UK - PCM has supplied Lodestar double-braked motors to Adlib Audio for its high profile audio installation at the Villa Marina complex in Douglas, Isle of Man. The Lodestars, flying the main PA arrays, were chosen because their high spec' and double-braking feature means the venue doesn't have to call a rigger to adjust the safety steels every time the installed PA needs to move for maintenance or other adjustments. The same applies if a visiting production brings in their own PA which has to be flown.

Adlib's Andy Dockerty thinks this will become much more common in the future, because it saves time, and at the end of a show, a visiting crew can get their equipment in and de-rigged with a minimum of hassle. Dockerty has used Lodestars supplied by PCM for Adlib's touring work for many years, because of their proven reliability and excellent safety record.

The double-braked ver

Ireland - The versatility of BSS Audio's proprietary digital Soundweb engine has been put to imaginative use in the unconventional setting of an offshore pilgrimage centre in the north of Ireland. Situated in Co. Donegal, Lough Derg has for centuries been referred to by pilgrims, who visit the island retreat for solitude, fasting and praying, as 'Saint Patrick's Purgatory'.

But to acoustician Martin Grainger, of Omagh-based Grainger Communication, the only thing on his mind was working within the eight-second reverberation time which dogged the sound in the large St. Patrick's Basilica. Grainger has been servicing the requirements of Lough Derg for around 20 years, but knowing that only a complete audio refurbishment would provide the necessary solution, he wanted to ensure that the first phase would provide a leap forward for the officiating clergy. And so he set off armed wit

Greece - Bose Professional Systems Division has installed the company's loudspeakers at several of the Olympic stadia in Greece, including the main Olympic Stadium in Athens, where the opening ceremony will herald the start of the Games on 13 August 2004. Bose has been involved in nine projects in all, all of which were completed within the very tight deadlines imposed by the Olympic Committee.

The Bose system designers made use of Bose's tools and technologies that during the planning stages: using the Bose Modeler design software for all venues, and the proprietary technology of the Bose Auditioner audio demonstrator for the main Olympic Stadium in Athens, the company's Greek distributor, Audio Group Greece BV, was able to produce an accurate acoustic model of the space so that key sound parameters could be predicted. For the Olympic Stadium, the use of the Auditioner audio de

UK - PA Installations (PAI) has completed a sound, lighting and AV project at Pontypridd's new social hotspot, Alfred's Bar. The company was approached to supply the venue's technical needs, with project manager Andy Bonehill co-ordinating the operation. The client specifically wanted an installer able to deliver all elements rather than just lighting or audio or AV. They also wanted everything done to an extremely high specification. "We designed a versatile, neat system, based on the client's needs," says Bonehill, "choosing the best products for the job - one of the advantages of not being product-driven!"

Alfred's Bar is independently owned by local entrepreneur David John, whose family operates other bars and businesses in the area. The multi-function two-storey venue is open in the morning for coffee and breakfast, morphs into a lively lunch bar at mid

UK - Tourflex, distributed by A.C. Lighting, has launched the new Datasafe 4B digital data cable. The two-pair, 110 ohm, low smoke, halogen-free, ruggedized cable is designed for installation in extreme environments and insulated to 1000V, allowing cable runs in the same containment as power lines if required. The cable's outer sheath is both flame retardant and toughened, for a high degree of wear resistance.

Manufactured and tested to exacting specifications to ensure high performance and consistency, the cable is factory tested for HiPot, continuity, impedance and capacitance. The cable is available via A.C.'s Cable Express service, which provides same-day dispatch on custom manufactured cables and connectors. Other products in the Tourflex Datasafe range include 2-core, 4-core and digital colour changer cables.

(Lee Baldock)

Germany - The Kölnarena, Germany's largest multifunctional events forum, has installed a state-of-the-art digital announcement system manufactured by Interalia, the leading manufacturer of digital voice announcement solutions. Specified and installed by Germany-based electronic-acoustic company, Laauser & Vohl, the Trouncer system is one of a number of Interalia's products being installed by Laauser & Vohl at locations throughout Germany.

Located in Cologne, the impressive Kölnarena is surrounded on all sides by a glass façade. The 83,700 square meter building has a capacity for over 18,000 visitors and offers a full programme of entertainment throughout the year including concerts, shows, sports spectaculars and television productions in addition to providing a venue for meetings, congresses and conferences. Interalia's Trouncer system is used within the Kölnarena centre as

UK - Welsh contractor AB Acoustics recently carried out a complete multimedia fit-out at The Banc, just outside Newport, South Wales, with the essential audio power tools supplied by Fuzion plc. Confronted with a tight budget, AB Acoustics' Rob Ashton needed to achieve the best result for the 350-capacity all-day venue. The sound system was configured for dual operation as a background music system during the daylight hours, giving way to a more punchy sound after dark - particularly on the weekend nights when a DJ takes over.

Ashton distributed 12 Work Studio 5 two-way full-range loudspeakers, around the venue - finished in white and powered by Work SV series amplifiers. All were supplied by Fuzion plc, and Rob Ashton confirms that he used a similar combination recently to drive the Taff Bar at Cardiff University.

"I have been using Work products for the past three years

UK - The Corn Exchange in Cambridge has just upgraded its Front-of-House sound to an Opus AT1000 Array Technology system, supplied by Real Time Audio. When Colin Farrell first joined The Corn Exchange as head of sound he upgraded from the existing Bose loudspeakers to a small Martin theatre system, which covered the theatre's basic needs. Then, about five years ago, Real Time Audio, who were doing the sound for Joe Longthorne playing at the theatre, brought in their Opus system.

"That was when I first heard how a system could really sound", recalls Farrell. "At first I took no notice of these large blue boxes being wheeled in but as soon as Richard from Real Time fired up the system I instantly knew this was something really special."

Farrell continues, "That started my determination that one day we'd have Opus at The Corn Exchange. At this venue we c

UK - Harman Pro UK has supplied Derby-based sales and installation specialists Pro Technical with a wide range of JBL speakers for various Aruba late-night bar installations around the country. One of the most recent is in Hanley, Stroke-On-Trent, which features a sound design utilizing three different types of JBL Control Contractor enclosure.

The Aruba roll-out for The Dukedom Group, now contains 32 venues around the UK, each one of them different and individually designed. The Stoke site is a single large room with a central bar, designed by Mason Wood Architects - who also do all the Revolution Vodka Bars. Each site's audio design and installation is also unique and specific to that venue. At Stoke, the client wanted both a variable loudness foreground music system, and a punchier DJ-led dancefloor area, operational five nights a week. Aruba Stoke is divided into three soun

UK - PA Installations has been nominated as 'Installer of the Year' for the Scottish Regional BEDA Awards, for its technically daring lighting, sound and AV project at City nightclub in Edinburgh.The 1,800-capacity sports bar/club/restaurant for Paul and Stephen Smith's Castle Leisure Group is located in the former Scotsman newspaper printworks behind Edinburgh's Waverley Station. Set within a 30,000sq.ft space, the £4.2 million refurbishment features innovative applications of technology including a digital 'backbone' for lighting sound, video and CCTV, which also integrates the cash tills under Crestron touch-screen control, and enables Wales-based PA Installations to remotely access, interrogate and troubleshoot the system online.

Other technicals include a 16-zone, 7.1 sound environment in the Sportsters Bar, also linked to the digital network, which handles routing from e

Tunisia - Since Marantz' workhorse PMD320 was installed in 'Dar Zamen', a visitor attraction in the Tunisian cultural tourist complex of Dar Cherait, back in 1997, the 20 rack-mount CDs have provided continuous playback over a full duty cycle - without a single aberration.

Situated in the southern resort of Tozeur, the park, which is open seven days a week, recalls 3,000 years of Tunisian history. "To this day, the PMD320s continue to function impeccably over an eight-hour cycle, operating until midnight on a daily basis," says M N Chelli, from Backstage Technology - a company created with the visitor attraction's owner Chérait Jallel back in 2002 to take care of all the Chérait Group's technical requirements.

But times have moved forward and the professional playback device has now evolved into the PMD325. In addition to playing conventional CDs it will handle CD

UK - Stage Two Ltd, the Watford-based sound and lighting company, has recently completed a project to supply and install a new paging system at the large Watford Sorting Office for the Royal Mail. The Watford Sorting Office covers a large area and following the re-structuring of the postal delivery pattern is subject to significant variations in the ambient noise level within the sorting hall itself when the letter-sorting equipment becomes active.

The project called for some 150 speakers in a combination of ceiling and wall units, together with outside projectors for the loading bay. It was also important to create a zoned approach and Stage Two opted for the Cloud Electronics range of products for the amplification and signal processing equipment, augmented by an ambient noise computer from Symetrix and a telephone interface from Baldwin Boxall. Speakers were selected from Pen

Canada - Strand Lighting has won the contract to supply the lighting system for the new Toronto Opera House. The 2000-capacity Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts will be the new home for the Canadian Opera Company and the National Ballet of Canada. The design team for the project includes Jack Diamond and Gary McCluskie, Diamond and Schmitt Architects, Shaili Patel and Lana MacInnes of electrical engineers Mulvey & Banani International, and Josh Dachs and Richard Hoyes of the theatrical consultancy Fisher Dachs & Associates. The acoustical consultants for the project are Sound Space Design of London in association with Aercoustics Ltd.

Strand Lighting has worked closely with both the Opera Company and the Ballet for over 30 years, most recently at their current home at the Hummingbird Center in Toronto with opera technical director Julian Sleath and resident master elec

UK - Electrosonic was responsible for the overall system design, project engineering, installation, programming and commissioning of the AV systems at the Science Museums's new Dana Centre in London. The stylish, purpose-built venue provides a forum where the international research community and the general public can take part in exciting debates about contemporary science, technology and culture.

The Science Museum has a full time staff engaged in the realisation of interactive exhibits, and has enormous experience of the realities of using AV techniques in the public domain. With the Dana Centre, it was quite clear about its objectives, but it did not have the in-house resources to complete the detailed design. Electrosonic was chosen from among the proposed solutions, not only because its proposal appeared cost-effective, but also because it was clear that it had relevant e

Sudan - The Ministry of Energy and Mines in Sudan has placed an order for a complete conference system, to be supplied by Brähler ICS UK Ltd. The system is to be installed into the Ingaz Conference Hall by local Sudanese company, Federal Information Technology Co. The Ministry's premises is located adjacent to the UN headquarters offices in Khartoum.

Brähler ICS was chosen as the principle supplier for the project. Facilities will include an 85-user Automic microphone system, linked to an Infracom simultaneous interpretation system with infra-red delegate receivers and a full public address system. A flexible and robust system was required, as uses will include conferences, seminars and training sessions in multiple languages.

The Automic microphone system comes with portable delegate and chairman's microphones, both with gooseneck stems and interfaces with the interpretati

UK - CP Sound has supplied a complete lighting and sound design, specification and installation to the new independent club, 90 Degrees - The Right Angle in Grantham, with the technical work being completed in just four days! CP's Colin Pattenden was approached by the owners after they researched the nightclub trade press to find good options for sound and lighting. Pattenden asked David Linger from Robe UK to supply the lighting, whilst he concentrated on the sound and lighting design.

90 Degrees is located in a cavernous old building above a wine warehouse and consists of several rooms, including a main DJ/dance area, a secondary dancefloor and a seated 'booth' area with rounded, cocoon-like seats. From the outset, the club has been designed to be truly multipurpose. The name '90 Degrees' refers to the owners wanting everyone to have a clear view of the performance area in fro

UK - Sound Division has been nominated Installer of the Year in the prestigious National BEDA Awards, for its AV installation at London's Lonsdale House. The National BEDA Awards traditionally recognize the best individuals, venues and products in the industry, and this year, for the first time, has created a brand new category to honour installers. Lonsdale House has become a Mecca for connoisseurs of high-class London nightlife. Owner Charles Breedan chose Sound Division as a direct result of the company's work for top London restaurant, Momo.

Sound Division managing director David Graham is very pleased with the nomination. "I feel that it's a great achievement for Sound Division," he stated. "We've made a conscious effort over the last two year to focus our energies on the London contracting market, and we are fortunate to be able to count a number of very pre

UK - As part of a recent refurbishment of Elly's Bar & Restaurant on the Jersey resort of La Pulente, Channel Islands-based Project Audio has installed 10 of the new QSC Acoustic Design AD-S52 loudspeakers.

Purchased from Shure Distribution UK, the AD-S52s are fed from background hard drive computer by day and live DJ playback sources after dark. Each of the restaurant's four zones is addressed by a single channel of a four-channel QSC CX254 amplifier, which occupies just 2U of rack space. Two AD-S52 enclosures are located in the main restaurant, with a further two in the conservatory, two in the smaller restaurant area and two in the bar. The final pair are installed upstairs and run on an independent system.

Project Audio's Dave Findlay, who was introduced to the AD-S52s at last year's PLASA Show, believes he is the first person to install them in the UK. Commenting on the p

UK - In late April, having received an impromptu visit and presentation of the new KV2 Audio ES system by Andy Austin-Brown, both Phil Soltys and Dave Charman of PSD Electronics in Newquay were impressed enough to invite Austin-Brown back to conduct an "on-site, live Friday night demonstration in the heart of Newquay nightlife."

The venue was the Koola Club, an eclectic mix of club, bar and attached restaurant, feeding the requirements of the resident surf and sand fraternity as well as the hedonist weekend visitors and devout clubbers, situated on the seafront. The owners wanted to invest in a new sophisticated, but discreet audio system that could provide extreme high power with exceptional clarity and finesse. With a diverse range of entertainments from dance to live performances, the system had to operate with the minimum of attention.

Dave Charman explained: &qu

Australia. - The newly opened AFL (Australian Football League) "Hall of Fame and Sensation" has made extensive use of ARX's Level 8 Audio Line Balancer. Centrally located on Swanston Street, Melbourne's main CBD thoroughfare, the Hall of Fame features a series of "walk-through theatre-ettes" each showing video clips of Australian football history. Each visual display is accompanied by an appropriate audio track from a bank of un-balanced sources triggered by movement sensors.

As the distance from the sound source to the screen displays is up to 40m the normally un-balancedsignal would be prone to any number of interferences. Installation Contractor DRM Project Audio Visual installed 10 units of Level 8s offering a total of 80 Channels to balance the Soundtrack signals and provided strong clean interference free signal paths.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

USA - Utah's Salt Lake City Olympic Legacy Theatre uses a pair of Jem Glaciator heavy foggers to create a special cloud effect during the opening and closing scenes of a feature movie that is presented several times each day.

Supplied by Las Vegas-based atmospheric and effects specialists Water FX, the Glaciators are used to create a three-dimensional cloud at the beginning of the film, a curved 37ft (11.3m) fog barrier that covers the projection screen. The fog creates a curtain onto which three projectors cast images of blue clouds. The fog curtain is controlled via fans and manifolds, and at one point a hole is blown through the cloud to create for the audience the effect of flying through the clouds.

At the end of the movie, viewers journey back through the clouds. Some 150ft (45.7m) of ducting, plus 120ft (36.6m) of manifold and 100ft (30.5m) of tubing with a large diver

UK - A high-profile vodka bar in Bedford has become a showcase for the latest fashions in LED lighting. Purchased recently by Mark Walker for his girlfriend Deborah, Bar Soviet is equipped with the latest Mood panel and high-power Solar MR16 RGB downlighter technology - supplied by Ian Kirby's Lighting Effects Distribution.

Having finally taken over the premises which he had tried for four years to acquire, the new owner - who also runs the company Laser Light International - wasted no time. First he applied for a PEL (which he hopes will give him a 3am license) and then he contacted his friend, Glasgow-based Nadar Shahzad of Blue Audio. Shahzad reports, "Mark wanted the venue to constantly change colour. Although he hadn't seen the Mood panels, we had been sent a demo unit last year - and I knew this would be the perfect solution for him."

Offering a split screen di

UK - The Product Excellence Awards at the PLASA Show has been a popular feature of the event for many years, highlighting the significance of the show as a focus for new developments for the industry. To reinforce this role, the PLASA Awards have undergone an important change for the 2004 event (12-15 September), in order to focus on genuine innovation.

For the re-branded PLASA Awards for Innovation, the judges will be looking for products which advance the industry, demonstrate a new style of thinking, represent a key step forward in safety terms, or improve technical practices. There will be eight Awards for Innovation at the judges' disposal and currently over 60 nominations have been received, with just three weeks before the deadline of Friday 3 September. Exhibitors who still wish to nominate a product are urged to submit their applications as soon as possible. Nominees w

UK - One of the world's leading cruise ships, the QE2, has undergone an extensive technical refurbishment of its Grand Lounge, the largest entertainment venue on the ship. A new Martin Audio sound system has been installed to handle the Lounge's diverse programme of events.

The Grand Lounge stretches over two decks of the ship, accommodating 450 people in cabaret-style seating on two levels. Twice a night, the ship's on-board cast present theatrical production shows, and occasionally guest cabaret artists perform, as well as dance bands. Cunard's entertainment technical manager Andy Pygott had to search for a sound reinforcement system that was flexible enough to handle these shows, as well as all the other events that are hosted by the Grand Lounge throughout the day.

"We were looking for a system that would deliver even sound coverage across the whole room, with a part

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