General

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14 March 2016

Matthew Griffiths, CEO of PLASA, who welcomed the guest speakers and audience members to the launch, told LSI: "We're very proud to be able to host the launch of the Mayor's Green Theatre Plan at PLASA08. Many of the manufacturers represented here on the show floor are already playing an active role in developing new equipment and technologies to help theatres achieve the goals set by the Mayor's Plan, and the lighting and sound industry still has a great contribution to make. PLASA and its members are very keen to work with theatres and other industry bodies, not only to help improve the power efficiency of lighting and sound systems themselves, but also to support and encourage the adoption of the many s

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14 March 2016

"The show's success was due to a combination of factors," said Director of Events Nicola Rowland, "in particular a targeted marketing campaign combined with special online registration offers; a growth in exhibitor numbers; even more new product launches than in 2007; a greatly expanded educational programme; and improved visitor and exhibitor facilities.

"Combined with the effort that so many exhibitors made to p

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14 March 2016

The event took place in the historic Governor's Hall at St Thomas' Hospital - a room lined with Victorian wood panelling. The brief was to provide lighting which would accentuate the features of the room without damaging the valuable fabric of the building, and to provide entrance lighting to the event and sting lighting during the Award Ceremony itself.

Point Source Productions rose to the challenge providing a number of free-standing lighting fixtures to create maximum effect with no damage.

ChromaQ ColorBlock DB4 LED upligh

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14 March 2016

The APIAS development project, which began just over a year ago with the launch of the ShowWay exhibition and the introduction of associate membership, has been completed with the relocation of the association's offices to a new furnished building just outside Milan, at 128 Viale Fulvio Testi, Cinisello Balsamo. The site is already home to the offices of UCIMU (Association of Italian Manufacturers of Machine Tools, Robots, Automation Systems and Ancillary Products) and other associations.

APIAS says the new location fully meets the association's requirements, providing conference rooms, meeting rooms, a parking area, a restaurant, a bar, an on-site canteen, a concierge and reception area, and

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14 March 2016

The Noise Measurement Workshop is a practical course that will cover the skills and knowledge required to manage these regulations and provide a pragmatic guide to the current best practice. This will include analysis of case studies from across the entertainment and music sectors, as well as practical work measurement and assessment using both classic and contemporary examples.

James Tingay of Cirrus Research says, "Applying the Control of Noise at Work regulations within the entertainment and music industry can be a

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14 March 2016

Emma Bunton was the only Spice Girl present, and said she was "a bit shocked" to beat such venerable rock acts as Led Zeppelin. The pop group's victory will raise eyebrows among rock fans, but Bunton told the BBC News website: "The thing is, when you go to a gig, you go for fun and entertainment and a night out. And that's exactly what we did and I think that's why people enjoyed it so much."

Theatre News - Up to 95 publicly-funded theatres across England are to offer free tickets to young adults as par

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14 March 2016

With over 450 personnel on site, Showsec's contingency plans included using cabins and vehicles as drying areas for uniforms, ensuring that every staff member had dry clothes for their next shift, as well as maintaining the infrastructure of the staff campsite to ensure off-duty teams were well rested.

Showsec area manager Steve Reynolds commented: "Our risk management procedures always allow for poor weather at festivals and Bestival put those plans to the toughest

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14 March 2016

The only awards exclusively dedicated to lighting designers, the Knight of Illumination Awards are the result of an idea launched by Clay Paky and organised by the Italian firm in collaboration with STLD and ALD. The four awards categories are for Theatre, TV, Rock and a Lifetime Recognition award.

Enrico Caironi said: "We are delighted to offer our support to this established industry charity that helps Production Services Association members and their families at times of crisis."

PSA Welfare & Benevolent Fund Chairman Mike Lowe

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14 March 2016

During the programme, the CWA 25 regulation was presented by one of the workgroup members, Gert Jan Brouwer of Frontline Rigging. For more than two years, an international group of entertainment industry experts have worked on the European code of practice for stage machinery and load bearing structures, which is officially titled Lifting and load-bearing equipment for stages and other production areas within the entertainment industry.

The CEN Workshop Agreement (CWA) will be the first stage in the process to build a Europe-wide consensus community. The initial objective of the workshop will be to make an inventory of standards and standard-like documents, as well as l

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14 March 2016

Founded in 1966 by Stephen Arlen, then managing director of Sadler's Wells Opera, and Margaret 'Percy' Harris, then the company's resident designer, the course was first known as the Sadler's Well Design Course. The course subsequently became the Theatre Design Course of the English National Opera until 1981, and after some time at the Riverside Studios, the Almeida Theatre and the Royal National Theatre Studio, the course acquired the name Motley and took up residence at its present home, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane.

Every year the course selects up to 12 postgraduate-level students who wish to specialise in theatre design. The one-year course is project based, featuring five or

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14 March 2016

The circus, performing in Calthorpe Park, Edgbaston, fell foul of the Licensing Act 2003. The act forbids the playing of live music without a licence. Circus owner Martin Burton said that applying for a licence was time-consuming and expensive and called for circuses to be exempt from the legislation. He said: "I'm a big fan of silent comedy, but this is nonsense."

Old Rocker News (1) - Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant has scotched rumours that he is to tour with the band, describing speculation as "frustrating and ridiculous". Last week, The Sun newspaper reported th

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14 March 2016

Working specifically for the event hire sector, the board of the new association will provide help and support for event hire companies across the UK and Ireland.

Graham Arundell, managing director of HAE and board member of EHA, said, "The new association has been created to better support those companies in the event hire market. Although we offer a range of benefits as part of HAE's membership, we decided that we could offer a much more tailored service to event hire companies if they had a dedicated association of their own."

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Power Logistics' managing director Pete Wills remains with the band as tour electrician for the duration of the 2008 tour.

"We are delighted to be able to help Queen on their current European Tour," says Wills. "We have a long standing relationship with Queen's production team built on our reputation for making doubly certain the show must go on."

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

Church News - Guitarist Carlos Santana has said he wants to become a church minister when h

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14 March 2016

The programme, which commenced earlier this year, involves every part of the industry sector, from event clients to organisers, and venues to suppliers and features large corporate companies through to small and medium-sized enterprises.

This programme is managed by the Sustainable Events Group (SEG) and is due to run through until the planned review of the new standard early in 2009. Experiences from the programme will feed directly into the BS 8901 revision process undertaken by the British Standards Institution.

"The programme gives the UK event industry a real chance to lead the world in the application of sustainability principles to their activities and events,&q

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14 March 2016

Attaining compliance with BS 8901 will give businesses a significant market advantage as the new standard is already being specified by major organisations such as London2012 and is a core commitment of the recently-issued DCMS Sustainable Development Action Plan.

The programme, which is open to both members and non-members, is based on a series of five one-day workshops held at 4-5 week intervals, and has been specifically designed to provide a low-cost route to achi

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14 March 2016

For Tomcat, White Light will be the exclusive UK distributor for the Tomcat One range of truss products. The One range includes both ladder, rectangular box, triangular and stacking truss designs with either 48mm or 50mm diameter tubes.

JB Lighting is an innovative new manufacturer of LED and more traditional automated lighting fixtures, including the VaryLED A7 Zoom adjustable-beam moving LED washlight. The fixture won a Silver PLASA Award for Innovation this year.

The VaryLED A7 will be available from mid-November, with it and the rest of the JB Lighting range available in the UK exclusively from White Light.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

CAST's BlackBox is built with special hardware and proprietary software to be an integrated, bi-directional high speed communication solution which enables all control devices connected to it to send or receive instructions from each other. Live, realtime input is received in all forms by the BlackBox which acts as the brains - running on an ultra high-speed hybrid version of WYSIWYG.

CAST is working with key industry leaders - each a respected innovator in its own field -- to ensure BlackBox meets its technical objectives. In exchange, each will get a 12-month exclusive leadtime to enhance their own products to capitalize on the power and speed of BlackBox. Representatives of these companies were on hand during PLASA for the Beta launch phase to announce t

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14 March 2016

"Often our industry is creating "a vacation look" for everyone else, so we are very excited to offer this great opportunity to get away on your own vacation," said Rick Rudolph, chair of the Behind the Scenes committee.

Tickets are $25 each or 5 for $100 and will be available throughout the LDI show at the Behind the Scenes booth #2810. A maximum of 2000 tickets will be available. Tickets will also be available at the ESTA Annual Dinner on Thursday evening and the Rose Brand party on Friday evening. LDI 2008 takes place from

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14 March 2016

CTI's patent covers the transmission of DMX, RDM, and ACN via the means of FHSS (frequency hopping spread spectrum) radios as well as DHSS (direct sequence spread spectrum) radios, in the 2.4 GHz range. Also covered are the bi-directional broadcast of data, and the concept of a remote monitor for RDM and ACN.

City Theatrical's president, Gary Fails commented: "This patent is the result of over seven years of product development effort by Larry Dunn and Paul Kleissler, beginning when they were both independent engineers consulting with CTI, and leading to them jo

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14 March 2016

"Festivals like this differ vastly compared to working with a single band or in theatre assignments," Neuberger says. "First of all, you're doing at least five bands at each stage per day with almost no sound checks, and you can consider yourself lucky if you get a complete line check. On top of all this you're subject to the whims of the great outdoors and whatever weather comes your way, you're not always able to work in the most ideal of locations, and there are a lot of inputs. It's perfectly common to deal with 50 at a time from a single stage."

Working with headlining acts the Foo Fighters, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Beck, Manu Chao, John Fogerty, D

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14 March 2016

Opera News - "Not so long ago, making a fanfare about big frocks and fancy sets in opera was the preserve of that crowd-pleasing impresario Raymond Gubbay," wrote Emma Pomfret in The Times. "Heaven forbid that you uttered the words &quo

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14 March 2016

Under Bluman's stewardship, PSL has provided projection and screens to Global Gathering, Creamfields and The Big Chill festivals, to Razorlight, Faithless, Portishead and the Pet Shop Boys, to the BAFTA Awards and to the World Music Awards.

(Jim Evans)

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14 March 2016

"We are very pleased to offer our customers the ability to become more productive with Visio through the customisation that Visimation can provide for special shapes, reports, and more," said Adam Stone, president and founder of D-Tools. "When our customers need something special related to Visio, Visimation is the go-to company that can deliver it."