short of awesome, with six Grammy Awards, 17 Billboard chart toppers and 85 million album sales to his credit. Throngs of fans turn out for his concerts around the world. As for the shows themselves, "extravagant" doesn't even begin to do justice to their dazzling choreography and scenic elements. There is no room in a Ricky Martin performance for anything that's less than intense, which is why tour manager Veikko Fuhrmann of Motion Music, lighting designer Richard Neville, lighting director Churry Lafuente and lighting programmer Alex Grierson built the lightshow for the superstar's Mexican One World Tour around pixel mapped Nexus 4x4 and Next NXT-1 panels from Chauvet Professional.

Opening before a sellout crowd at the 15,000-seat Palacio de los

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UK - Reading University is a globally renowned institution. Ranked amongst the top 1% of universities in the world, its reputation for teaching, research and enterprise is formidable. Reading is also home to some of the country's most beautiful campuses and a number of heritage buildings. It was in respect of one such heritage site that the university contacted POLARaudio, seeking a solution to an audio headache on a grand scale.

The Great Hall, situated on the original London Road campus, is a Grade 2 listed building which hosts a wide variety of events, not least of which are graduation ceremonies for thousands of students. In response to a growing number of adverse comments in relation to the poor audio quality at such events, the university's Vice-Chancellor took the decision to improve things.

Having previously enjoyed a successful working relationship with POLARaudio, th

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The Netherlands - Designed to attract over 500,000 visitors each year, Utrecht's new Tivoli Vredenburg venue covers 31,000m2 and features five auditoriums, 22 dressing rooms, 11 circulation spaces and 24 bars/restaurants. Designing a communications system for such a complex venue was a daunting task, but ASL Intercom had the right solution.

The city's Tivoli and Vredenburg venues have been major centres of music for over 30 years. Bringing them together under one roof with the city's Jazz Centre was achieved by incorporating the existing Vredenburg symphony hall into a brand new, €150m, venue and adding four major new performance spaces around it.

To make each venue within the new Tivoli Vredenburg as versatile as possible, the 22 dressing rooms are not allocated to particular auditoriums/stages. This made the job even more difficult for Utrecht-based Switch Concepts, the com

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Slovenia - Beautiful Ljubljana Castle dates back to the 12th century and is one of the landmark attractions of the Slovenian capital. It has recently taken delivery of Robe CitySource 96 LED flood fixtures which are being used to illuminate external elements of the Courtyard for summer evenings and various events.

A colourful history has seen the Castle serve as a fortress, a military hospital, a prison and a temporary refuge for the homeless - amongst other things. More recently since the 1960s it has undergone extensive very tasteful redevelopment, and is now a busy event space with three main venues and a small theatre as well as being a top Slovenian tourist hotspot.

The CitySource 96s were specified by Tomaz Novak, the Castle's technical manager. They have been fitted with the integral Lumen Radio wireless DMX receiver cards allowing remote data control, which is especial

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UK - The industry stepped up at PLASA 2014 to care for its own by supporting Behind the Scenes UK, the new charity that will provide financial assistance to entertainment technology professionals in need due to serious illness or injury.

Fundraising kicked off on Sunday evening at the Knights of Illumination Awards Ceremony when Clay Paky's commercial director Pio Nahum presented a cheque to lighting designer Rick Fisher for Behind the Scenes UK. Pio explained to the large gathering that one of the last things approved by the late Pasquale Quadri was this generous contribution to the new charity.

On Monday afternoon, ETC's Fred Foster presented the cheque from the proceeds of the iRFR app which continues to provide an incredible income for the charity on both sides of the Atlantic. Tuesday saw Rosco's Mark Engel present a cheque for the proceeds from the sale of Roscolux Light

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UK - Soundcraft's UK and Eire distributor, Sound Technology reports that both its award-winning Vi6 FOH console, and the latest addition to the Vi range - the Vi3000 - have both rocked the festival circuit this summer.

The Vi6 was deployed by premier hire company, Adlib, on events including Creamfields, the Liverpool International Music Festival, Kendall Calling Festival and the Wakestock Festival.

Now firmly established on riders, the Vi6 has been acclaimed as one of the easiest to use, most ergonomic, user friendly and best-sounding large format digital consoles around. Thanks to the integration of a proven DSP engine and algorithms from sister firm, Studer, the audio quality is crystal clear. The Vi6 also boasts an incredibly tactile "where you look is where you control' operating philosophy. The world-class effects and processing from Lexicon and BSS sets the Vi6 apar

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UK - PLASA London 2014 welcomed visitors and exhibitors to ExCeL, London for the second consecutive year on 5-8 October and impressed with a ground-breaking show floor, an inspiring education programme and a host of important announcements. While exhibitors revealed their latest product innovations, the organisers uncovered plans for the future of the show.

Speaking at the PLASA Awards for Innovation and Sustainability 2014, held on the penultimate day of the show, PLASA's CEO Matthew Griffiths revealed some of the changes for 2015, which will redevelop the scope and delivery of the event. Under the leadership of Christopher Toulmin, PLASA's Director of the Events Division, the show is being remodelled to become a PLASA Member-focused event: developments will include moving from four days to three days, introducing a new floor plan concept, expanding the education offering and i

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UK - For the first time in the UK, d&b audiotechnik GB is offering an open invitation to their Sound System Optimisation seminar. Each seminar runs for two days and invites participants on a journey through the theory and practice of acoustic measuring, adjusting and fine tuning.

Attendees should have a good understanding of sound system design, setup and tuning along with a confident understanding of basic electroacoustic principles in order to take full advantage of this seminar. This is a practical course that guides participants through the precise process of measuring and adjusting a sound system. Beginning with a good sound design and making it better. Starting with good and ending with great.

This is a busy two day seminar, delivered by the Education & Application Support (EAS) team at d&b audiotechnik GB, under the direction of the doughty Oran Burns. Participants are

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The Netherlands - Tivoli Vredenburg is a new and architecturally impressive venue in the heart of the beautiful Dutch city of Utrecht. Equally impressive is its technical infrastructure, which features an array of DiGiCo mixing consoles as part of its extensive audio system.

A merger of former venues Tivoli and Vredenburg, both successful in their own rights for the past 30 years, Tivoli Vredenburg has been constructed around the existing Vredenburg theatre and concert hall, now known as the Grote Zaal or Great Hall, which remains in its original form.

The new building houses four additional rooms, Ronda, Pandora, Hertz and Cloud Nine, each of which plays host to different types of musical styles, with each designed by a different architect. Combining such disparate designs could have made the overall venue feel disconnected, but a cleverly thought out, cathedral-like foyer br

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UK - Hawthorn recently worked with lighting designer Declan Randall, to provide an additional lighting package and video projections for Indika, a new musical dance spectacular. The production tells the story of India throughout the years using the medium of dance. The premiere of the first UK production of Indika had a hugely successful run at the new CAST Theatre in Doncaster, from 26 September to 5 October. The production will tour the UK in 2015.

Randall took full advantage of Hawthorn's Wysiwyg Suite, pre-programming the whole show prior to its one week production fit up at the CAST Theatre. Hawthorn was also contracted to provide technical support for the installation. The lighting package supplied included a range of Clay Paky fixtures including Sharpy, Sharpy Wash and Alpha Profile 800s.

The production featured classical Indian choreography to an original

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UK - Cover band The Ultimate Eagles are celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the Eagles' album Hell Freezes Over by touring the UK beneath an Elation lighting rig of Platinum Beam 5R and Platinum Spot 5R Pro moving heads.

This is The Ultimate Eagles' fifth and biggest tour, and second using Elation lighting equipment. Pacific Sound & Light of Birmingham has supplied the lighting package for the When Hell Froze Over tour with lighting design by Nick Jemicz of Lighting Through Design.

"I have always been impressed with the CMY capabilities of the Platinum Spot 5R Pro as it is such a compact fixture," Nick says of the compact, energy efficient CMY colour mixing fixture that can be used as a spot or wash light. "The beams offer stunning, bright airborne effects with a good selection of color that I required for the design."

Mounted on an upstage

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UK - Islington's famous Sadlers Wells Theatre is often called London's dance theatre. Initially dating from 1683, today Sadler's Wells not only promotes but also commissions and produces outstanding dance. However, in order fully enjoy a performance of dance, it is important that the audience enjoys the music in equal measure. To that end, installation specialists Scanaudio recently upgraded the theatre's induction loop system for the hard of hearing.

Since the introduction of legislation requiring public spaces to provide for all kinds of disabilities, induction loop systems have been installed in most public buildings and, over time, have become more and more sophisticated.

The Sadlers Wells system features two Ampetronic multiloop drivers, one MLD7 and one MLD9 which, are connected to low loss loop arrays installed along the seating rows of the rear stalls and first circle.

  1. DPA Microphones go Incognito at the Empire
  2. Fox Brasil switches to digital with Lawo
  3. Major Amadeus installation at Paris museum
  4. Robe celebrates 20 years in style
  5. Black Light brings waterfall of sound and vision to Arsenal Armoury
  6. QED projection map Fort St. Aubin using d3
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