General

Pro Audio Theatre at Event 2001

Details: 14 March 2016

Following ever increasing attendances over its four year history, the dates for John Hornby Skewes’ Event 2001 have been confirmed as June 17-19. One major new feature of Event 2001, which takes place at JHS’s premises in Garforth, Leeds, will be the provision of a dedicated pro audio demo theatre on-site. This will feature the HK Audio range of pro audio, including the HX active systems, LUCAS, ELIAS and ACTOR, and the most recent addition to the range, the powerful 3.6kW PROJECTOR. Other pro audio products on show include The Scanner radio system, the Get Yourself Connected series of cabling, JHS pro audio components and Kustom PA systems and cabinets.

CO2 Cannon System

Details: 14 March 2016

Soon to be released from The Effects Company is an advanced system of air-launched effects - the CO2 Cannon, which will be available in single or multibarrel versions. Previous methods for time-consuming hand loading are now eliminated as this system uses factory pre-loaded cartridges, available in two sizes/loadings with a choice of effects such as E-Fetti, Glitter, Streamers, Star, Hearts, Flash Discs, Metallic Streamers, Ultra Violet E-Fetti and even condoms! Available at the end of March, the CO2 Cannon system will have its world launch at the Frankfurt MusikMesse in early March.

City Theatrical

Details: 14 March 2016

Every now and again one stumbles across a fact that truly surprises. New York-based company City Theatrical, which has seeped into the British theatrical conscience over the last five years or so with its award-winning range of accessories, dry ice machines and, latterly, the AutoYoke moving light, is actually 15 years old.

Company founder Gary Fails manages to hide his surprise at my surprise, then fills in more historical details. "I started the company while I was working as a Broadway electrician - for the Circle in the Square Theatre. I felt that it would be good to have a back-up plan, to have a company as a base. LDs and rental shops often needed special, one-off items made for shows - so I became the person who made them!"

It is typical of Fails’ self-effacing modesty that he underplays the work involved in getting started. Without any background in engineerin

PSA Announces New Benefits for Members

Details: 14 March 2016

Following the announcement of the new administration and management set-up of the PSA, a substantial package of new benefits for members has been unveiled. A new membership pack has been produced which includes a personal membership identity card, pre-paid subscriptions to appropriate magazines, training information and course dates, training booking forms, a diary section, book list and contacts, plus a new, truly interactive web site which is updated daily. Birmingham-based Business Media Services Ltd (BMS) recently took over the role of administrative and membership operations of the PSA office. Bob Fox, the head of BSM, told PLASA Media: "It is our aim to ensure that members of the PSA get the maximum possible from their association with us. We have put together this new package to increase the benefits that membership brings."

TiLE is Official European Show of the TEA

Details: 14 March 2016

TiLE will be the official European Show of The Themed Entertainment Association (TEA). TiLE is aimed at those who have an interest in the future of location-based leisure attractions, whilst TEA is an international alliance of the world's most talented and experienced professionals in the themed attractions industry. The decision coincides perfectly with the 10th anniversaries of both TiLE and TEA and recognises the close relationship that has built up between the two; the European Chapter of TEA (now TEA Europe) was launched at TiLE 1998 in Strasbourg, France, and has become one of the fastest growing chapters of TEA.

PLASA Supports Restructured AETTI

Details: 14 March 2016

Following the re-structuring of the AETTI (Arts & Entertainment Technical Training Initiative) on January 31st 2001, Matthew Griffiths, managing director of PLASA, has been elected as AETTI chairman for 2001. He joins Joe Aveline (secretary) and Henrietta Branwell (treasurer) on the AETTI’s panel of officers. The AETTI was first formed in 1987 at a fringe meeting of ABTT North, and has existed since as an informal body led by a steering committee. The AETTI last year helped to develop the first BTEC qualifications for stage technicians, in association with Loughborough College and with the assistance of funding from the European Social Fund. On 31st January this year, the existing steering committee of the AETTI wound itself up, and a new constitution was adopted. As part of the restructuring, Matthew Griffiths, Joe Aveline and Henrietta Branwell were chosen as the organisation&rsq

New Academy

Details: 14 March 2016

A cutting-edge club sound and lighting system have been detailed and installed by Marquee Audio into the new 2,300-capacity concert and dance venue, The Academy, in Birmingham. Opened in Dale End by the McKenzie Group - owners of the Brixton Academy and Shepherds Bush Empire - some £600,000 has been spent on converting the former Rank-owned Hummingbird, which had been closed for six years before being sold to the London-based entertainment company, into a premier mid-sized concert venues. The brief was to deliver a quality club system into both the major auditorium and 400-capacity auxiliary room. As a result, Marquee spec’d a computer-controlled Turbosound sound system, driven by a combination of 15 MC2 MC-1259 and three MC-750 amplifiers, and digitally distributed through a pair of BSS 9088LL audio matrix devices, with a Soundweb 9010 ‘Jellyfish’ remote providing loc

Belgium’s Saint Lambert Lit

Details: 14 March 2016

The Saint Lambert Cathedral was destroyed during the French Revolution 200 years ago, but in its day was one of the biggest Gothic buildings of its kind in the world, even bigger than Notre Dame in Paris. The city of Liège decided to honor its lost treasure by creating a replica of the church’s ‘heart’. This small piece of what was once an enormous construction is situated in exactly the same location as it was centuries ago. The temporary construction is 30 metres wide, 20 metres deep and 42 metres high. Belgian company Sonoflash was given the task of lighting the cathedral and worked with EVDV (Martin’s Belgian distributor) to spec 10 Martin Exterior 600s with control coming from the Martin ProScenium.

DHA Design Winner

Details: 14 March 2016

Gobo specialist DHA Lighting organised a gobo design competition for members of the ALD at its Waterloo base recently.

The winner, Robin Carter (pictured with DHA MD Diane Grant), is a freelance lighting designer based in Brighton, East Sussex, and his winning design, called ‘Smoke Screen’ (inset) was one he created for a production of The Glass Menagerie at The Northcott Theatre, Exeter. Carter, who began his lighting career in New Zealand where he grew up, came to the UK four years ago, and has been designing for regional theatre productions ever since.

The winning design will now be published in the DHA gobo catalogue, and instead of receiving royalties for his design, Carter has opted to donate these to the Light Relief fund, set up last year to provide help and assistance to freelance lighting designers in times of personal crisis.

Support for Birmingham Fringe

Details: 14 March 2016

Cause & Effect, the organisers of the 2001 Birmingham Fringe theatre festival, are looking for companies within our industry to collaborate on a range of projects during the 2001 festival.

The idea is to demonstrate the contribution made by our industry to technical theatre. Project director Derrick G Knight told L&SI: "My motivation is to enhance Birmingham as a host city for performing arts. This will be achieved through the development of a network of performance venues in partnership with the performers, venue owners and production companies associated with performing arts."

The initial idea is to include a sound and lighting exhibition alongside the festival, which takes place in July and August, and Derrick Knight is exploring the availability of no-cost exhibition space at a number of venues near the performance spaces. If you are interested in participating call +4

East Anglia to get its own Superclub

Details: 14 March 2016

The recently-established Crystal Leisure is all set to launch its first major project. The company will unveil plans for a new multi-million pound superclub within the next few months. Summit, as the club will be known, will hold approximately 1500 clubbers and will be situated on Nene Parade in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. The company is currently working with leading sound, lighting and design companies to create the look and feel of the club.

Pulsar Wins ‘Training in Excellence’ Award

Details: 14 March 2016

Pulsar picked up the ‘Excellence in Training’ award at this year’s LIVE! Awards. The award is recognition of their comprehensive range of both Clay Paky and Pulsar technical seminars hosted at their Cambridge HQ, the joint organisation with DI of both the UK and World Light Jockey Contests, and their latest collaboration with PLASA introducing the Student Lighting Designer Award aimed at colleges.

Mays joins Moodie, Pincu & Associates

Details: 14 March 2016

TMB announced today that Warren Mays, the company’s long-serving technical sales manager, has left the company to join Moodie, Pincu & Associates. Colin Waters, TMB’s CEO told PLASA Media: “Warren has been a great asset to TMB over the years and he will be missed. Because of his understanding of the cooperative relationship between TMB and Moodie-Pincu, we believe this move will lead to many new opportunities for both companies. Moodie-Pincu & Associates is a manufacturer’s representatives in the greater Los Angeles area for Electronic Theatre Controls and other entertainment-based manufacturers of theatrical support equipment.

Twentieth Century Theatre Patents

Details: 14 March 2016

In 1996 the second edition of British Theatrical Patents 1801-1900 was published in demand to the runaway success of the first edition. Such was the interest and fascination with the subject, the authors Terence Rees and David Wilmore, embarked upon the mammoth task of consulting several million more patents to compile a database of theatrical patents for the first half of the twentieth century. As a result of some five years work the first release of the database is now available covering 1901-1950 and includes many fascinating technological developments relating to moving lights, projection, dimming and control as well as staging, illusions, and a myriad of other technical theatre subjects. The database is now available for purchase (£957+ Vat) and there are currently almost 1,000 patentee entries on the database. Purchasers will receive free updates as new entries are discovered - b

Live! Show 2001

Details: 14 March 2016

L&SI reports from the Live! 2001 exhibition at Alexandra Palace.

Midas introduced the new Venice console, bringing the high-quality Midas brand to smaller applications such as conferences or live band applications, for effects returns or additional inputs in large multi-console applications, in installation/contracting work, or as part of a small mobile system. It also provides an ideal feature set for live acts who need to mix their own FOH and monitor sound from on-stage. Three versions are available, and will be available in the UK from Shuttlesound. Midas also made it two wins in a row by again picking up the Live! Best Audio Console award for the Heritage 3000. Allen & Heath, meanwhile, were delighted to pick up the Silver award for the ML5000 mixing desk.

Fuzion has recently taken on distribution of Camco amplifiers, and the impressive new Camco Vortex units were shown for the

Association News - AETTI Restructures

Details: 14 March 2016

Last year, the AETTI helped to develop the first BTEC qualifications for stage technicians, in association with Loughborough College and with the assistance of funding from the European Social Fund. On 31st January this year, the existing steering committee of the AETTI wound up and a new constitution was adopted. As part of the restructuring, Griffiths, Aveline and Branwell were chosen as the organisation’s new officers. The newly-restructured body has signed a formal agreement with Loughborough College for a three-year continuation of the development and delivery of

Siel 2001

Details: 14 March 2016

Siel kicked off the trade show season in style when it returned to its established home at the Porte de Versailles in Paris in early February. Some measure of its growing stature on the trade show circuit can be gauged by the fact that it now attracts nearly 300 exhibitors from all sectors of the industry.

Its widening appeal as an industry showcase is underlined by the fact that just about every major manufacturer from the audio, AV, lighting and staging worlds, had a presence at the Show, despite its proximity to both Namm and Live. Since most have appointed local distributors, the profile of the show remains distinctly French, and the visitor figures underline the fact that it still plays predominantly to its home market (of the 23,497 who attended, less than 6% were from overseas).

That said, even 6% constitutes a fairly considerable amount of international visitors, and Paris i

Association News - PLASA AGM 2001 Speaker Announced

Details: 14 March 2016

PLASA has now revealed details of the first of its two speakers booked for the 2001 AGM and industry dinner, which takes place on June 14th at Coombe Abbey.

Paul Zenon (pictured right), is a magician and comedian who is well known for more than 100 television appearances and is a regular at the Comedy Store . . .Details of the second of the evening’s speakers will be announced shortly.

All PLASA members are encouraged to attend this enjoyable event. Contact Helen Kneale at the PLASA Office for details, or visit: www.plasa.org/events/agm.asp

Crossroads Brought Back into the Light

Details: 14 March 2016

An institution is coming home, when Crossroads returns to our TV screens in the spring. The soap is planned to fill the gap following the departure of Home and Away. Filmed in Carlton TV’s studio in Nottingham, Crossroads will be the new centrepiece in ITV’s daytime schedule. Second time around, Crossroads has moved up-market, from the original motel to a modern hotel with a beauty salon, bar and restaurant and this time will be lit by a range of . To ensure the perfect lighting, Carlton bought 144 channels of ETC Sensor dimming, supplied by AC Lighting. The returning stars from the Crossroads hall of fame are Jane Rossington (no relation to L&SI’s editor sadly) as Jill Harvey, Kathy Staff, who hangs up the wrinkled stockings of Last of the Summer Wine's Nora Batty and dons the uniform of much-loved laundress Doris Luke and waiting in the wings for a return later in the

Association News - New Faces Join PLASA Show Team

Details: 14 March 2016

Following recent internal re-organisation at Clarion Events, the PLASA Show organising team has undergone several changes of role, as well as several new additions.

James Brooks-Ward is now Group Exhibition Director at Clarion, responsible for eight trade shows and 30 staff. Part of his new responsibility will be the development of new business areas for Clarion.Sue Silsby now takes on the role of PLASA Show Director. She has worked at Clarion Events for the past eight years. most recently as Show Director for The Royal Smithfield Show. Stephen Ingram comes in as the new senior sales manager for the Show. He too has a great deal of experience, having worked on events including The Royal Smithfield Show and The Sunday Times Environment Show.

Julie Haddow joins the team as marketing manager, and will take responsibility for marketing all of Clarion’s trade shows, including PLASA

Gearhouse Group in Receivership

Details: 14 March 2016

The Gearhouse Group plc and a large number of its subsidiary operations have been placed in administrative receivership. A legal notice posted on the company’s website states that AR Bloom & AJR Wollaston (Ernst & Young) were appointed joint administrative receivers on 23rd February 2001. Over recent years, the Group, a supplier of professional presentation and event production equipment, for both rental and sale, to the corporate presentation, TV, film and live entertainment industries worldwide, had followed an ambitious programme of growth, acquiring a number of complementary companies and rebranding them under the Group banner. It appears from the notice that most of the companies within the Group are now in receivership - these include all the Gearhouse subsidiaries across the UK, Gearhouse LED Screens, Gearhouse Lighting, Gearhouse Special Projects, Gearhouse Structures, Gear

Bidding War at Dome Auction

Details: 14 March 2016

News reaches us that the recent Dome auction turned into something of a bidding war and in so doing laid to rest fears that there would be a flood of cheap second-hand product hitting the market. Word has it that whilst there were some bargains to be had - top end lighting desks normally worth £15,000 upwards going for £7,000 - there were also numerous instances of bidders paying way over the list price for items. A 24-channel lighting control desk, for instance, which you can get for £525, was actually sold for £700, and this before the 10% premium buyers have to pay on all items. We also understand from our mole at the auction that numerous other items were attracting slightly higher or close to list price and one can only wonder at who out there has pockets so deep that price is not an issue. But not everything promised in the auction actually made it to the sale as the NMEC withd

International Seminars at Pro Light & Sound

Details: 14 March 2016

PLASA, the VPLT (PLASA’s sister association in Germany) and Trade Partners UK (British Government) have been working together to present three seminars at the Pro Light & Sound Show at the Frankfurt Musikmesse next week with simultaneous German/English translation. The first, on Wednesday 7th March at 12.30pm, covers ‘Cruise Ships and Events Technology‘ with Peter Ed of ETC Europe, Martin Lilly (Airtours/Sun Cruises), and Davey Smalley of BSS Audio. The seminar looks at event technology on cruise ships, revealing what requirements there are and which products and solutions are needed for these less than straightforward environments. The second seminar, on Thursday 8th March at 12.30pm, is entitled ‘German - English Trade’. Paul Robinson from the British Embassy in Berlin and Michael Schneider of Lightronic discuss the difference between the British and the G

Interactive Club Experience for Students

Details: 14 March 2016

Mobile phone company Orange has kicked off its largest ever Student Union club tour: ‘Enjoy Music on Campus’ is a high tech clubbing production that transforms student unions into impressive clubbing venues. Orange is employing expertise gained through its extensive music sponsorship portfolio to take leading DJs and the latest technology to universities across the UK. The first event took place in February at the De Montfort Student Union in Leicester and throughout the coming months will visit universities from Belfast to Plymouth, to allow as many students as possible to Enjoy Music on Campus. The line up for the events include the Freestylers, Jon Carter and talent from Grand Central Records. The club nights are designed to support the launch of ‘Orange on campus’, a mobile phone package specially designed for students.

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