Canada / UK - Cast's latest version of Wysiwyg, R20 offers more tools, smaller file sizes, improved images, broader compatibility, support for Windows Vista and more. The company says that with the compression in R20, every new file will start off up to 10 times smaller than in previous releases, which means faster loading time and the ability to email even complex Wysiwyg files to clients and team members.

R20 also features a range of new 'Merge Objects' tools, which include such actions as Subtraction (subtracting one object from another), Union (uniting two objects into one), and Intersection (the tricky operation of merging two objects and then deleting everything outside of their common area, or intersecting point). In wysiwyg, these new tools can be used with any object, 2D or 3D.

R20 also allows users to choose from a series of pre-defined line thicknesses (weights), an

UK - A whole host of new information has been added to the PLASA07 website to ensure visitors and exhibitors can learn all about the full plans for this year's relaunched event. The site - www.plasashow.com - now carries extensive information on PLASA07, which runs from 9-12 September 2007 at Earls Court in London.

The striking website has been designed to help exhibitors and visitors quickly access everything they need to know about the event. It features an easy-to-use menu system, quick links to essential information such as the exhibitor list and floorplan and a straightforward online registration area where visitors can pre-book their tickets at the reduced rate of £9.00 - a saving of 50% on the on-the-door price of £18.00.

The site also carries details of the radical new floor layout, which sees PLASA07 transformed into a two-hall, single-level show as a resu

UK - Avolites lighting consoles once again proved a popular choice at Glastonbury. A total of 21 Avo consoles and 20 Avo Art2000 racks were used site-wide at the 2007 Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Music & Dance.

At Jazz World, an Avolites Diamond 4 took centre stage, supplied by Essex-based DPL, who were enjoying their first year as a Glasto supplier. This controlled 18 Robe ColorSpot 1200E AT moving lights, 22 pieces of the new Martin Professional Stage Bar 54 LED battens, over 150 PARs, 8 cell Molefeys and a Hippotizer digital media server driving 24 square metres of ChromaQ ColorWeb LED screen configured in six columns.

Dimming was also Avolites ART 2000 including a new rack purchased by DPL for their busy summer schedule.

The Jazz World rig was designed by Darren Parker and Pete Watts, and the console was programmed by Watts and operated by him plus DPL crew membe

UK - Southwest production company, Fearless Audio, employed an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system for one of the stages at the Glastonbury festival. Fearless was contracted to manage audio on the G stage, part of the growing Dance Area of the festival,which also comprised the East and West Coast stages, Dance Lounge, and Pussy Parlure.

Having road-tested the system on other productions, Fearless installed an iDR10 DSP rack onstage with iLive-144 FOH control surface, managing a total of 34 DJ acts over the three-day event. G Stage acts included The Plumps DJ's, Rennie Pilgrem & MC Chickaboo, Adam Freeland, Andy C, Adam F, Shpongle, Freq Nasty, Scotch Egg Band (Drumize), and Atomic Hooligan & Jay Cunning.

"Despite the terrible weather conditions, iLive performed flawlessly - it's a fantastic system," commented Fearless Audio owner, Kevin Allen. "It made loa

UK - A technological breakthrough on Glastonbury's Pyramid Stage this year was the implementation of a digital signal path from the Digidesign D-Show FOH desks right up to the Funktion One loudspeakers on the main stage - using an Optocore optical fibre solution.

The enhanced sound quality owed its success to the faith invested by Simon Honywill, sound designer for the control and monitor system suppliers RG Jones, and the support offered throughout by Marquee Audio's digital expert Andy Huffer.

It was Huffer who had proposed the digital solution to Honywill near the beginning of the year - suggesting three of Optocore's DD32E network devices to transmit a maximum amount of digital data at high speed.

Marquee are not only the official UK distributors of Optocore fibre networks but are also Digidesign resellers, and Andy Huffer was on hand at FOH to support the consulting eng

Czech republic - Robe moving lights were in action in the main Scenofest Hall of the Prague Quadrennial 2007 - the International Competitive Exhibition of Scenography and Theatre Architecture.

This is organised by OISTAT - the International Organization of Scenographers, Theatre Architects and Technicians - and is the world's largest scenographic exhibition. The event took over three halls of the Prague Industrial Palace at the Exhibition Grounds to the north of the city.

Scenofest featured two main performance spaces. The first was the 18m high Tower of Babel, built from scaffolding and steel and conceived by Sean Crowley, head of design at the UK's Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama. Technical design of the Tower was by PQ's technical director Ian Evans, head of technical studies at the RWCMD.

Crowley, Evans and Jean Guy Le Cat also designed the other main performance sp

UK - Stage Electrics supplied and installed set, lighting and generator power for the Nokia Rock Up & Play structure at the 2007 Donington Park Download Festival, formerly known as Monsters of Rock, working for The Dobson White Partnership.

The Nokia Rock Up & Play set-up features a stage which is open to everyone who wishes to perform. Anyone can turn up as individuals or bands and play on their own or with the house band - with predictably mixed results. The stage also attracts the more 'non musical types' who enter the air guitar competition with a signed 'air guitar' as first prize, there is also a DJ for late night moshing.

Scenic elements supplied by Stage Electrics included the main bar, DJ bar, performance stage, Q & A stage and graphics walling. The company also provided download units and phone display pods.

This year, the teams worked to demanding ti

UK - With Digidesign's Venue D-Show and D-Show Profile occupying the FOH position on the main Pyramid Stage, this year's Glastonbury Festival was presented with the event's first all-digital festival format.

The Venue environment was specified as the resident system by Simon Honywill, system designer for the control system providers, RG Jones Sound Engineering. His decision was justified when around 85% of the main stage acts, spanning the gamut of artistic performance - from Shirley Bassey to the Arctic Monkeys, Paul Weller to the UK Youth Orchestra - had their sound mixed on a D-Show.

Two D-Shows piggy-backed between the main stage acts throughout the Festival, allowing the incoming sound engineers to pre-programme their mix, and these were output via AES into the master D-Show Profile for digital distribution to the loudspeaker system.

The consulting engineering team cons

USA - At this year's International DJ Expo to be held 13-16 August at the Atlantic City Convention Center in Atlantic City, N.J, GCI Technologies will be showing a spread of new and established products.

"International DJ Expo is always an important show for us to connect with and educate the mobile DJ and entertainment industry on GCI's latest products and newest innovations," says president Alan Cabasso.

Gemini will be presenting its newly released MPX-40 Professional Touch-Sensitive MP3/CD Player, along with the CDM-500 Professional DJ Station, the latest edition of its GX line of 2-way ABS loudspeakers and new wireless products.

From the Cortex brand will be the rack-mountable HDC line of digital music controllers, including the HDC-1000 and HDC-3000 units along with the DJ industry's first USB-compatible professional digital music turntable, the HDTT-5000.

G

UK The O2 Wireless Festival and Hyde Park Calling have become annual events for London's Hyde Park, as is the use of Turbosound's Aspect system on the second stage. Britannia Row Productions, audio suppliers to the Park's summer season, deployed exactly the same system for 2007.

The system comprised 14 TA-890H three way mid/high enclosures, 18 TA-890L bass enclosures and six TSW-218 18" horn-loaded bass cabinets.

"We're using exactly the same cabinets, same array and the same Dom [Harter] from Turbosound, who came down to help put it in on the first day," says Britannia Row's sound crew chief for the Hyde Park events, John Gibbon. "We decided to stay with Aspect again this year because it worked so well last year and we have the same kind of bands playing. At one point the specification was changed, but as we know what works well in the kayam tent that hous

UK - Seventy Outline Butterfly Hi-packs installed by Britannia Row Productions at Wembley Stadium contributed to the success of the Concert for Diana which was transmitted live in 140 countries and viewed by 500 million people.

The Butterfly Hi-packs were used along with 20 Subtech 218, and the system was powered by Outline T Series amplifiers. The system engineer for the maxi-concert was Sherif El Barbari.

This same Outline array will be used again at Wembley Stadium this weekend as part of the sound reinforcement for Live Earth.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Central Theatre Supplies is hosting a Selecon Lighting Trade Show on 19 July. The event will be staged between 10am and 4.30pm at the College Theatre, City College, The Butts, Coventry, CV1 3GD.

This free event will gives attendees the chance to see the latest products from Selecon including the new improved Acclaim range, Rama Fresnel and the Performer range of follow spots including the RUA. There will be a series of demonstrations of the Selecon range as well as hands-on opportunities.

Sebastian Barnes from the Midland Arts Centre says, "The day is designed to coincide with a meeting of the, Midlands Technical Forum. Visitors and new members would be most welcome."

(Jim Evans)

UK - XL Video supplied one of its new HD PPUs, cameras, screens and 30 crew to the Live Earth London show staged at Wembley Stadium.

Broadcast live on BBC One and Two and presented by Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton, the Wembley show featured performances by Madonna, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Razorlight, Snow Patrol, Keane, Corrine Bailey Rae, Genesis, Duran Duran, Paolo Nutini and many more.

Co-ordinating all the video elements between XL and the various event designers, producers and others involved in screen content, was screen producer Chris Saunders.

Although XL already had also a large video system installed at Wembley for the Princess Diana Tribute concert just six days before Live Earth, this all had to be removed in the meantime. Some kit from that system was then re-installed for Live Earth along with several new and different video elements.

Flanking both sides of

UK - Introducing an extensive new range of products from a variety of international companies including Arc LED, Geni and Neoneon, Batmink will also show its own brand LED and generic light fittings at PLASA 2007.

Featured new products on the stand will include the Geni Visage LED Video Floor Module. This new stage and club lighting product can reproduce stunning motion effects as well as real time video driven through PC DVI, at a fraction of previous costs, says the company.

Also new this year are the Geni OBY5 Professional Profile Moving Head - a fully equipped, premium quality HMI575 13 channel DMX profile moving head; the Geni OBY600 Professional Wash Moving Head - a precise, quiet and smooth HMI575 15 channel DMX wash moving head designed for professional stage and production use and the Geni LED Power Blinder, controlled by DMX 512 or stand alone audio animation.

(Jim

UK - LTM's Dave Ward presented a short practical seminar on Lodestar Use and Abuse at the 2007 National Student Drama Festival in Scarborough, UK.

The NSDF is a week long celebration of theatre, live performance, discussion and special events covering all aspects of theatrical performance including technical topics.

Stage Electrics - a regular LTM customer - initiated LTM's invitation to participate. The seminar was attended by technical theatre students and some who had recently left college and are now working in theatre after completing a variety of different courses, many of them geared towards sound and lighting.

NSDF technical director Anna Cole comments, "This year the technical workshop programme was the strongest yet. It was really fantastic for LTM to come to the festival, and feedback indicates that the workshop was interesting, and that it was encoura

UK - Several generations of Soundcraft digital and analogue desks featured at Glastonbury this year - spanning a range of locations from the main Pyramid Stage to the Left Field tent, where SSE Audio and SKL respectively fielded their fleet of Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles.

On the main stage, Russ Tite mixed The Kooks set on one of SSE Audio's four flagship Vi6 digital consoles, while another of their boards was on monitor duty with Kasabian's sound engineer, Mark 'Yogi' Novissimo.

SSE Audio's Pete Russell comments, "Sound engineers like Russ Tite really like the sound of the desk," he says. "One of the real plus points is that it has its own plug-in FX card with its own Lexicon DSP, so you can't run out of processing power. This is not the case with other digital desks, which can run out of DSP if you have lots of idle plug-ins."

He continued, "Bo

International - With only a few days remaining before the close of the nomination-gathering period for the Gottelier Award, there is just time for a final reminder to everyone to make sure that they have taken a few moments to nominate the individual or team that they most admire.

Named in honour of the late Tony Gottelier, the industry innovator and commentator who passed away in 2006, the Gottelier Award is aimed at those members of our industry who have made a significant and sustained contribution to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology - whether in audio, lighting, rigging, staging, or any other related field.

Once the deadline for nominations passes this Friday (13 July), a shortlist will be drawn up of the most widely nominated people, and their names will be put forward, along with a brief summary of their achievements, to the Gotte

UK - Attendance figures for the 11th CEDIA UK Expo (25-28 June, ExCeL London) totalled 7,399, up 21% on last year, say the organisers.

"This was a terrific CEDIA Expo," says CEDIA chairman, Simon Williams. " The event was bigger than ever, and looked more professional than ever. Exhibitors really stepped up to the plate, putting together some fantastic stands. And the education programme was again a top attraction for delegates.

"With mandatory certification on the horizon, the designer and installer examinations proved especially popular. CEDIA Expo continues to grow and we look forward to another great event in 2008."

(Jim Evans)

China - Live Earth in Shanghai saw Star Events Group China supply its first full outdoor stage system. The structure was built at the base of the iconic Oriental Pearl Group (OPG) tower, which at 468m is the highest tower in Asia. It is owned by Shanghai Media Group, who provided broadcast facilities and carried the show on their local channels.

Around 3000 attended the event, with estimated television audiences of 800 million in China and two billion worldwide. Promoter for the event was Live Nation in partnership with OPG.

A 15m Orbit Flexidome was chosen as the appropriate stage system, as the site has a shopping mall beneath and no other structure could provide the rigging capacity combined with low self weight and point loads. Working on the roof of the shopping mall also meant the use of any cranes, pickers or forklifts was not allowed, so the whole system had to be hand

UK - As the Glastonbury Festival continues to grow, so does the contribution to the sound made by XTA processors, which this year were a feature of many of the audio systems on site. The dance music side of the festival is also expanding and the main dance arena (the East Dance Stage) was one of the focal points, with high profile artists including Fatboy Slim, Carl Cox and Mark Ronson.

Audile of Manchester provided a Funktion-One PA system, comprising Resolution 5s and F221 subs, with a range of XTA units including two DP448s at front-of-house, with a DP324 SiDD inserted over the left and right channels being utilised for system EQ. A GQ600 graphic was also inserted at FOH for guest engineers to get their hands on. To keep the DJs under control, a D2 was set to work which helped to get levels consistent across the whole audio spectrum with the varying material being supplied by

UK - Twenty-four of i-Pix' new energy-saving BB wash-lights were in action for the Live Earth Wembley concert, mounted on the front truss header and used instead of normal 8 light blinders.

The BB's were selected by the London event's lighting designers Patrick Woodroffe (responsible for the stage/show lighting) and Mark Kenyon (responsible for the TV and BBC's lighting requirements), and supplied by lighting contractor PRG London - along with all the other equipment.

Lighting for the Live Earth concerts challenged its designers to make the rig as energy-efficient as possible, so they used as many high output, low-energy lighting fixtures as possible - including LED and HMI sources. (Tungsten elements were reduced to an absolute minimum).

Ahead of the event, PRG's project director Carol Croft, approached a series of LED lighting manufacturers including i-Pix and asked them t

UK - Sun, Sea & Sound 2007, scheduled for 5-9 December, is billed as the official music industry event for Bournemouth and Poole. It will feature seminars, workshops and live shows across local venues, celebrating the music business in Bournemouth, Poole and the South West.

Chris Jenkins, BIC's entertainment and events manager and chair of the Bournemouth and Poole Music Industry Forum says, "Sun, Sea and Sound is all about encouraging people interested in pursuing careers in the most creative industry on the planet. There is no time like the present for our local industry to come together and hopefully inspire the future of the music business. This is great event for Bournemouth and Poole."

The Bournemouth and Poole Music Industry Forum was set up to provide a catalyst for projects like this and to provide a mouthpiece for the music industry in the are

Czech Republic - ADB Lighting supported the Prague Quadrennial (PQ)'s second Scenofest in June, providing the main lighting elements for two of the central performance spaces.

The Scenofest attracted over 7,000 theatre students to a giant international festival of theatre technique. Its aim is to encourage students of lighting, staging, scenography, sound design, costume, makeup and more to expand their artistic and technical horizons through mutual collaboration during over 300 performances, events and workshops.

A non-profit event, Scenofest 07's numerous venues and stages were built and equipped on a voluntary basis.

ADB Lighting's contribution was to equip two main stages with its latest luminaires, including the motorised WARP/M automated zoom profile spotlight. ADB rigs featured in both the iconic Paper Box Theatre and the central Scenofest Stage.

Michael Ramsaur, pr

UK - In its 10th year of trading, Penton will be exhibiting its growing range of voice alarm and Public Address loudspeakers.

This year's show is all about change, the new layout brings Penton back to the ground floor with a remodelled stand, an updated catalogue, improved existing products and a debut into the pro-sound market, says the company.

Penton will launch of its new Pro-Sound Ceiling Loudspeaker range. This line has been two years in the making. It comprises 16 ohm, low impedance units for applications that require high audio quality, and 100v line units for use with commercial audio applications looking for the very best in audio reproduction such as background music, theatres, schools and hotels.

These ceiling speakers are packaged in a sealed, ported enclosure complete with a removable grill with no visible fixings and fitted with a rotary tapping selector locat

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