USA - The USA's Entertainment Technician Certification Program Council has announced the appointment of Rigging Subject Matter Experts (SMEs). These people, all highly respected in their field, have agreed to volunteer considerable time to the development of the industry's first rigging certifications. Selected for their breadth and depth of knowledge, the SMEs will work closely with the Council's selected psychometric services provider, Applied Measurement Professionals (AMP), to develop the examinations.

The SMEs are: Roy Bickel, John Bleich, Eddie Blue, David Boevers, Olan Cottrill, James Doherty, Harry Donovan, Kelly Green, Glenn Hufford, Edward Kish, Stephane Mayrand, Joseph McGeough, Brian Miller, Walter Murphy, Rocky Paulson, G. Anthony Phillips, Eddie Raymond, Michael Reed, Bill Sapsis, Peter Scheu, Karen Seifried, Scott Sloan, Sammy Stokes, and Jack Suesse.

The SMEs

Australia - Sydney's biggest New Year's Day party once again descended on the city with 20,000 people celebrating at Field Day 2005, and organisers Fuzzy selected Allen & Heath's MIDI-enabled Xone:92 DJ mixer for the plethora of top DJs to use. Since its inception 4 years ago, Field Day has changed the way Sydney celebrates the dawn of New Year - 12 hours of house, breaks, electro and hip hop at the Field Day. Fuzzy has a considerable depth of large scale event experience to call on, and the sheer quality of DJ talent reflected this with names including 2 Many DJs, Plump DJs, Tiga, Martin Solveig, James Zabiela, Ian Pooley, Miguel Migs, De La Soul, Black Grass, Matt B Safer, Meat Katie and Lee Coombs. Behind the very relaxed party atmosphere was a very serious production, not least in the engine room - the DJ booth.

"Because of the rapid turnarounds it was necessary to have

UK - Le Maitre has embarked on Green Day's UK tour, which started in Birmingham on 23 January and will take in all major cities in the UK, culminating at Glasgow's SECC on 10 February. The special effects for the tour are designed and created by Pyrotek Special Effects Inc, and feature Flashes, Flames, Fireballs and the 'Dragons' propane gas flame effect, as well as Le Maitre's Stadium Flash Reports.

Le Maitre is working closely with Pyrotek, supplying a full-time pyrotechnician on all the dates of the tour and dealing with the logistics and import permits for the pyrotechnics. Green Day and their special effects can be seen on the BBC's Top Of the Pops tonight (Friday 4 February), and at the 2005 Brit Awards next week.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - Eat to the Beat was welcomed on stage to accept its third consecutive Favourite Caterer Award at the Total Production Awards on Monday 31 January. Straight after winning the award, managing director Tony Laurenson was back on stage to present the award for Favourite Venue to the Royal Albert Hall, a venue in which Eat to the Beat worked at over 90 days last year.

The celebrations continue for Eat to the Beat (part of the Global Infusion Group) as on 7 February the company will celebrate 21 years 'Going Global'. Laurenson commented: "It was a fantastic night and we are so proud to be voted favourite caterer by the industry. 2004 was a great year for the group with many memorable events. I'd like to thank all our wonderful clients, crew and suppliers! We now look forward to a challenging and exciting 2005!"

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

UK - The PLASA Show has today launched phase one of the newly designed website www.plasashow.com) for this year's show, which takes place at Earls Court between 11-14 September 2005. Phase one is aimed at visitors and already has the facility for visitors to pre-book their tickets at the discounted rate of £7.50, saving 50% of the on-the-door price (£15).

The website will constantly be updated as the show develops and phase two, the exhibitor section, will be launched in the next couple of weeks, providing exhibitors with all they need to know about the show, including an up-to-date exhibitor list and floorplan.

If you would like further information about the show please log onto the website or call +44 207 370 8208.

(Lee Baldock)

Germany - Organized by KTV, the Asian equivalent of MTV, the Daechon Lux Festa 2004, which ran from the 17 July to the 21 August, introduced Asia to a new dimension in musical entertainment, uniting almost the entire galaxy of Asia's top stars and including a fringe programme packed with highlights. Several million viewers followed the event on TV and hundreds of thousands travelled from all over Asia to the Korean city of Daechon to sample the atmosphere first hand.

Sound equipment obviously has a key role to play. To eliminate unnecessary risks and problems of incompatibility, the organizers of the Daechon Lux Festa 2004 opted for a complete solution composed of systems from EVI Audio. The central element in the entire sound reinforcement strategy was a Dynacord Cobra system (including 16 Cobra-4 PWHs, 24 Cobra TOPs and 21 Cobra-2 SUBs). A further 56 enclosures from the Dynaco

Italy - Sony recording artist Gianni Morandi is a pop phenomenon in Italy: from his days as a gangly 1960s teenager through to the present, he has drawn packed crowds throughout the country. His popularity was confirmed recently when a show to celebrate his 60th birthday, produced in collaboration with Ballandi Entertainment, was staged in Rimini's new indoor sports arena, 105 Stadium.

Although Morandi's best-known songs are his older ones, there's nothing dated about his concerts from a technical point of view. 'Stasera Gianni Morandi' had a huge cutting edge audio and lighting rig supplied by contractor Agorà of L'Aquila, as well as an eye-catching multiple LED screen set-up by Eurovideo.

Sound designer Daniele Tramontani is rightly proud of having set a trend followed by other artists when he designed Morandi's first (1996) concert-style rig in a TV studio in Rome, after t

UK - The fourth annual Total Production International Awards event attracted a sell-out audience of 800 industry people at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith on Monday 31 January.

The event was hosted by the broadcaster, author and 'Professor of Pop', Paul Gambaccini. As well as a number of cameo presentations by a wide range of industry personalities, including DiGiCo's Bob Doyle, PR guru Jerry Gilbert, Martin Professional's David Caulfield, plus Adrian Forbes-Black and Andy Lenthall of the PSA, the event was crowned by special guest appearances by Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour, ex-Undertone Feargal Sharkey (now Chairman of the government's Live Music Forum) and former BRIT Awards producer Lisa Anderson.

Of the winners, catering firm Eat To The Beat celebrated its third consecutive award and XL Video and the Star Events Group both won their third award to date, while mo

Canada - The first-ever World Stage Design will be held from 12-19 March 2005 in the Canadian Hall at the Fairmont Royal York Hotel in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The exhibition and catalogue of set, costume, lighting, and sound design will present work from designers around the world. An international jury has selected 188 works from a total of 951 submissions to be presented in the gallery exhibition, representing designers from 35 nations. All the submitted designs will be presented in the digital exhibit section and included in the print and digital catalogues available for sale at the event.

The exhibition is co-produced by three prominent theatre associations: United States Institute for Theatre Technology Inc (USITT), the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology/l'Institut Canadien des Technologies Scenographiques (CITT), and the International Organization of Scenographer

Dubai, UAE - Now in it's third year, PALME - the Middle East's leading professional sound, light, music, audio visual and systems integration exhibition - has firmly established itself as a must attend event on the industry trade show calendar. Internationally acknowledged as the key forum for the industry in the Middle East, the event is supported by PLASA, the Professional Lighting and Sound Association. Other major industry associations such as APIAS (Italy), Secarty's (Spain) and ILDA (US) are also enthusiastic supporters.

This year's event, already a sell-out according to the organizers, is set to build on the outstanding success of PALME 2004, which attracted 30% more exhibitors than the 2003 event, 134 companies from 25 countries, from as far away as the US, Australia, Korea and Belgium, participating - this exceptional growth is the result of the high quality of the eve

The Professional Snake Reel offers 16 gauge steel construction and individually jacketed and shielded multi-pair cable in an integrated cable reel/stage box design. Standard Snake Reels come in two lengths - 100ft and 150ft - in 16x4 or 24x4 configurations and a customer choice of returns. Custom lengths and channel options are available to order. The Snake Reel also includes rubber wheels with locks for smooth rolling and safety.

Aviom introduced the A-Net Pro64 ASIC, a new technology now supported by a new division within the company, the Aviom Technologies Group. Pro64 is an upgrade to Aviom's proprietary A-Net audio networking protocol.

A year after unveiling the Verona console at the same exhibition, Midas launched Siena (see above). Verona is said to have shifted 1,400 units worldwide, with Midas console sales up a reported 57% since that launch. Siena is pitched at a similar price-point to Verona and is similar in build, but with 16 aux sends has extra appeal to monitor engineers while remaining suitable for FOH use.

Corporate audio on the rise as it is, we couldn't have a NAMM show without Behringer signalling its ambitions in the marketplace, and you sometimes get the impression that the company is willing - and able - to rival the conglomerates already mentioned with its single brand. In the press room, Group CEO Michael Deeb gave a timely summary of Behringer's corporate developments, following the announcement of a head-spinning 78 new products, and confidently cited the benefits of establishing a wholly-owned R&D and manufacturing base in China - which the company did in 2001.

"The internalisation of manufacturing operations has brought about faster time to market and cost-effectiveness in production, and product design and development," he said, and anyone with lingering doubts as to whether better products are going to cost even less in the future was obliged to go outside for a q

Meanwhile RCF used the platform of the NAMM show to cement the re-launch of the RCF brand in North America, following original MD Arturo Vicari's return to the driving seat a year ago. A convivial reception presented new RCF Inc president Hans Radda, who has already ushered Vicari's other brand, dB Technologies, into the territory with some success and who will be expected to do the same with the new generation of ART speakers, the new 4Pro range and the rest.

"Over the past year, we have had great support from our distributors, who have helped us to reintroduce RCF to the market," Vicari announced. "We now find ourselves with strong distribution in most of the key areas of the world. As a result of this we can now begin work in developing RCF in North America."

Radda himself added: "We know that it is difficult for a European company to launch in the States,

The Crest Performance division of Crest Audio launched the CPM 24-4 and CPM 32-4 mixing consoles for studio or live audio applications; the CPM 2462, a 16-channel desktop/rack-mountable mixer; and the mono I-Pro I and stereo I-Pro II microphone and line input intelligibility processors. The units are designed to optimize audio signals in recording, broadcast and live applications by processing input signals via a parametric EQ section and a compand/limit dynamics section.

One thing NAMM also demonstrates annually is that there is still plenty of life in all manner of analogue consoles, even as the digital ones proliferate. Ever ones to celebrate technology properly, Midas continued a long tradition by unveiling a mid-size, versatile analogue console and treating its dealers and guests to blues-influenced hospitality at every opportunity. With the smooth glissando of a bottle-neck, and at least 12 bars to go, the Siena console was rolled out as the Verona's highest complement - available in six frame sizes from 24 up to 64 channels and featuring 16 dedicated aux sends.

Brand development manager Richard Ferriday was on hand to place the desk into precise context. "Siena and Verona are both dual-purpose consoles," he told me, "but the Verona is a FOH console that can also do monitors, while the Siena is a monitor console that can also do FOH

The Netherlands - The second Integrated Systems Europe, or ISEurope, or ISE'05 ("we want to give you flexibility" quipped show director Michael Blackman) - took an enormous leap forward from its inaugural mixed reception in Geneva last year, when it was a case of 'right idea, wrong city'. Clearly, with 220 exhibitors taking part this year compared with 120 last year, and an even greater proportioned increase in visitors (7,400 in 2005), this show has established itself remarkably quickly.

With a good portion of the exhibition's content (some 40-50% according to Blackman) geared towards residential applications, there was still much for the professional commercial and architectural markets. So what would you have seen there? Well, lots of systems . . . display systems, projection systems, sound, video, lighting, conferencing and broadcast monitoring systems, among other

With Telex-EVI Audio, Loud Technologies Inc and Harman Pro all quoting strong financial performances, backed up by an anecdotal mood of confidence among dealers, it was tempting to feel optimistic. But Anaheim's annual NAMM show should be treated like all that glitters. The sun's out, but it's still only January and back home they're scraping ice off the windscreens. Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman of rock dinosaurs Yes make personal appearances, but they're not in the charts - explaining why only six people turned up, perhaps. And the perfect, fun-caked streets of Downtown Disney are as real as the gondolas of Las Vegas.

Mackie announced a redesign of the SR Series active PA speakers. The new SR models are two- and three-way loudspeakers in Baltic birch cabinets with integrated active electronics, while retaining characteristics of the original SRM 450. These models share the broad integration of electronics of the higher definition SA Series also launched at NAMM.

Also new were the S200 Series and C Series passive loudspeakers, and updated versions of the CFX range of live sound effects mixers. Scheduled for release later this year, the new CFX.mkII Series mixers have gained Onyx Series knobs, new graphics for better visibility in dim lighting conditions and impact-resistant rubber side panels - at a lower RRP than the original CFX Series. The mixers are available in 12, 16 and 20-channel configurations, and all feature four subgroups, nine-band stereo graphic EQ and Mackie's trademark EMAC 32-bit dig

The new Opus Series of microphones is aimed at drums, percussion, instruments and boundary applications. The percussive series includes the Opus 53, Opus 83, Opus 88, and Opus 99 - both for percussion itself and percussive-sounding instruments generally. The Opus 51 is the acoustic boundary microphone.

P-LS8695 is a powered version of SLS's LS8695 Compact Line Source Array (pictured right). The addition of power amplifiers into the design is said to allow for greater installation flexibility for both fixed and mobile applications.

The P-LS8695 incorporates a 24-bit, 96kHz DSP processing engine developed from the same acoustic performance algorithms used in the original LS8695. Two digital amplifiers have been incorporated to power the LF and HF drivers independently, sharing one high-voltage, high current power supply.

The LF amplifier provides 1,000W to drive the lows and mids, while the HF amp provides 500W - said to be optimized for today's 24-bit, 96kHz digital format. The input to the amplifier section is fully balanced with adjustable sensitivity, and a balanced transmitter is included for looping multiple P-LS8695 systems.

The Vertec line array range gains the self-powered DP Series, also inaugurating HiQnet but debuting JBL's DrivePack too - integrated DSP power modules co-developed with Crown and dbx (see main copy).

Rapco International is a leading manufacturer of audio and video interfacing and cable equipment, and showed the Blox Series (pictured right) of audio connection and testing boxes in Hall B. The series includes 12 different audio tools for a multitude of audio requirements, from continuity testing to pro/consumer level conversion.

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline