UK - Annual General Meetings are a legal requirement but, truthfully, can be dull, intimidating and best avoided. The Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA), however, is determined that its AGM and Members Lunch, which takes place on Tuesday 14 June 2005, will not be a wasted opportunity but rather a memorable day out for its members and guests. In response to membership feedback PLASA has planned an interactive and sociable member-focused event, with the late-morning AGM offering a chance to catch up on what PLASA has been doing over the past year.

Members will be welcomed at the unique setting of BAFTA's prestigious Headquarters in central London and it is anticipated that the business of the day will be over within an hour allowing time for members to ask questions of the executive committee, raise issues and take part in a debate about what matter most to them.

UK - The 27th ABTT Theatre Show (15-16 June 2005, Royal Horticultural Halls, London) will feature a record 130+ exhibiting companies, the organizers report. The show will also include a host of product launches and presents a broad cross-section of products and services designed for use in theatres and auditoria. Responding to the growth of integrated systems-led designs, ABTT 2005 delivers a convergence of technologies. From lighting systems and rigging, staging and high level access solutions, to sound, communications and broadcast solutions, ABTT embraces the entire technical spectrum, which includes the latest in seating and DDA solutions, say the organizers.

Among the new products on show, Euro Seating UK will showcase its new 'reproduction-style' chairs, which have been designed for traditional or English Heritage projects. Spanish seating manufacturer, Figueras, will show

International - With just one week to go until Showlight 2005 (22-24 May, Munich, Germany), more details of the event's papers programme are available: A paper by technical broadcast specialist Chris Bretnall will address HD and how it's affecting television production. As digital replaces analogue as the broadcasting standard, such rapid advances are being made in technology that it's easy to feel left behind. 'High definition' (HD) is a current buzzword, but how many of us know exactly what it entails? What new equipment needs to be bought? What new techniques need to be learned?

The technology at the heart of HD broadcasting is the HD camera. Closely complementing Chris's paper will be a presentation, by television Director of Photography Sue Gibson and representatives from manufacturer ARRI, on the company's new high definition camera. Originally designed for motion picture

UK - Sony Entertainment Television Asia recently staged its Boogie Woogie International Finals at the Sheraton Skyline Hotel at Heathrow. Hawthorn's main challenge was to create a suspended stage across the Sheraton's 11m wide swimming pool. Martin Hawthorn, managing director said: "Its not often we tell our crew to pack their swimming trunks, but on this event it was a must, as the stage was rigged from the swimming pool!"As well as the stage, Hawthorn also provided full lighting and sound for the live studio audience as well as for the TV broadcast.

The lighting had to take account of the daylight from the glass roof at the beginning of the event, and then accommodate the fading light as the event progressed. Hawthorn's sound engineer Jon Curnew had the unenviable task of balancing sound against the pool acoustics. Jon commented: "The combination of the high roo

UK - Original supergroup Cream's four-night appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2005 following a 36-year absence from the spotlights is already being hailed as the musical event of the year, if not the decade. Such classic rock and roll musicianship demanded sound equipment of a similar pedigree, which is why both front of house engineer Chris (Privet) Hedge and monitor engineer Chris Wibberley chose Midas XL4 consoles for the sonic excellence and reliability such a concert demanded. The PA system was supplied by Concert Sound, which has counted Eric Clapton amongst one of its loyal clients for over 20 years.

"We just wanted to go for the best sounding board we could, and to me that is an XL4," says Privet. "This is a classic, straightforward blues-rock gig and it's all completely organic, there are no scenes or midi; Sound quality is the only criterion.

UK - A.C.Lighting North - Blinding - quite literally. Why? The entrance into the show blasted visitors witha star-shaped array of light - courtesy of the Chroma-Q Color Block LED fixture (never knowingly oversold!), no doubt cleverly programmed on a Jands Vista by Mr Neil Vann. Glyn O'Donoghue explained they had been positioned there on purpose to demonstrate exactly that, just how very bright the ChromaQs are. It worked.Once again, A.C's mini-tradeshow up north was hailed a huge success. With numerous new distribution deals, A.C. Lighting moves ever nearer to becoming a one-stop-shop for all hard and software needs in the live entertainment industry.

The popular seminars covered various current themes and issues concerning the industry such as production, lighting, digital vs. analogue sound, the new legislation on electrical colour coding, timeline programming, plus the art of

Germany - Frankfurt is always a marathon, but making it more tolerable this year was an upbeat atmosphere and an abundance of new products. Obvious developments were in digital sound technology, networking and Ethernet. Various companies are developing strategic partnerships, although the symbiotic and open way they have found to connect with one another cannot have been without its challenges. Developing suitable technology for communication between own brand hardware and others must surely require some elements of trust. However, today this seems to be one of the limited roads to choose in the fight to gain momentum in an otherwise highly competitive market, where marketing by product association seems to be on the increase.

As for the show itself, having claimed last year that visitor numbers provided the biggest gate ever, I was somewhat surprised to discover that show organizers r

UK - Eat to the Beat fed the artists, BBC and production team at BBC Radio 1's One Big Weekend in Sunderland. Many of the artists on the bill, including the Foo Fighters, The Levellers, Kasabian and Basement Jaxx along with the Radio 1 DJ's Chris Moyles and Colin and Edith , left the sanctuary of their dressing rooms and joined the production team in the sociable atmosphere of the 'backstage restaurant' created by Eat to the Beat.

The hail was bouncing off the roof of Eat to the Beat's temporary kitchen in the backstage area of Radio 1's One Big weekend, as superb food was served at breakfast, lunch and dinner, cooked on site by Heather and Paul and their team of six. The menu choices had everyone spoilt for choice and the compliments were flowing.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

UK - Hawthorn has taken exhibition space for the first time at this year's ABTT Theatre Show (15-16 June 2005, Royal Horticultural Halls, London). "The show will give us the opportunity of raising awareness of our Hire, Sales and Installation teams and also give our staff the opportunity to meet the people they talk to on the phone," said the company's Alan Jackson.

Hawthorn was started nearly 20 years ago by MD Martin Hawthorn, hiring equipment out of his garage, and has now grown into an international company with over 85,000sq.ft of warehouse space in Old Dalby, near to Melton Mowbray, at the heart of Britain. "Being dealers for many of the world's leading suppliers and with a team who have many years of professional theatre, events and entertainment experience, we feel we are very well placed to offer all our customers the best advice and product available&quo

UK - A near-capacity 15,000 crowd thronged Trafalgar Square for the recent A Party To Remember Live - a two-hour concert celebrating the 60th anniversary of VE Day. Presented by Eamonn Holmes and Natasha Kaplinsky, the event saw appearances by Will Young, Katie Melua, Katherine Jenkins, Sir Cliff Richard, Dame Vera Lynn and more. With a strong presence by the Royal British Legion, and the event televised live on BBC One, memories of victory in Europe 60 years ago were strongly rekindled.

Sound company System Sound had their own challenges to face as they rigged a powerful Martin Audio line array system for the occasion. Working for production company Mantaplan (with Martin Vanstone as site manager), System Sound director and event sound designer, Simon Biddulph, said that the Martin line array system was always in his mind when the classical event specialists were awarded

Portugal - PRG Europe supplied lighting and a G-LEC large scale LED system with video capabilities for the sixth annual Laureus World Sports Awards in Estoril. The event attracted an estimated worldwide TV audience of 460 million. Award winners included athlete Kelly Holmes, yachtswoman Ellen MacArthur and racing driver Alessandro Zanardi,

Designed by Peter Bingemann, the Awards set used video screens and lighting for all the visual elements, with the video content provided by specialists Hello Charlie.

PRG Europe supplied 56 G-LEC ClassicFrames covering some 112m2 with five linked graphics computers. Configured as eight columns of seven panels each, four columns of G-LEC were used as static elements, while the other four were mounted on tab tracks, moving the lightweight screens across the stage as required.

Lighting designer Al Gurdon used a large lighting rig provided by

UK - London based events agency GSP was chosen by Red Bull to design its Star Wars party, which celebrated Red Bull's and Star Wars' brand partnership at the 2005 Monaco Grand Prix. Staged in Monaco's Grimaldi Forum, the star-studded event involved an exclusive screening of Revenge of the Sith and an AfterShow party. GSP used two auditoriums in the Grimaldi Forum. While one was deployed for the screening in a 400 capacity cinema, the second was used for the party.

GSP's Director, Emma Gold comments, "This was undoubtedly a challenging event, but one we so enjoyed perfecting. We drew from our experience to create a movie set with a twist that offered the Wow factor that we feel is essential to stand out and leave a lasting impression."

(Jim Evans)

Spain - Barcelona-based Lexon has won the HHB 2004/5 European Distributor Of The Year Award. Presented to José Bosch, general manager, by HHB Communications managing director Ian Jones at the Barcelona AES Show, the award recognises the Spanish distributor's status as HHB's leading European export customer in the period.

"It gives us great pleasure to make this award to our friends at Lexon in their home town, particularly at a time when the market for pro audio products in Spain is so vibrant," said Jones. "José and his staff have worked very hard as our distribution partners in Spain for more than eight years, and we are sure that Lexon will achieve continued success with future HHB products including the new CDP-88 Professional CD Player launched here at the AES Show."

(Jim Evans)

UK - A.C. Lighting will be showing extensions to the Jands Vista and Chroma-Q Color Block product ranges plus a selection of products from its stockholding of leading technical theatre brands at ABTT.

The Color Block accessories range now features new Color Block pixel cap and 30-way power supply products, making the multi-purpose LED fixture suitable for a wider range of effects lighting applications.

The pixel cap is designed for applications under studio lighting conditions, where lens flare can appear on the TV camera image as a result of shooting into a bright light source. Designed to fit over individual RGB LED cells on the front of units, the cap blends together the RGB to show only the resulting colour, and because the light output is diffused, eliminates camera lens flare. Pixel caps can be used on all or any of the Color Block's 4 separate cells.

The 30-way PSU is

Belgium - Sony Professional Solutions Europe has confirmed that it will be a Platinum Sponsor at ISE 2006 which will be held 1-3 February 2006 at the Brussels Expo. Following its successful debut at ISE 2005 in Amsterdam, Sony will demonstrate its "latest array of products that provide new ways to interact with multimedia information in the office and on the move".

"Sony is looking at the major shows to enhance its visibility in this emerging market and ISE is an emerging platform to achieve this." says Ian Collis, VP marketing for Sony Europe.

"We were pleased with the positive response, feedback and general enthusiasm generated by the 2005 show in Amsterdam and are delighted to see that ISE 2006 is already 40% bigger that the previous show. We see ISE as a pivotal event that has gained an important foothold on the Integrated AV systems market and we

Bob Doyle was there for DiGiCo's third PALME; he said that take-up of digital technology seems to be slower in this region than elsewhere, again reflecting the need for technical knowledge out here. DiGiCo is investing in training and seminars, and emphasising its 100% back-up philosophy, to move things forward. Coincidentally, both Destiny's Child and Mariah Carey were performing in Dubai that week, and both with DiGiCo D5 consoles. Doyle added that 2005 has seen a marked shift in acceptance of the digital domain.

Cadac's Mark Reay and Tony Waldron were at their second PALME, and in hindsight would have liked it to be their third, although generally things are very positive for this UK manufacturer. There are now Cadac desks in such prestigious locations as the Kremlin, Athens Concert Hall and China's State Parliament, adding to an already long list of prestige installations. They also reported that 2003 was the company's busiest ever year, and that plenty of tenders are coming up in the near future. Reay, a passionate advocate of clean sound in all parts of the audio chain, also commented on the "world's worst sound system" - otherwise known as the seminar room PA.

Penn Elcom, S+H Technical Support, Freestyle Music and Metalworx (the manufacturer of Penn trussing) joined forces with Middle East distributor IBS Decor - which also manufactures flightcases in Dubai. S+H has put down roots in the region, having had a Dubai office for 14 months. The company reports plenty of business for its plain drapes in the UAE, as well as for its own starcloth product. Coming soon is S+H's second generation of remote table pinspots, with DMX control capability, which will be of interest to event organizers everywhere.

Dave King of LTM (Lift, Turn, Move) was joined on stand by the industrious Adrian Forbes-Black of Columbus McKinnon, manufacturer of the Lodestar hoists which are a mainstay of LTM's services. Forbes-Black, who began working for Columbus McKinnon in the UK and Europe a little over two years ago, reports that CM has doubled sales of its entertainment hoists in that time. This was the first PALME for LTM, which was formed just last autumn, but King was having a worthwhile time nonetheless.

Avolites is another company with a history in the region. Tony Shembish has been out here for several years, running Avolites Middle East & North Africa, based in Abu Dhabi, and business is booming. With one of the larger stands at the exhibition, and with good support from familiar Avo faces from the UK, Avo ME was also playing host to James Thomas Engineering's Pixelline range of LED fixtures, which played a central role on the stand; Avo ME was appointed the official Middle East distributor for the range at the show. Tony Cameron, European sales manager for PixelRange, said: "The response to PixelDrive and PixelRange was phenomenal, much more than I had forecast. This show has guaranteed us big business in the Middle East, not just in Dubai but many of the surrounding territories as far as Pakistan."

UAE - In its short history, Dubai's Pro Audio & Light Middle East (PALME) exhibition has provided many companies with a platform on which to build, or boost, their business activities across the Middle East region.The UAE in particular is a much-hyped potential market, with staggering sums of foreign investment pouring into the ambitious development of tourism and business facilities (see L&SI March 2005). Dubai itself is now the UK's main export market in the whole of the Middle East, having shown a 93% growth in 2004, and a further 43% so far in 2005.

Generally speaking, the companies who are benefiting most from this potential are those who had a business presence in the region prior to PALME's emergence in 2003; of the rest, those returning for their third, or at least second, PALME show are generally now beginning to see benefits. For others, there is a feeling that they ma

Executive Audio is a new company set up by two very well-known figures in pro audio sales, Hans Freytag and Steve Smith, following discussions at PLASA last year. The company is targeting the UAE, and already has a tidy portfolio of leading audio brands (EAW & EAW Commercial, Lake Technology Corporation, TiMax and DiGiCo) to which they are hoping shortly to add a high-profile amplifier manufacturer. The emphasis, says Freytag, is on high-end, high-performance audio, with plenty of scope for residential and commercial markets. EAW Commercial was showing its latest ceiling monitor, the CIS-400.

Other companies who were exhibiting at PALME in a supporting role, with established business relationships in the region, included leading UK manufacturers such as Midas/Klark Teknik and Martin Audio; French manufacturer L-Acoustics already works in the region with V-Dosc partner Gearhouse (who provided a V-Dosc system for Pavarotti's Dubai show in April) and ARCS user, Prism. PALME saw the regional debut of the company's Kudo system, and of its SoundVision acoustical simulation software.

German manufacturer ic audio had teamed up with Millbank in a joint-branding exercise aimed at promoting and increasing the companies' presence in the Middle East's commercial sound installation market.

A.C. Lighting has been doing business in the region for years, and was at PALME in a supporting role for existing clients, but also to work on developing the projects side of their business in the Mi

Stardraw, believe it or not, had a great show. While David Snipp was one of those who took the opportunity to present a well-attended product-led seminar session (struggling to make himself heard above the hideous buzz of the PA system), Rob Robinson said that after a slow start, this turned out to be one of their best exhibitions ever: when you consider the response that Stardraw Control has had at PLASA, LDI, NSCA and ProLight&Sound, this is no faint praise. Latest additions to Stardraw Control include the New Product Wizard, which allows the user to add products not already included in the extensive library, and the ability to talk to any legacy script in any computer language. This opens up even more possibilities for this "disruptive technology" as Snipp likes to call it, "because it changes the way that people do business".

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