UK - Block9's Gideon Berger and Stephen Gallagher are set to present a seminar session entitled 'Making Music Look Good' today at PLASA Show 2015.

Based in East London, Block9 creates radical stage sets, large-scale immersive artworks, installations and live events. Recent work includes The Dismaland Castle at Banksy's Dismaland, Utopia at the Roundhouse, the Block9 area at Glastonbury festival and stage designs for Lana Del Rey and Skrillex.

"Innovative live music and performance programming form a major part of Block9's festival work," says Gideon. "We construct complete temporary realities. Our unique venues - Genosys, The NYC Downlow or The London Underground for example - are musical utopias where fantastical structures are built around specific musical genres, resulting in powerful immersive experiences. Every detail of our installations; everything that y

UK - Britannia Row's Mike Lowe, Colin Pink and Luca Stefani will today present 'Training in the Production Industry - A Vision for the Future; Creating a live mix; A talk on System Prediction, Analysis and Optimisation'.

"The traditional training grounds for young people entering the live audio industry are in the main, a distant memory," says Mike. "Technology has advanced and can no longer be learned solely on the job. Audience expectations of audio quality are forever on the increase and budgets determine that there is usually only room for technicians and engineers who know what they are doing. The 'pioneer' generation of live engineers and technicians are reaching retirement age, while the requirement for live audio continues to increase.

"Most available live audio training or education comes either as a minor adjunct attached to studio engineering or

UK - Elation Professional is hosting several world premiere product launches at PLASA Show 2015. Joining the world premiere of the Satura Profile LED-based colour-changing moving head is the ACL 360 Roller, a unique moving head luminaire in Elation's ACL Series of high-output narrow-beam LED effects; and the world premiere of the Platinum HFX, a new mid-sized addition to Elation's hybrid family of beam, spot and wash luminaires.

Also showing is the European debut of the Emotion moving head digital luminaire; Elation's powerful Platinum FLX hybrid moving head; and the high-output ACL Series of narrow-beam LED effect lights.

The new ACL 360 Roller is a unique moving head luminaire in Elation's ACL Series of high-output narrow-beam LED effect lights. It houses 20x 15W RGBW 4-in-1 LEDs positioned equally across four bars and features fast and precise 16-bit continuous 360° pan

UK - Pixar's director of photography Danielle Feinberg will today present a seminar entitled 'Pixels to Pictures - The Cinematography of Pixar's Films' as part of PLASA's industry leading Professional Development Programme at PLASA Show 2015.

"Cinematography: the art of lighting and photographing a movie. Translated into animation, how does this work? In this insightful talk, Pixar Director of Photography Danielle Feinberg will shed light on the magic of cinematography in animated film and how the creative freedom computers allow must be harnessed for ultimate storytelling," say organisers.

"After hearing about PLASA for years, I am so thrilled to be taking part this year," says Danielle. "It is a rare and wonderful thing to be in a room full of people that appreciate the immense power of great lighting."

The session takes place today at 2.30pm

UK - As PLASA Show 2015 opened its doors yesterday at ExCeL London, visitors from 101 different countries, with a combined purchasing power of over £3bn, had registered to attend.

With headline sponsors Robe, Clay Paky and TMB, this year's show features over 300 brands, many of which are showing new products and services, and sees PLASA Show adopting the successful 'Focus' model of a sector-specific, zoned layout, which will allow both visitors and exhibitors easier networking and navigation.

Over 50 leading brands from the pro audio sector are in attendance, with many new names joining that list including A.C. Entertainment, Autograph, d&b Audiotechnik, FACE, FBT UK, Flare Audio, POLARaudio, Ten 47, Unity Audio, White Light, Yamaha, SSE Audio and Wigwam Acoustics.

The lighting zone features manufacturers such as Altman, Avolites, Elation, ETC, Laserworld AG, and Robe,

UK - Philips Entertainment Lighting is showcasing the eagerly anticipated 'PL Refresh' range at PLASA London which sees the Philips Selecon PLprofile1, PLfresnel1 and PLcyc1 reinvigorated with brand new features.

Joining valued dealer A.C. Entertainment Technology Ltd on stand F30, Philips will also be demoing the latest products from Philips Vari-Lite, Strand Lighting and Showline, which have enjoyed global success since launching this year.

A much-loved range of workhorses, the PL1 MK II Series now offers boosted colour benefits such as colour consistency across the family of matched products, increased colour rendering and no colour fringing. The MK II luminaires will also have a higher output balanced with reduced operating sound.

"We are really excited to demo all the fantastic additional features of the PL MK II range to PLASA London visitors," says Philips E

UK - Today at PLASA Show 2015 renowned pro audio journalist Phil Ward will host an Audio Panel as part of PLASA's popular seminar stream. The session, entitled 'Digital Mixing for the Real World - More MIDI, Please - Mixing monitors for artistic temperaments' will be presented by Lee Boylan, Léon Phillips, Nick Bellis, Sean Karpowicz; Jon Burton, Justin Grealy, Marcel van Limbeek, and Tuomo Tolonen

"Today's pro audio sessions are all about mixing live music in today's rapidly changing industry," says Phil, "especially at the coal face of technical issues ranging from compact digital solutions - right down to the use of tablets - to the spectrum challenge now facing all wireless production. I couldn't have hoped for a better panel line-up..."

The session takes place at 11.30 - 12.15 in the Sennheiser sponsored Audio Theatre at PLASA Show 2015.

F

UK - Cadac is showing the CDC eight and new CDC six digital sound production consoles at this year's PLASA show. These are being shown for the first time with the latest software update, which provides signal clocking enhancements that further improve the exceptional sonic performance. The software is described as having "a definite noticeable improvement on sound quality".

The company is exhibiting a total of three CDC six consoles, along with a CDC eight-32 and a CDC eight-16 console on the booth. These are networked and running audio via the CDC MC Router and MegaCOMMS audio network, demonstrating the industry leading sub 400?s system latency (from on-stage inputs to outputs - including all console processing and all AD/DA conversions). CADAC's micro second latency performance compares with the millisecond latency claimed for competing consoles and networks. The lat

UK - The eighth Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI) ceremony was held on Sunday 4th October at London's glamorous art deco Troxy to sparkling success.

Once more it saw representatives from the professional entertainment lighting and video industry come together to celebrate the creative achievements of lighting and video professionals working on shows across the UK.

The ever-popular awards, organised by The Association of Lighting Designers (ALD), The Society of Television & Lighting Design (STLD), The Fifth Estate Ltd and Clay Paky, was established to offer public recognition for outstanding achievements in touring, television and theatre lighting and video design.

The evening was hosted by prolific international lighting designer Mark Jonathan and the winners were announced as:

Theatre

Dance: Lucy Carter for Woolf Works, Royal Ballet.

Musicals: Amy Mae Smith f

UK - Visitors to the Doughty Engineering stand (E20) at this year's PLASA can expect to see two new prototype products on display as well as its familiar range of clamps and award winning Modular Rigging System.

A new Zenith stand joins the company's range of winch stands. Mark Chorley, design engineer at Doughty said, "The Doughty Zenith MKIII winch stands have been in regular service all over the world for more than 15 years, including use in some of the harshest conditions on earth. The Zenith MKIV builds upon these years of experience, evolving the design further."

Boasting new, ergonomically designed locking knobs, stronger lockings springs for more positive action and a redesigned stand base to prevent tangling when stowing, the improvements have been designed to aid functionality, and longevity, while ensuring it maintains its position as the premier winch sta

UK - Lighting company, ELC Lighting, has unveiled a brand new identity at this year's PLASA show, symbolised by a revitalised logo that reflects the key essence of its product range.

"The launch of our brand new logo kicks off a new era at ELC Lighting that speaks of who we are as a company and portrays the ease of use and efficiency of our products", said Silvio Cibien, sales manager, ELC Lighting.

"We are proud to always be ahead of the curve in a rapidly evolving industry and our new brand identity will illustrate not just who we think we are but how our customers regard our products - straightforward, unpretentious and dynamic."

The new logo which can be seen on the company's stand D60, is bold, easy to read and contemporary. "It is just how we see our products," says Silvio. "We do not need to package them up with bows and gimmicks. EL

UK - Lighting and visuals rental company, HSL based in Blackburn, UK has announced that GLS Lighting is joining The Group in an exciting and invigorating new partnership that further expands the dynamic reach of HSL's operation.

The union sees GLS's very successful and well-established business - celebrating its 20th year - based in Southampton continue to function exactly as it is ... now having access to HSL's vast resources of equipment, personnel, knowledge, expertise, backup and support. The GLS day-to-day operation will further benefit from sharing HSL's administration infrastructure.

"It's fantastic to welcome GLS as part of our healthy and growing family," says HSL's MD Simon Stuart. "We are all like-minded individuals, passionate about what we do, dedicated to providing the very best and highest quality services and solutions for all our clients worldwi

UK - Award-winning creative technical event production expert, Hawthorn, has unveiled its new brand at PLASA 2015 this week.

Named by the London Stock Exchange this year as one of the '1000 Companies to Inspire Britain', and after nearly 30 years in the business, Hawthorn has never stopped growing. With the acquisition of Core Creative, renowned drapes brand Rex Howard and the hugely admired creative technical production business Anagram, it was felt the time was right to amalgamate all of these respected brands under the one name: Hawthorn.

Hawthorn was the brainchild of Martin Hawthorn, who in 1987 spotted a gap in the market for a good quality equipment hire company, to support theatres, dramatic groups, schools and colleges. With great customer service front of mind, he promptly set up shop in his garage in Leicestershire and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Hawtho

UK - Twelve Clay Paky Mythos fixtures projected text and images onto the Tower of London in September as part of a star-studded charity event honouring wounded armed forces veterans.

The initiative was launched to raise awareness of the Haig Housing Trust, which offers housing assistance to ex-service people and the week culminated in a fundraising event, For Queen and Country, to mark the charity's centenary.

London-based Lightning Events was tasked with projecting the messages onto the side of the tower, and specified the Mythos fixtures, rigging them in weatherproof Flight Domes around 30m from the tower walls and near to the moat.

Production manager for the event, Lightning Events' Tom Foster, explains, "We liaised directly with the Haig Housing Trust for this project. Their initial brief asked to project along all sides of Tower, which would have been extrem

UK - Straight off the back of Adobe's recent announcements, Niels Stevens, Video Business Development Manager, will showcase the very latest developments in their Creative Cloud content creation tools and services.

Today at PLASA Show 2015, Niels Stevens, the Video Business Development Manager for Adobe will present a three sessions as part of PLASA's renowned seminar stream. Straight off the back of Adobe's recent announcements, Niels Stevens will showcase the very latest developments in their Creative Cloud content creation tools and services.

Niels Stevens will demo the latest release of products which brings the entire collection of creative tools on a desktop, like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign and Adobe Premiere Pro onto the Creative Cloud. With mobile apps, so you can create whatever you want, wherever you are and all your creative assets, including Adobe Stock

UK - Today at PLASA Show 2015 renowned pro audio journalist Phil Ward returns to host a further two Audio panels as part of PLASA's renowned seminar stream, entitled 'NOISES OFF! Controlling event sound' and 'DON'T WORRY, BE IP - Networking for live sound and installation.'

The first session focuses on the messy issues of noise control at outdoor events. Featuring the confirmed panel members Bryan Grant, Jason Baird, Jim Griffiths, Peter van der Geer, plus d&b audiotechnik's Steve Jones, the session will feature hi-tech noise containment solutions from beyond pro audio.

Afterwards, Phil Ward will continue to chair the second session with panel members Christian Diehl, Kieran Walsh, Roland Hemming, Simon Jones, Terry Holton discussing a guide to the issues facing the industry as it embraces - or otherwise - digital audio networking.

"The really big guns are out today,&qu

UK - The PLASA Awards for Innovation & Sustainability 2015 and the Gottelier Award, sponsored by Lighting&Sound International, were presented at the PLASA Show at London's ExCeL yesterday evening.

This year, 31 products were nominated for the Awards for Innovation & Sustainability, with eight awards presented, including a final Gold Award for Innovation.

The winners had to satisfy the judges that they demonstrate a new style of thinking, that they improve technical practice, have introduced new technologies, materials or techniques, that they feature patents or unique intellectual property, offer a new commercial advantage, or improve safety.

This year's Gottelier Award winner was David Cunningham, an early pioneer of computer lighting systems who developed a number of landmark products for Strand during the 1970s and 80s, including the Multi-Q memory lighting system, the Mi

UK - For the first time at PLASA, ETC is using a second stand hosting their rigging products, which are new to Europe, in combination with their now famous upside down stand, where two fencers battle on the ceiling.

On stand B40, the company's award winning range of Source Four LED fixtures are joined by the new, budget-friendly ColorSource line. Source Four LED fixtures are available in full colour, and both cool and warm whites; with their exceptional colour rendering and flicker-free output, they are quickly becoming the luminaire of choice for TV studios and theatres alike.

Meanwhile, the ColorSource range is ideal for venues which need good quality basic colour, but whose finances may already be stretched to their limit. The fixtures take the basic RGB emitters, and add a lime green to help fill in gaps in the colour spectrum which would not otherwise be reachable.

The

UK - Now in its 36th series, the long running BBC show Watchdog gives the public a chance to 'name and shame' once and for all.

LD Chris Kempton designs the lights - provided through RML - for the studio show and his simple, yet effective rig comprises of 26x Pixel Par 90s, MR16 Kits, Batten 50's, Choma Flood TC's and Stage Bars. In recent years Watchdog has been filmed at The Hospital Club studio.

This new eight-part series will cover topics such as ill-fitting baby car seats, eye surgery and inadequate after care. They also set up teams of undercover investigations identifying rogue traders including a group of intimidating gardeners who would march old and venerable pensioners to the bank to withdraw money.

You can catch the first episode this Thursday, 8 October on BBC1.

(Jim Evans)

UAE - NEXT-proaudio's distributor in UAE - Echo Beats Professional Systems- equipped the Vegas Club & Lounge in Dubai. This club is inside the Hotel Holiday Inn Bur Dubai located in the heart of Dubai, a hub in between embassies and businesses.

"The idea was to renovate the sound system in the club", explained Echo Beats key account manager, Rami Najjar. "They tested a lot of equipment from different brands but after the demo that was made in our showroom, they were completely amazed with the sound quality and clarity controlled and adjusted by the DSP's built in, and at the end they decided to go with this system because they told us NEXT-proaudio was the best choice."

The sound system comprises 4 HFA115, 4 HFA112, 2 HFA108, 2 HFA118s HP. All the speakers belong to the HFA series, an active series launched on the middle of last year.

(Jim Evans)

USA - One of the last of the season's major US music festivals takes place this month in Austin, TX. Syncrolite returns to the Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL) in a big way by providing SXL automated skylights that will be filling the night sky over Zilker Park with dancing beams of light and ArenaColor wash fixtures illuminating the stage scrims.

Syncrolite's appearance at ACL caps off a summer of festival appearances in North America that included: Made in America, Outside Lands Festival, Coachella, Lollapalooza, Osheaga, Squamish Valley and Ilesoniq. Additionally, a fleet of Syncrolite fixtures made their annual appearance as a big part of the Dark MOFO Festival in Tasmania, Australia.

"We enjoy partnering with producers and lighting production companies to be a part of the explosion of festival popularity around the world and look forward to doing more of them

UK - Today at PLASA Show 2015, expert Media Trainer Ian Hider will present two sessions on the Lighting Showcase as part of PLASA's popular seminar stream. The sessions entitled 'How to use lights' and 'Top Tips on Lighting an Interview' are presented by Ian Hilder who worked for the BBC for 29 years as a cameraman and comes to PLASA to share his tips on efficient, effective and creative interview lighting, as well as to impart invaluable advice on BS7909.

The first session focuses on the BS7909, the BSI British Standards 'code of practice for temporary electrical systems for entertainment and related purposes' - the lighting equivalent of the 'Highway Code' how everyone using mains lights in the UK should work. Ian Hilder will give an outline of the code, advice and top tips for small shoots wanting to use mains lighting.

The second session 'Top Tips on Lighting an Interview'

Festival Fever - Thousands of festival goers were left disappointed after Glastonbury tickets sold out in just over half an hour. The £228 tickets went on sale at 9am and, 32 minutes later, they were all gone - not quite beating the 14 minutes it took this year's festival to sell out in October 2014. Emily Eavis, co-organiser of the festival and daughter of its founder Michael Eavis, tweeted, "Tickets have now sold out. Thank you to everyone for your incredible support and sorry to those who missed out Bring on Glastonbury 2016!"

The 120,000 tickets were snapped up even before the line-up was announced, with only rumours about who might play at the festival. Adele and Coldplay are the top bets, with the Foo Fighters also hot favourites after pulling out of this year's event when front man Dave Grohl broke his leg. ACDC, Blur and Fleetwood Mac are also being tippe

UK - Italian lighting manufacturer Clay Paky is delighted to once again be a Gold Sponsor of PLASA Show. This year, the company joins its UK and Ireland distributor Ambersphere Solutions on stand B10, where the team are busy showcasing two brand new additions to the Clay Paky range - Scenius and Spheriscan - both nominated for the prestigious PLASA Awards for Innovation.

"Scenius is our new, extremely silent moving head spotlight at the top of the Clay Paky range. Its advanced optical unit and the new 1400W - 6000K OSRAM discharge lamp provides a much higher light output than with previous generation 1500W lamps. Scenius can count on a CRI>95, which is very unusual for a metal halide light source," says Clay Paky.

"Spheriscan is a revolutionary scanner with a modern twist - its mirror goes on turning endlessly beyond 360 degrees, which creates an absolutely orig

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