UK - Show Support (part of the XL Group of companies) has announced the appointment of Nick Hart as business development manager. Hart brings plenty of experience at the sharp end of the live events and video rental markets through working with Blitz for the last year.

MD Rich Rowley says: "I have known Nick for some time and am delighted he accepted our offer. His energy and enthusiasm fits perfectly with the tight teamwork and personal management style we encourage at Show Support. I am expecting great things."

(Jim Evans)

Europe - Customers at selected Tommy Hilfiger Denim stores can now join the Hilfiger Hall of Fame, by adding their pictures via a pioneering interactive storefront campaign.

Hilfiger stores in (London, Amsterdam, Cologne, Antwerp and Dublin) now feature through-window touch screen technology, providing an interface for passing shoppers to capture, stylise and submit their image as part of a collage of images being shown on digital screens in the shop windows.

The digital storefronts enable customers to interact with the Hilfiger brand even outside of business hours. At the end of the campaign, customers will be able to return to the store and have their own T-shirt specially printed using the image they created as the design.

This is the first time a global fashion brand has embraced an interactive out-of-the-home format to create a unique channel for 24/7 dynamic relationsh

UK - Stage Electrics has invested in 22,000sq.ft of additional storage space due to the increasing popularity of the company's temporary ice rinks.

The new storage facility is situated in Croespenmaen, near Blackwood in Caerphilly which is situated close to the M4 just 40 minutes drive from the company's head office in Avonmouth. The storage facility is situated on a large mixed usage estate and potentially another half million square feet is available if required in the future.

This year Stage Electrics supplied 13 temporary ice rinks in the UK and Ireland including rinks of 850m2 in Manchester, 810sq.m in Brighton, 600sq.m in Cambridge, 450sq.m in Huddersfield, 325sq.m at Marwell Zoo and for the third year Gloucester's rink, two rinks in Bristol, a 600sq.m rink in Tralee, Ireland and an artificial rink at Earls Court at the Boat Show.

Gordon Wells, head of finance at Stage

UK - Funktion One has added a new rental company to its UK Rental Network. The newly formed partnership between Steven Ward and David "Steedsy" Stevenson took delivery of their first Resolution 4 Touring system last week. Powered by the MC2 amplifiers and XTA loudspeaker management system, the rig was out on hire for the first time on Saturday night for a local charity event.

Steven Ward comments: "Steedsy and I had worked together 20 years ago, before both going on to having successful businesses within the entertainment industry. However, we had both been dabbling in sound hire and kept up with developments in technology. Following on from a meeting over a year ago we decided to form a professional sound & light hire company.

"After a trip to PLASA, we set our sights on a Funktion One system. There was an obvious gap in the market for Funktion One in Cent

There's more evidence that we are working in a global village: Glastonbury UK based Serious Stages shipped 10 containers with two of their new Solar Roofs to Australia for a busy summer festival season there, including Elton John's The Captain and The Kid tour. And still on the live music front, our list of unusual and different concert venues got another addition this week when Deep Purple and Tina Turner played at a party in The Kremlin for Dimitry Medvedev, widely tipped to be Russia's next president.

Popular television series are providing an unexpected and welcome bonus for all involved in the touring business. The latest to go out on the road is Strictly Come Dancing which is proving an excellent showcase for the industry's creative teams and products.

In the events diary, The ARC Show, the RIBA-accredited business event for those involved in architectural, retai

UK - David Caulfield, the former managing director of Martin Professional Plc, has returned to the industry at the head of a new venture, Gator Europe. Formed in association with Tampa, Florida-based Gator Cases, Gator Europe will provide local contact and communication for Gator OEM customers, manufacturing 'own brand' case products for companies in the entertainment industry and beyond.

Founded in 2000, Gator is the largest case supplier in the entertainment industry, selling more than 80,000 cases per month to 90 countries worldwide. The company has over 2,700 dealers in the USA, and distribution takes place from two large warehouses in Tennessee and Utah with a two day UPS ground shipment to 95% of the USA. Gator has been nominated the NAMM accessory product of the year, winning three of the last four years.

The company has a 400,000sq.ft global manufacturing facility in D

The Netherlands - Between 24 January and 3 February 2008 at Ahoy, Rotterdam, over 200,000 people flocked to see the tenth birthday party of Vrienden van Amstel 2008 Live music spectacular featuring many Dutch live acts.

Each artist performs two tracks and on the third track, the next artist comes on stage, sings part of the song before taking over to perform their two songs. With so many different acts and styles, it demonstrated the versatility of the MagicQ consoles, say the company.

Every day, the opening sequence of the show included a two-minute drum solo with audio, lighting, video and pyrotechnic all synchronised together using SMPTE timecode. The two MagicQ MQ100 Pro consoles each took a SMPTE feed to ensure perfect synchronisation with a total of 77 different lighting cues fired automatically during the opening sequence.

Ignace d'Haese from Arf & Yes designed the se

USA - Theatre Projects Consultants reports that Millie Dixon (TPC principal) and Jules Lauve (TPC associate) were voted into the American Society of Theatre Consultants (ASTC) at the ASTC Forum '07.

Dixon has been with Theatre Projects since 1997, initially working as a performance equipment specialist and then as a project manager.

Lauve joined TPC in 2001 with more than 25 years experience in the entertainment industry. He has managed entertainment operations for numerous large-scale projects and has designed scenery and lighting for many regional opera and ballet companies.

(Jim Evans)

Russia - Aziz Adilkhodjaev has joined the Avolites technical sales team. Uzbekistan born, a fluent Russian speaker and with a background in engineering, mobile telecoms and business administration, he will take care of technical support and customer care for Russia and the CIS. His duties at Avolites also include specialising in media server technology and its integration with their range of consoles, and he will also manage all of Avolites' digital assets including photo and video archives, product and training movies.

Avolites' Steve Warren says, "Aziz has already proved his value to the company in dealing with the Russian speaking countries. Having also lived there, he's familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the financial and economic systems and dealings which is a great asset."

Adilkhodjaev also has some experience and familiarity with architectural lighting as hi

Australia - ARX Systems has confirmed the appointment of Masters Commerce as its new distributor for Bosnia and Hercegovina.

ARX managing director Colin Park commented: "Masters Commerce's Mirna Kuridza and I have been discussing the possibilities of working together in the Bosnia and Hercegovina market for several years and Masters Commerce technicians felt our range of signal processing products was a very complementary fit with the other lines they currently represent, especially our newer interface and dynamics products.

"The Bosnia and Hercegovina market is growing quite rapidly and we're looking forward to working with Mirna Kuridza and her energetic team at Masters Commerce to introduce their customers to the state of the art performance that ARX products can offer them."

Alongside ARX, Masters Commerce also represents manufacturers including LSC, Clay

Australia - Klotz Digital has confirmed an expansion of its sales partnership with Amber Technology whose Australian branch will act as distributor for XENON and AEON products in Australia.

"To appoint Amber Technology as Australian distributor for these products made perfect sense after Amber Technology's sweeping initial sales success in New Zealand", says Patrick Salloch, general manager of Klotz Digital Asia Pacific.

"It showed us that we could adopt a similar business model in Australia. The sales figures of the Xenon and Aeon products were very encouraging in Australia last year and we hope we can take these figures to new heights by appointing a leading, trusted and well established broadcast distributor in Amber Technology."

(Jim Evans)

USA - The Long Reach Long Riders and The ESTA Foundation have announced details of their annual raffle to benefit Behind the Scenes at the USITT conference. This popular event will be held on 22 March, 2008 at the Behind the Scenes booth on the trade show floor of the USITT Conference in Houston, Texas. Every dollar raised will be tripled thanks to challenge grants sponsored by Bigger Hammer Production Services, Sapsis Rigging and Strong Entertainment Lighting.

Twelve raffle prizes have been donated by: Altman Rentals (ghostlight), Barbizon ($250 gift certificate), City Theatrical (Lightwright), D&D Software Co. (LD Assistant 04), Field Template (SoftSymbols and Field Templates), Le Maitre Special Effects (Radiance Hazer), Live Design (Broadway Master Class), Nolan Engineering Services (Structural Master Class by Shawn Nolan), Sapsis Rigging (Safety Seminar by Bill Sapsis), USIT

Writing in The Times, John Niven makes some interesting observations on how the music industry has changed: "The late Nineties are increasingly starting to resemble a glorious last hurrah for the music industry, a spangled fall-of-Rome era. The sales of CDs have declined year-on-year since 2000. Profit margins have been decimated. Bands give their music away free with newspapers to drive up ticket sales for their profitable live shows - a complete reversal of the time where an act lost money on the road in order to drive CD sales.

And on the green front, over to Ken Livingston, Mayor of London: "The Arcola Theatre is a good example of why London's cultural sector is so dynamic and successful. Arcola is leading the theatre industry in developing this premiere sustainable production and I know that many other theatres are now keen to follow. The Living Unknown Soldier is

USA - Kenyon Whitright has returned as president of Wybron, Inc. overseeing all day-to-day aspects of the company. Previously, Whitright enjoyed semi-retirement while continuing to be chairman of Wybron.

"It has been a rough time for me, all the fishing was really starting to grate on my nerves," said Whitright. "I'm excited to get back to the serenity of my office."

Wybron's aggressive product development schedule continues with some revolutionary new ideas provided by Whitright. "I don't know if we'll get to everything this year. I've had almost too much time to think up new products and can't wait to see it all come together," he added.

Speaking of his decision to return, Whitright said, "I've built this business out of a garage to what it is today. Along the way I've been joined by an extraordinary group of people. It is their commitmen

UK CitySprint, the UK's largest privately owned SameDay Courier business has been appointed by Halifax-based J&C Joel - a leading theatrical drape manufacturer - to make SameDay deliveries nationwide. Most recently, CitySprint was engaged to deliver some of the 190 theatrical curtains for the Liverpool Echo Arena in aid of the 2008 European City of Culture celebrations.

CitySprint, with its national network of 30+ Service Centres, has also delivered J&C Joel's drapes, fabrics, tracking and stage machinery to various locations across the country.

Maxine Hickey, domestic despatch manager for J&C Joel, says: "We trust the CitySprint team to be there especially when time is of the essence. Some courier companies will fob you off with what you want to hear rather than the truth. But with CitySprint's CourierLocator technology there is total transparency; all I need to do is lo

Germany - Avolites takes its new Pearl Tiger lighting console to ProLight & Sound Frankfurt for the first time. The Pearl Tiger will be the main product highlighted on the stand of German Distributor Trendco, along with a new version the Avolites Art2000 Series touring dimmer with 3 pin mains patching connectors developed specifically for the German market.

Avolites' will also introduce Aziz Adilkhodjaev a new member of the technical sales team. A fluent Russian speaker with a background in engineering, mobile telecoms and business administration, Adilkhodjaev's presence at the show underlines Avolites commitment to Eastern European markets, says the company.

Many of the technical support documents have been translated into Russian and Adilkhodjaev is also a media server specialist, offering integration support for the constant stream of emerging video technologies.

(Jim Eva

UK - The first ever conference of the Schools Theatre Support Group (STSG) was held on Saturday 9 February at Rugby School in Warwickshire. The STSG is an informal organisation, founded in 2005, for professional technicians and theatre managers working in school or college theatres.

As theatre practitioners in a teaching environment, school theatre staff can be in a unique and isolated situation, outside of regular theatre, but with the same intentions, products, rules and problems. The group currently has nearly 100 members from a wide range of independent and state schools, colleges and universities around the country, allowing members to share ideas and problems specific to school theatres, as well as raising awareness of school theatre work amongst fellow professionals.

The conference was organised by Paul Durose of The Leys School, Cambridge, and was hosted by Rugby Schoo

UK - Stage Electrics reports that it has scheduled a record number of training courses in the forthcoming months. In total 31 courses have been arranged between February and June 2008, says the company.

Courses are available on a wide range of subjects including rigging, sound, stage lighting, working from heights, moving lights and the ever popular pyrotechnics safety awareness. New courses for 2008 include Introduction to Sound Training, Advanced Moving Lights Training and Legislative Guide to Rigging.

Stage Electrics' training manager Sara Alarabi comments, "Our January courses sold out in record time, I think this is a clear indication that the requirement for formal, structured training within the industry is increasing. Our courses are designed as a direct result of what our customers have asked us for. They are constantly evolving driven by latest technology and le

UK - Harman Pro UK has announced another of its successful training days for live sound engineers who wish to know more about the Soundcraft Vi6 digital live sound console. This time, the event will take place on Friday 7 March 2008, at the head office of live sound specialists and equipment hire company SSE Audio in Redditch, near Birmingham.

Two training sessions will be held on the day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, each catering for up to 10 engineers. At each session, following an initial technical presentation, the 10 will be divided into two groups of five, each with access to their own Vi6, so that every attendee is assured of some properly supervised hands-on time with the console.

(Jim Evans)

Counterfeiting and piracy are major problems facing many industries today - perfume, films, music recordings, designer fashion wear and much more are affected. It's good to see that the organisers of the upcoming PALME show in Dubai are joining show organisers such as PLASA and Frankfurt Messe in taking a tough stand against the copycats to support legitimate companies in the professional audio, light and AV industries whose long-term investment in product development and branding is threatened by the counterfeiters.

On the subject of the Middle East, the region continues to grow as a serious marketplace for our industries. Serious Stages, working with Atlantic Enterprises, saw one of their Space Roof buildings air freighted from East Midlands Airport to Saudi Arabia for a foundation stone laying ceremony to launch KAUST - the SR10 billion King Abdullah University of Science and Techno

USA - The ESTA Foundation reports that Rosco will donate the proceeds from the sales of Roscolux #359 Medium Violet to Behind the Scenes. While the colour name remains the same, the Behind the Scenes logo will be added to the Roscolux swatch book slip sheet and marketing materials, making it easy to identify. Rosco will present a check to Behind the Scenes each year at the LDI Show.

Ame Strong, Rosco's colour filter product manager says, "I am impressed at how easy it is to apply for a grant by simply downloading an Application from the website and also how quickly the grant applications are reviewed. It is wonderful that our industry is helping colleagues with doctor bills, health insurance payments, saving homes, and putting food on the table, as well as helping widows when they are suddenly alone. And I'm proud that Rosco's commitment is a gift that will continue far int

USA - Orion Software and its flagship product, Sirius Pro, have been honoured with the 2007 award for the Innovative Product - Software Category by Rental Equipment Register Magazine at the ARA Rental Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. The award was presented to Orion Software for their latest addition to Sirius Pro, an optional electronic signature capture and management system. "Orion takes great pride in this achievement and it represents the culmination of over 20 years of experience providing Rental & Inventory Management software solutions to the Rental industry," says a company statement.

Andre Gilbert, president of Orion Software comments: "I am very proud to receive this prestigious award on behalf of our development team who have worked hard to create great software! Being voted as the most innovative Rental Software in the industry encourages us to stri

The closure of the latest incarnation of London's Marquee Club is a sad occasion that marks the end of another chapter in the venue's colourful 50-year history. Readers may care to reflect that in the month it first opened its doors, April 1958, stereo long playing records (LPs) went on sale for the first time and after two years on Broadway, My Fair Lady opened successfully at the Drury Lane Theatre, London, and VERA, the UK's first video recorder was used by the BBC during a transmission of the current affairs programme Panorama.

Meyer Sound's expansion plans for its operations in Germany is another welcome indicator that the German economy is easing intro better shape after a long time in the doldrums. It has not been without its problems - social and economic - since the heady days of re-unification but it's looking healthy now. And Meyer can expect stiff competition

UK - Marquee Audio is in administration. The Shepperton-based supply, distribution and install operation which has been in business for 20 years, is understood to have been experiencing financial difficulties.

Robert Keys of Tenon Recovery was appointed joint administrator of the company by the High Court last month. "This move effectively bubble wraps the company to protect it from its creditors and give it some breathing space in which to sort out its affairs," says Keys.

The administrators are in talks with potential purchasers of the company and its constituent parts and report some interest from within the industry.

There are three levels of creditors - chargeholders such as banks that have issued secured loans, employees and general trade creditors. How much anyone gets will be determined by how much the company or its parts are sold for.

Marquee Audio mana

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