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Video and AV

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UK - Visuals-for-events specialist Bluman Associates worked to a brief from West Design and Production (WD&P) on the premiere of the last ever Harry Potter film - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part II.

Bluman Associates provided and managed the giant high definition screen, which formed part of the ambitious WD&P design that wowed a crowd of thousands in London's Trafalgar Square. The screen was used to showcase a specially cut trailer (created by Edit Poole) along with live camera footage from the event.

Event designer and producer for the world premiere Lucy Smail of WD&P, comments, "This was a huge event and the screen formed a crucial part of our design concept. The screen added an extra dimension to the event and we were delighted with the impact it had. Excerpts and trailers from the Harry Potter film, specially put together by Edit Poole, looked grea

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UK - With artists on the festival circuit demanding more elaborate visual set-ups than ever before, Colour Sound Experiment - the specialist lighting and sound designers - has announced its investment in a £300,000 bespoke 100sq.m LED video wall.

Working closely with Azule Finance to expand its business, this lightweight, scalable video wall is just one part of Colour Sound Experiment's recent stock expansion, which also includes GLP impressions and Clay Paky Alpha Spots.

The summer months are always a busy time of year for Colour Sound Experiment. However, with new headline artists and major festivals on its books, it needed to rapidly scale up operations to meet the breadth of projects in the pipeline.

Haydn Cruickshank, MD Colour Sound Experiment explained: "We needed a large scale video wall solution that was both compact and lightweight, for speed of rigging

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UK - The Roland V-1600HD Multi Format Live Video Switcher was recently chosen by Digital Insanity as graphics switcher for the main stage at T4 On The Beach, a one day music festival which is held every July on the beach at Weston Super Mare.

T4 On The Beach is hosted by and televised for Channel 4 and consists of a number of contemporary pop and rock acts performing live in front of an audience of 50,000 people.

Digital Insanity, a video solutions provider specialising in content creation and show operation has been providing the video graphics for the event since 2005 - the first year the event featured a video screen.

With a requirement to create bespoke looks for upwards of 60 tracks and a video heavy stage set - often with multiple unique outputs and video links - Digital Insanity needed a live video switcher which they could use to switch between various feeds for the

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South Africa - Green Hippo's Tom Etra is making his way southbound and will be joining distributor Tadco at the Mediatech tradeshow in Johannesburg's Coca Cola Dome.

Mediatech is the continent's largest media and entertainment technology tradeshow and will see exhibitors and visitors from a wide variety of sectors including pro AV, Staging, Rigging and Lighting as well as Broadcast, Film and Production.

"This is a great opportunity to show South Africa what Green Hippo products have to offer. Tadco are making huge strides into the video market and it is exciting to be part of this. I hope to set a lot more Hippotizers free in South Africa."

Prior to the show, Etra will spend a couple of days training at Tadco as well as local production company Sound Stylist, who have already experienced Hippotizer during the 2010 World Cup.

Having started as a sound and communic

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World - After debuting with Celine Dion (Taking Chances World Tour 2009), Britney Spears (The Circus World Tour 2009), Kylie Minogue (US tour 2010), Microsoft (Kinect CDS launch 2010) and Victoria's Secret (2010), the MDG theONE atmospheric generator has completed another international assignment with Kylie Minogue's Aphrodite - Les Folies World Tour 2011, which draws to a conclusion in South Africa this week.

Four of the TheONE generators have accompanied Miss Minogue across 28 countries, augmented by four MDG Ice Fog QTM Low Lying Fog Generators, to produce the spectacular atmospherics which underpinned the tour's distinctive look.

The MDG units were supplied for the European and North American legs by the tour's lighting, video and sound supplier, Solotech. They were supplied at the request of lighting designer, Nick Waterhouse, who was careful to speci

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International - There are just 10 days remaining to make your nomination for the 2011 Gottelier Award.

When the Nomination phase closes on Friday 29 July, the shortlist will be announced and voting - open to PLASA Members, as well as PLASA Show Exhibitors and Pre-Registered Visitors - will begin on Monday 1 August.

This prestigious award is presented each year during the PLASA Show to someone who has made "a significant and sustained contributions to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology - whether in audio, lighting, rigging, staging, or any other related field".

The Award was introduced in memory of Tony Gottelier, the highly respected lighting designer, product developer and industry commentator who passed away in 2006.

Previous Winners:

2007 - Tony Andrews | Funktion-One

2008 - John Stadius | DiGiCo / Soundtra

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Theatres at Risk - The Theatres Trust has called on local communities to fight to save theatre buildings which are at risk. Some 58 UK buildings are on the trust's 2011 'at risk' register, with the Brighton Astoria and London's Cochrane Theatre among those facing demolition. It said it hoped legislation, including the new Localism Bill, would empower groups and individuals to "take on the guardianship of theatres at risk".

Theatres in Wallsend, Alsager, Ayr and Glasgow were all recently demolished. The at risk register also features theatres threatened by neglect, local development, funding cuts and closure. The trust said this year's register highlighted the impact of austerity measures over the past year. It praised "the tireless efforts of community and campaign groups who are the guardian angels of many UK theatres". But it said there was still "a de

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Europe - Producers and re-mixers Jas Shaw and James Ford have been making a name for themselves as Simian Mobile Disco for the past six years. The DJ duo from London produce mostly analogue, techno, dance, and electro house music and have released various albums since 2005 with their own music and a range of remixes.

This summer sees them touring Europe and the UK to perform at numerous festivals including Rockness, Scotland and Pohoda, Slovakia.

Working on their production, lighting designer David Cohen of Sauce Design created an inspired structure using 181 Barco 340mm MiStrip LED lights. Cohen arranged the MiStrips in eleven rows of four and five hexagons, fashioning a 'honeycomb' shaped LED rig that allows him to create an ingenious mix of shapes and sequences when running content over them.

As the MiStrips are VideoMapped hundreds of times and divided onto individual co

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Retop will show the latest in its range of cutting-edge LED displays in the shape of its new 12.5mm mesh product. Specially developed for the indoor and outdoor rental and staging markets, the IP65-rated product measures 400mm X 400mm and weighs in at just 3.5kg.

The company says it has invested in a fully automated encapsulation robot to manufacture the mesh, which is designed to be transparent, light in weight, and easy to build up and break down.

Off-axis viewing is cited as 140? (horizontal and vertical). The company adds: "With its hanging brackets and plug and play connectors for data and power, a display size of 100m2 can be built up in less than two hours by just two people, with no steel frame being required."

PLASA 2011 1-J40

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USA / China - Strengthening the representation of its Elan, Niles, Xantech, and Aton brands throughout China and Taiwan, The AVC Group has announced the appointment of CAS Group, formerly Xantech China, to serve as its exclusive distributor in the region. The announcement was made by Mark Terry, president of The AVC Group, who said that CAS Group will now work closely with Claude Sabourin, international sales manager, Asia at The AVC Group.

"Cliff Wong and his team of proven professionals at the CAS Group have what it takes to bring our brands to the next level of success in China and the surrounding regions," Terry said. "They have the experience, relationships, and commitment necessary to strengthen our leadership position in this vitally important and growing market. Their prior success with Xantech speaks well for their future success with our other brands.&qu

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UK - Lighting&Sound International magazine is now available in app form - Get access to the latest digital edition as well as our huge archive with LSi-View!

Readers can download the free app from Apple's App Store and browse the magazine on their iPhone or iPad, wherever they are.

LSi-View not only allows you to flick through the latest digital edition of the magazine (as well as our archive of back issues), you are also able to download useful or favourite issues or articles for future reference.

To visit the App Store and download your free LSi-View app, simply click here.

(Claire Beeson)

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UK - Production AV fielded the largest temporary Christie MicroTiles display ever at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed - configured in a highly original design.

Working for Twofour Digital, the Gloucester-based AV specialists commandeered no fewer than 270 tiles, configured in a giant concave 30 x 9 display to help car manufacturer Audi showcase its entire range.

Production AV were brought in by Central Presentations, to whom they had earlier demonstrated MicroTiles. The latter, in turn, introduced Twofour Digital and Audi to the technology when they were looking for a jaw-dropping media display that would wow visitors to their touring pavilion at Goodwood.

"When they saw MicroTiles they decided to fill the whole of one wall with a curved display, giving them a 12m x 2.7m screen," said Production AV project manager, Sam McCrea. Set on a 1m high plinth the displ

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Europe - XL Video Group Holdings has secured major new investment for the XL Group representing 19m Euros.

Gimv-XL, an independent European investment company with over 30 years experience in private equity and venture capital projects is listed on Euronext Brussels. It has taken up this opportunity of becoming a new shareholder in the XL Video Group, which includes XL's global video rental enterprises and also its LED and product design and manufacturing arm, XL Technologies.

Says XL's CEO and co-founder René De Keijzer, "We are all very enthusiastic about the new partnership and the opportunities that Gimv coming onboard will bring. It will allow us to make major investments in new technologies in the immediate future, which will benefit all our clients and end-users. Longer term, it will allow us to strengthen our position in the marketplace and move forward wit

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DYMO will show the latest in its Rhino industrial range of handheld labelling machines at PLASA 2011. Designed specifically for every application in datacom, IT, pro AV and other industrial environments, the labelling tools' features include hot key technology to make the job both fast and easy.

The company cites benefits including performing labelling jobs with 77% fewer keystrokes than the competition, hot keys to eliminate guesswork, quick formatting of common labels, a pre-programmed library of terms and symbols, memory storage for up to 1,000 custom labels, quality craftsmanship and integrated shock bumpers, and customizability for adding graphics and logos to labels.

The labels are also designed withstand moisture, heat, solvents, oil, dirt, chemicals and UV rays without smearing, fading or peeling, and the machines feature lithium-ion rechargeable batteries for fast charging a

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UK - West London-based lighting rental company Colour Sound Experiment supplied site wide lighting, projection and AV for the Secret Garden Party festival - one of the UK's original 'boutique' style events, a celebration of music, arts, creativity and expressive fun. A cast of thousands is encouraged to engage with ideas and dreams for four days of imaginative freedom in a secret garden location in East Anglia near Huntingdon.

It was the first time that Colour Sound has worked for the event, and it was also the first outing for Colour Sound's new BT12 12 mm pitch LED screen, a new lightweight product that has been designed and manufactured exactly to their spec.

The investment is to cater for the growing demand for visual and scenic display surfaces that are becoming increasingly integrated into 'lighting designs'. For Secret Garden, a total of 210 panels of the BT12 screen wa

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UK - Systems integrator IVC Media, has announced that it has completed the installation of a video conference and IPTV system to help improve services for the charity Help for Heroes (H4H). As part of the deal, IVC worked to supply discounted equipment and arranged advantageous terms from suppliers and manufactures for the installation at the personal recovery and assessment centre for wounded servicemen and women at Tedworth House in Wiltshire.

H4H leases Tedworth House and is currently carrying out a £17m renovation project that will see the first group of personnel using it this month, and by September 2012, it will be operating at full capacity. The personal recovery and assessment centre will provide the facilities to support the two key parts of the recovery process; the holistic life skills course and the activities to get the wounded, sick and injured back out doin

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UK - Pixled will launch its new F-9 LED surface at the 2011 PLASA Light & Sound show at London's Earls Court Exhibition Centre in September.

This capitalises on the "phenomenal success" of the fully flexible - bends both ways - Pixled F-6 surface that was launched at last year's PLASA.

The design and architecture for the 9mm pitch F-9 features all the same dynamic characteristics that have proved so popular with the F-6 - high resolution, light weight, very easy to build and set up, curvable in both directions - both concave and convex.

F-6 and F-9 modules can be mixed and fitted together if desired in the same quick-lock touring frames. These utilise the rapid hanging and footprint system that has proved such a winner for touring and temporary installation environments.

Like the F-6, F-9 is also available with standard Pixled or super-HD resolution Mitsubishi pr

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USA - The Styx/Yes 2011 summer tour features a wall of creative content displayed on a new high resolution LED video screen supplied by Pete's Big TVs.

"It is a nice lighting rig, but the LED screen is visually the whole show," said Pete's Big TVs President Peter Daniel.

The 22-city Progressive U.S. Tour features a 12.5ft high by 48ft wide LED screen made up of 230 Elation EPV15 flex LED panels. Daniel was instrumental in the manufacturing of the 15mm flex panels. Seeking higher resolution, Daniel approached Elation about cutting the size of the 19mm flex panels to just under half a square metre. Thus, the EPV15 flex was born with 1024 pixels. Pete's Big TVs has purchased 600 panels to add to its rental inventory.

"It was a smart purchase," Daniel said. "Everyone on the tour is happy with them."

At 15 lbs. each, compared to 105 lbs. for

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UK - The regional office of property management company CB Richard Ellis has recently purchased a PlasmaRiser 42, manufactured by Birmingham based Audio Visual company DARE Professional Audio.

PlasmaRiser is a portable audio visual presentation system, that fully encloses the screen until a simple button is pressed and the screen rises from the housing.

The PlasmaRiser is to be utilised within a newly refurbished suite of offices at the regional HQ of CBRE. It will be used for meetings, customer and project presentations and video conferencing. PlasmaRiser is a simple plug and play solution to presentation requirements.

Paul Muldoon project manager at CBRE said, "The PlasmaRiser gives us great flexibility within our facility, it is a unique solution that represents great value for money we had not seen any like it."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Saville Audio Visual provided a spectacular Ganges backdrop for an Indian wedding in Whites Hotel at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton. The projected skyline image - over 105ft wide - was delivered by a single 18,000 lumen Christie Roadster projector. A second projector flown from the lighting truss produced an interactive fish pool effect on the dance floor.

The event was designed by Dianne Lynn from The Event Co in Mobberley, Cheshire with Saville providing the stage sets, lighting design and audio technology, including a full d&b line array. The backdrop image was created in-house using Cinema 4D software and projected onto a seamless white cyclorama cloth, 36m wide x 9m high.

Other equipment included six 8ft x 6ft projection screens to create a window effect, using 15/30 Source Four Profiles and gobo masks, plus 150 staging units to create the raised areas. The lighting al

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UK - The team behind the UK's National Student Drama Festival are seeking entries and support for the first ever International Student Drama Festival, which will take place next year from the 22-30 June in the UK.

The NSDF12 - ISDF - being presented in conjunction with Sheffield Theatres, RSC, LIFT, The Old Vic Tunnels and Menier Chocolate Factory - will feature a nine-day celebration of young people's theatre featuring the best of British work alongside exceptional student productions from across the world.

The Festival is an opportunity for young people to come together and present their work on the world's stage to an international audience of theatregoers, industry experts and peers. Participants don't have to be studying drama to be a part of it - they just have to enjoy it and want to watch it and make it.

NSDF12 - ISDF will feature over 100 performances of 20 internat

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UK - InfoComm International will continue its programme of support for the UK's AV rental and staging community when it hosts a range of education sessions at this year's PLASA show next month.

The sessions will take place at London's Earl's Court on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 September. They will be led by Andre LeJeune, CTS, InfoComm's rental & staging staff instructor, who has more than 30 years' experience of staging and presentation and has been responsible for many large-scale productions for corporate clients around the world.

Topics covered will include 'Lighting for Video in the Large Meeting Environment', 'Audio Techniques for Corporate AV Events', and 'Project Management for Stage Labour'. Each session will last 90 minutes and will earn attendees 1.5 RUs (Renewal Units) towards continued InfoComm CTS certification. All sessions are free to attend.

Chris Lavel

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USA - PLASA Events has announced its first ever PLASA Focus: Tech, a three-day audio/video/lighting workshop and live concert to be held 20-22 February 2012 alongside the recently announced PLASA Focus: Austin 2012 event.

PLASA Focus: Tech will bring together industry experts Richard Cadena (Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light), Brad Schiller (The Automated Lighting Programmer's Handbook), Chad Yeary of Portal Designs, Damon Lang of Nomad Sound, and Coolux USA for a hands-on learning programme.

The workshop will include a lighting track with design, visualisation, and programming; a video track with video content design media server programming; and an audio track with audio system design live mixing. Each attendee will programme and/or operate the lighting, audio, or video for a portion of a live concert before an audience on the final night.

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UK - Jodrell Bank, home of the famous Lovell radio telescope, has given visitors another reason to visit following the recent upgrade and expansion of its Discovery Centre. Electrosonic installed the audio-visual and interactive elements of the exhibits under subcontract to fit-out contractors, The Moule Partnership.

Part of the University of Manchester, the Discovery Centre works alongside the Observatory to educate visitors about the research and the live science that is carried out by the Jodrell Bank team. The new £3m project includes a new entrance building, the Planet Pavilion, and a new Space Pavilion for exhibitions and events.

Teresa Anderson, director of the Discovery Centre says, "We are delighted with the exhibition. It's a huge improvement on the last centre and the visitors are really enjoying the interactive elements. The exhibition enables us to insp

  1. Hippotizer at Jodrell Bank Transmission 001
  2. Rose Bruford shows new programmes to train designers and technologists
  3. AirScript handheld closed caption system for theatres
  4. Indiana tragedy shakes production industry
  5. Ron Arad's curtain call at the Roundhouse
  6. PR in party mode with Core
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