UK - PLASA 2003 closed its doors after four days of lively business, as a year of planning had resulted in one of the best shows in PLASA's history. During the course of the event, numerous exhibitors not only generated leads, but also took large orders - a sure sign that the industry is beginning to turn the corner.

Feedback from exhibitors has been excellent - Steve Warren from Avolites commented: "We have generated stunning amounts of business and a number of new distributors." Chris Rolph from LED specialist Tryka said: "Its my 13th PLASA - its been phenomenal! We ran out of brochures on Monday," while Dennis Harburn from Shure Distribution UK said: "The layout has made the show more accessible, with a revitalised injection of life and new better quality visitors."

This year, the New Technology Gallery introduced the visitor to an impressive d

UK - Rola-Trac installed the ground protection required around the motor circuit at this year's Goodwood Revival festival, to ensure the site was not damaged by the vehicles and crowds. The Goodwood Revival runs for three days in September each year, celebrating the racing venue's active years of 1948-66, by re-enacting the races that once occurred there. This year 94,000 racing fans visited the event.

Each year owners of vehicles from the pre-1966 period descend on Goodwood to display their treasures for the first two days, when visitors can take a good look at the cars. For the owners there is also the business of winning, after two days of qualifying and warming up, the third and final day of the event offered some surprisingly competitive races around the circuit.

This year event was blessed with fine weather, which meant the ground remained very dry and the Rola-Trac gro

North America - Alternative rockers Matchbox Twenty are hitting the North American concert tour once again with a string of tour dates running through to the end of the year. Despite having been on the road non-stop since April, with tour dates included an initial North American leg before heading to a sold-out arena tour of Australia and Europe, the quintet show no signs of slowing down.

Accompanying the band throughout the year has been a powerful lighting rig made up of Martin MAC 2000 and Atomic fixtures. The rig, designed by legendary LD Marc Brickman, is left in the capable hands of Ben Richards for the tour.

Lighting supplier Ed and Ted's Excellent Lighting of Oxnard, California supplied the Martin equipment for the North American legs, while in Australia, lighting was supplied by Bytecraft Entertainment through Martin Pro's distributor, Show Technology. Neg Earth took

UK / Italy - Midas and Klark Teknik hosted their first international distributor conference in the beautiful setting of the shores of Lake Como in Italy at the end of September. Over 120 representatives from over 50 nations attended the two-day event, which culminated in a spectacular Gala Awards dinner at one of Italy's leading hotels, the Villa d'Este on Lake Como.

According to David Cooper, recently appointed director of sales and marketing for Midas and Klark Teknik, the event was a thoroughly worthwhile exercise, and appreciated by invitees and hosts alike. "With the possible exception of the products themselves, our distributor network is the most important tool of our trade, so it's important both for us and for them that our communication channels remain strong ... Not only was it enormously valuable for our customers in terms of what they learned about new products

UK - Ford of Britain hired design and communications company Imagination to produce six themed exhibition stands at Mela 2003. Mela, a culture and lifestyle show celebrating all aspects of life enjoyed by Asian Communities, took place at Wembley Exhibition Centre from 10-12 October with over 30,000 visitors attending. The event was divided into seven main areas relating to Asian culture: Lifestyle, Health & Beauty, Fashion, Weddings, Food, Business & Entertainment. Imagination created six exhibition stands heavily influenced by each subject zone. Each exhibition stand showed a relevant Ford vehicle, which was designed and decorated with an Asian theme. One car even had a bespoke oversized 'bindi' designed by leading bindi designer Manjeet Bedi (founder of Jazzy Bindi) attached to the front of the car bonnet.

Ford was one of the main sponsors of Mela 2003 and the all-encompassing

UK - Star Rigging helped create the setting for the 2003 Disney Channel Kids' Awards at the Royal Albert Hall this September. The show featured live performances including the award winners Dannii Minogue (best female), Gareth Gates (best male) and Big Bruvvaz (best band).

Star Rigging, part of the newly-formed Star Events Group, was hired to create a structure for the show to centre around and provide an impressive setting for both the live and television audience, working alongside other contractors and the production team. Star Rigging's Phil Broad and Production North's Steve Levitt worked closely to realize Disney's ideas, developing a flying bungee stunt, which involved three aerial dancers from Cirque Bijou appearing from above the set and descending into a blaze of pyrotechnics.

Star Rigging brought all elements together, producing the detailed rigging plot required by

Italy - Clay Paky provided sponsorship for the fourth annual Live Festival Show 2003, which kicked off in Castelfranco Veneto, and was followed by a tour taking in a further 12 locations around the Triveneto area, home to radio stations Radio Bella & Monella and Radio Birikina. On 13 September in Bassano del Grappa, the special guests were popular Italian band Pooh, who provided the grand finale of the 2003 Festival Show, with their only live performance this year.

Other shows featured artists such as Spagna, Scialpi, Yu Yu, Los Locos, Moony, La Finn, Andrea Mingardi, Roberto Angelini, Paolo Meneguzzi, Velvet - and even cycling champion Gilberto Simoni, winner of the 2003 Italian Tour (Giro d'Italia). Over 200,000 people were estimated to have attended over the 13 dates of the Festival Show 2003.

Lighting designer and owner of Xenon service, Renato Neri, in collaboration with

UK - At the eighth Grove Fuel Cell Symposium, which took place at ExCeL in London's Docklands at the end of September, the UK Fuel Cell Vision was launched by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The Vision highlighted the benefits to the UK in taking a leading role in fuel cell development and deployment, and described a pathway for fuel cells in the UK over the coming years. To help get the message across to delegates, symposium organisers Elsevier - one of the world's leading scientific information providers - contracted MCL London to provide a technological dynamic in the main conference room. MCL came up with a design that was sympathetic to the event, the centrepiece of which was a 20ft screen - surrounded by various branded panels - with rear-projected Powerpoint displays from a powerful Christie Roadie X10 DLP projector.

Nick Whitehead's lighting design was domin

UK - Few events could match the gathering of celebrity, style and music talent that filled London's Royal Albert Hall recently for Fashion Rocks for The Prince's Trust. The charity event was based around 18 top fashion designers, each with their own catwalk parade and with their chosen artist performing a soundtrack. A circular stage with the catwalk around the outside made an ideal setting for this glamorous event.

Hand Held Audio were asked to provide the radio microphones for all the artists and also presenters Elizabeth Hurley and Denis Leary. Most of the soundtracks consisted of live vocal to playback so a large in-ear monitor requirement added to the complexity of the wireless system.RF expert John 'Freddo' Fredericks, who was on site to oversee operations, said: "It was a great show. There was a really good atmosphere - egos seemed to take a back seat and everything

UK - Doors open for the 2003 Showman's Show at The Newbury Showground on 22 October for two days. With over 300 exhibitors, there will be a wide range of stands at this year's show, from entertainers participating in the arena's showcase to the latest in hi-tech equipment aimed at outdoor events.

Show Director Stephen Lance commented: "We are anticipating a good show this year and are all set for a prosperous (and fun filled) exhibition. 2003 has been a great summer - both in terms of the weather, which always helps, and in terms of the numbers at events. There seems to be a more positive outlook towards the state of the industry than we have experienced over recent years. I hope we have succeeded in creating a good forum for outdoor event professionals to carry out their business."

Lance is also looking forward to a couple of significant differences at this year's e

Czech Republic - Inter-Noise 2004, the 33rd International Congress and Exposition on Noise Control Engineering, will be held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 22-25 August 2004. The congress is being organized by the Czech Acoustical Society and sponsored by the International Institute of Noise Control Engineering.

The theme for the Congress is 'Progress in Noise Control for the 21st Century', and all innovative contributions to noise control engineering are welcomed. The organizing committee is arranging an outstanding technical program, with a number of structured sessions and distinguished lectures in preparation.

Inter-Noise 2004 will take place at the Czech Technical University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Prague. The university campus is situated in the district of Dejvice, in the western part of the city and close to some of Prague's largest hotels. The main cong

UK - Spirit Design was invited by production company Corporate Events Plus to light the Tesco's Company Conference 2003 - the second time Spirit has been involved in this project. The biennial event brings 2,000 senior managers from as far afield as Malaysia to attend a one-day conference and gala event. This year Excel in London's Docklands was selected as the venue for the meeting. Using 13 of Excel's 34 flexible venues such as a registration area, plenary auditorium, champagne bar and dinning space were created, totalling 28,000sq.m of presentation space. Spirit directors Danny Evans and Justin Adams shared responsibility for the design of individual zones. Adams commented: "The size of the event and the lead time made it impossible for the entire project to be handled by one designer, Danny and I were particularly careful to ensure that all of our designs gelled into a co

France - Delta Sound recently provided all sound reinforcement for the prestigious Microsoft Xbox X03 games festival in the South of France, attended by some 400 guests, among them members of the international games press, developers, publishers and programmers.

Microsoft is a long-term client of Delta, and this was the third year running that the London-based PA company has worked on one of the annual Xbox events. It followed the unveiling of the first console, the X01, at Pierre Cardin's 'bubble' villa, also in the South of France, and a second event on a lake in Seville last year. This year saw a return to the Côte d'Azur and the exclusive resort of Juan Les Pins, where the festival was held at the newly opened Les Pecheurs beach club followed by an all-day conference at the town's Palais des Congrès.

The proceedings kicked off with presentations by Microsoft dignitaries

UK - The Mirror Mirror Ball is one of the annual fund-raising events underwritten and primarily sponsored by high street retailer Next. This year's event was in aid of The Healing Foundation, and was held, as usual, at the Grosvenor House in London. Rick Bailey of RMPA was responsible for the Electro-Voice XLC PA system which carried the performances of Bryan Ferry, Liberty X and Robbie Williams' Swing Band to the furthest corners of the Great Room, and the 1000-plus dinner guests.

The event was notable for its comprehensive use of the latest Electro-Voice RE-1 microphones. FOH engineer Rick Bailey said: "We used the EV mics exclusively, the 767 heads are brilliant, offering far more separation and definition than other well-known models, also the RE-1s are very easy to set up; even with 20 channels of RF in the room, including eight IEM systems, the ClearScan softwa

UK - Large format projection specialist E//T//C UK supplied two different corporate events at London's Billingsgate old fish market with widescreen projections. Both events, which were staged on concurrent evenings, were produced by GSP. The first, titled the Emerging Markets Ball featured a Brazilian theme, and the second, the Swaps Ball, was a fantasy theme involving Billingsgate, fish and 17th century London life. Scrolling artwork for both was created by E//T//C UK's Ross Ashton and Paul Chatfield.

The two PIGI 6kW projectors were positioned on 'the Bridge' of the venue, which partially separates the main hall into two halves. They were beaming onto a 25m wide by 7m high screen and soft-edged down the middle. Two video windows were incorporated in the artwork to allow logos and video images to be dropped into the panoramic montage.

Artwork for both shows was loaded into bo

UK - The Observer newspaper celebrated the launch of its new glossy music magazine at Dave Stewart's recently opened and much-heralded multimedia music facility in Covent Garden, the Hospital. The launch of the Observer Music Monthly, attended by 800 music luminaries and members of the press, was the first event to be hosted by the Hospital Group, and was thus an inspired choice of venue for the Observer. The event's organizers turned to Sound Division, who have since become the Hospital's preferred audio supplier, to specify and provide all the necessary control, sound and staging equipment.

It was important to get everything absolutely right for an event of this nature. Sound Division's Chris Baxter, who designed the system, commented: "There was a huge amount riding on this launch for everyone concerned. Knowing how much money has been spent on this venue, all eyes were

UK - Creative Technology was the sole technology provider for Sub Postmaster 2003 (the annual Post Office and Convenience Retailing Show) at Wembley Exhibition Centre this month. The lighting design, by CT's project manager Rob Merilees, made extensive use of LED lighting technology using the new Color Blast 12 fixture by Color Kinetics (CT is the first company in the UK to stock the units).

The Color Blast resembles a 12" x 6" flat panel and utilizes high output LEDs to project a 21° soft edged beam. Merilees said: "The RGB colour mixing enabled us to provide an exact colour match for the client's Pantone references."

The main feature of the stand was the walk-through tunnel, which ran the full width of the stand and was dominated by vibrant slowly fading colour changes from the Color Blasts, with graphic displays on the 10 plasma screens. The canopy feat

UK - Pearce Hire promoted its three specialist divisions, united as a production package, to event organizers at this year's Showman's Show. The three divisions - audio, lighting and temporary power - have invariably worked independently, or in various combinations at events over the years. The new package will now combine the specialist skills and equipment of the three divisions.

The company believes that event organizers will experience improvements in efficiency if they deal with a single contractor supplying these three key areas of production, as it gives one point of contact for the client, maximising co-ordination between the services on site. Secondly, clients will experience reduced production costs through economies such as transport and crewing levels.

Pearce Hire's owner, Shaun Pearce commented: "We have been surprised at various shows this year by organizers

UK - 'Celebrating the spirit of beauty' was the theme at this year's Pantene Pro-V Style Awards, held at the Royal Albert Hall. Stage Electrics was contracted by Big Chief Productions to design and project manage the technical elements of the show, which included lighting, sound, set and staging.

The set design for the event comprised a backdrop of white sails, stretched in a variety of shapes framing a central entrance through which guest presenters would appear. The design required an extension to be built in front of the existing Albert Hall stage, as the client wanted to use the stage as a dance floor for the after-show party. Over 100 pieces of Maltbury Metrodeck, three pallets of chipboard and 200m of white vinyl flooring later, the Stage Electrics team had built a custom stage extension that followed the curve of the arena and met all of the venue's Health and Safety requ

Germany - With little more than 18 months to go to Showlight 2005, the search is on for those contributions that make Showlight one of the most stimulating and rewarding event in the lighting diary.

Taking place in Munich, at the beautiful Prinzregententheater, Showlight 2005 will look forward to tomorrow's technology, to the ideas and equipment that will take lighting design into the next decade. The show will also look back at what has been achieved in the worlds of theatre and television, film, concert and architectural lighting design. A major part of the Showlight show is devoted to presentations, of 15 to 45 minutes, by people working within the lighting industry. The organizers are now inviting ideas for papers from lighting designers and directors, scenographers and equipment manufacturers - although sales pitches are not welcome!

Six main topics have been chosen for b

USA - Visitors to the Entertainment Technology Show - Lighting Dimensions International (LDI) will have the opportunity to see prototype devices networked with draft versions of the control protocols E1.11 (DMX512-A), E1.17 (ACN) and E1.20 (RDM) at the ESTA Interconnectivity Pavilion in booth number 121. These control protocols are being developed by the Control Protocols Working Group, part of ESTA's Technical Standards Program, and are designed to take us into the next generation of self-configuring and almost limitlessly extensible lighting control networks. Equipment from a variety of manufacturers will be shown communicating bi-directionally with equipment from other manufacturers, demonstrating the progress that has been made in developing these protocols and the benefits of voluntary, consensus standards developed in ESTA's open industry forum.

The Entertainment Technolo

UK - A record number of visitors from 18 different countries attended the UK's main outdoor event services exhibition this October. The 2003 Showman's Show combined decades of experience with the latest trends and new products to create a showcase of 300 companies. With all of the components of outdoor events on show, there was something of interest for all of the 4,471 visitors. The attendees, who braved rain on the Wednesday and enjoyed a sunny Thursday, came from varied backgrounds, ranging from charity event organisers through to multi-national Clear Channel Entertainment.

Exhibitor Steve Hayward of Amazing Parties, talking from his Mongolian themed Internet Café said: "We were over-run by hoards of visitors on both days, many thanks to the Lance family for delivering once again." On the Wednesday evening the annual Showman's Directory Dinner was once again a suc

USA - The Parnelli Lifetime Achievement Award, established in 2002 by the Board of Advisors of Pro Production, the award was christened the 'Parnelli' in memory of the late tour manager Rick 'Parnelli' O'Brien, who passed away in October of 2000. The award is presented each year at the annual Parnelli Awards during the Pro Production conference. The recipient, chosen by the Advisory Board, is honoured for their lifetime of work within the industry and who best represents, in their own endeavors, the 'Four H's' - Humanity, Humility, Honesty, and Humor - which symbolized the life's work and ethics of Rick O'Brien.

The Pro Production Advisory Board has announced that Chip Monck will be the recipient of the 2004 award. Monck is perhaps most widely known as the "Voice of Woodstock" for his work as master of ceremonies at the industry's first 'Mega Event'. However, Monck's t

USA - Fox Television has purchased six 32-fader, 96 in-line channel Solid State Logic C200 Digital Production Consoles to serve their on-air promotion and sports departments. The first four consoles, slated for installation in late 2003, will be used for on-air promotion replacing the SSL Scenaria digital post-production mixing systems in use since 1992. The remaining two C200 consoles will arrive in early 2004 and be used for Fox Sports projects.

Fox Digital made a thorough and exhaustive evaluation of all market offerings, large and small, to find the right console for their future post-production needs. As part of the studio upgrade, they needed a console that would deliver great sounding audio, sophisticated routing capabilities and integrated surround sound mixing ability to address high definition audio standards. The C200 was the choice for both on-air promotion and sport

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