UK - Stage Electrics New Technology Show recently held at The Sage Gateshead featured products from Yamaha, Roland, MA Lighting, ETC, RCF and Avolites.

Stage Electrics staff presented Colorweb, which was a key interest at the show with an 8m x 4m section suspended along one side of the exhibition hall. The Colorweb system was programmed by Projected Image Digital, who provided on site advice and demonstrations of the PixelMAD LED mapping software and media server throughout the day.

Stage Electrics also presented the Apollo Right Arm, and also at the show was the HME DX200 wireless communication system, plus products from Swisson and Prolyte.

Business development manager Ed Gamble said, "It has been a fantastic event for both manufacturers and customers, spending time together taking an in depth look at some of the most exciting new technology in the marketplace, all in

USA - The Heartland of America Independence Day celebration at Mount Rushmore in South Dakota's Black Hills features one of the top ten 4 July fireworks displays in the nation. Mike Moore and Steve Foudray of Haggerty's MusicWorks (Rapid City, SD) deployed sound systems from Electro-Voice to ensure this celebration sounded as impressive as it looked.

"The day-long programme included military bands, USAF flyovers and kids' entertainment leading up to the big firework display, all fed to remote jumbo video screens reinforced with EV equipment," says Moore.

"We used ZX5 speakers to cover the Grand Terrace, Xi-1122 to cover the VIP area, and Xi-2123 to cover the parking lots - even the visitors barbecuing way out there could see and hear everything clearly. And of course we were also running EV CP series amps and Dx34 and Dx38 processing. The systems were time delay

UK - Following the success of their work there in 2005, APR Audio was once again asked to provide EV X-Line PA and X-Array monitor systems for the Jazz World stage at Glastonbury, which attracted crowds of up to 30,000 to hear artists such as Amy Winehouse, Corinne Bailey Rae, Damian Marley, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, John Fogerty, Guillemots, Mr Hudson & the Library, Fat Freddies Drop and Seth Lakeman.

"Jazz World is generally regarded as the musicians' stage," according to APR Audio's crew chief Matt Gunter. "This is where the real musical talent plays, and I suppose we do go the extra mile for them. But this stage is respected by the performers, engineers and audience because of the consistency of the sound. Jazz World uses the same PA every year, and we bring good experienced crew. We saw the noise police only once - we ran at 96dB all weekend, and had no problems at

UK The Who played a mighty one and a half hour Greatest Hits set beneath an equally epic British downpour to close out Glastonbury, choosing to end on a thoroughly British note with the track Tea and Theatre. The Glastonbury gig formed part of a major world tour that has been on the road since June 2006 and drew to a close on 9 July at Finland's Hartwell Arena in Helsinki.

A crucial part of guitarist Pete Townshend's stage set-up is a Crest XR-20 rack-mount mixer which has performed every show with him since the beginning of the tour.

Dick Hayes of Entec Sound and Light, long-time suppliers of audio equipment to The Who, explained that Townshend uses the XR-20 to do his own band mix onstage. "It receives sub mixes from the main FoH and monitor consoles and then Pete takes it from there. I'm pleased to say that, contrary to our initial expectations it does an extrao

UK - A technical problem put a damper on Lee Mead's dream debut in Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the London Palladium last night, reports the Press Association.

The show was halted after just six scenes on its opening night for about 10 minutes due to "technical difficulties", the audience was told. Fans were left waiting while the problem was sorted - thought to be an issue with the rotating floor.

It was not the first occasion in recent times that a technical issue has hit a high profile West End production - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang also had difficulties in its early shows. And a West End preview performance of the Lord of The Rings musical had to be cancelled earlier this year when actor Adam Salter broke his leg after getting it trapped in set machinery.

Despite the first half hiccup, it was a standing ovation for t

World - The Live Earth concerts raised the awareness of the effects of global warming - including the designing of energy efficient lighting rigs which showcased 100s of PixelRange LED luminaires all over the globe.

Patrick Woodroffe was the global designer for the project, creating a formal plot that would be developed into the flagship London rig. As it was impossible for him to be present at all the events, he appointed a team of lighting designers - one in each hosting country - to re-create individual designs based on the availability of fixtures in the various locations.

In New York, Performance Environment Design produced the show and lighting designer Patrick Dierson explains, "We were approached not only out of trust, but also due to our past efforts in promoting environmental sustainability within live entertainment production. The crux of Woodroffe's vision for

UK - Three out of the 14 inaugural RIBA National awards, presented at a ceremony in London, went to projects from the portfolio of young theatre consultancy Charcoalblue. They comprise The Roundhouse, Camden; The RSC Courtyard, Stratford-upon-Avon and The Young Vic, London.

Charcoalblue's specialist consultants worked in close association with architects Haworth Tompkins on the award winning Young Vic; John McAslan and Partners on the critically acclaimed Roundhouse and Ian Ritchie Architects on the RSC's groundbreaking temporary new home - the Courtyard Theatre.

Andy Hayles, managing director of Charcoalblue comments: "It was a great night. We're extremely proud to have been so closely involved with all three winning projects. It's great to see our contribution recognised from time to time."

(Jim Evans)

South Korea - A new musical, Dancing Shadows, made its world première on 8 July in South Korea, featuring a British and Korean creative team and including a 97-input Cadac J-Type live production console amongst the top quality sound system, supplied by Seoul Sound.

Staged by Seensee Musical Company at the Seoul Arts Centre Opera House, Dancing Shadows is an adaptation of the play Forest Fire, written by the celebrated Chilean Ariel Dorfmann. Music and lyrics are by Eric Woolfson of the 1970s rock band, Alan Parsons Project, with direction by Paul Garrington, lighting design by Simon Corder and sound design by Richard Brooker.

With plans to bring the show into both the US and Europe over the next couple of years, this initial production was designed to match up to international standards in all respects. Richard Brooker assembled a talented local sound tea

Poland - With a huge multimedia show the Polish town Plock recently celebrated the Verva Festival 2007 on the banks of the river Vistula.

"For the complex setup that was spread over a long distance, the grandMA control system proved to be an invaluable tool. Its huge pre-programming abilities saved a lot of time during the design as well as during the programming part of the project development," says lighting designer Pawel Pajak.

One grandMA full-size and one grandMA light were used for the stage lighting and video server control. Additionally, another grandMA light controlled the searchlights using two wireless DMX lines. Two MA NSPs and grandMA 3D were also included in the event.

"Since the setup consisted of intelligent lights and video on stage with the searchlights being set on the other side of the river, we found working with the MA Net etherne

USA - Over 1000 bassists from around the world -including low-end luminaries Stanley Clarke and Avishai Cohen - flocked to Oklahoma City University for the recent International Society of Bassists Convention, a week-long programme of clinics and concerts celebrating the four-stringed thunderstick.

Cory's Audio Visual Services (OKC), supplied a combination of Dynacord Cobra-2 line array TOP boxes and PWH subs, EV monitors and mics, a Midas Verona console and Klark Teknik outboard gear for the show, ensuring every step of the signal chain was impressive for the ISB's numerous live events and breakout rooms.

"We are really happy with how the Dynacord, EV, Midas and KT equipment all works and sounds together in this system," says Preston Williams of Cory's, himself a bass playing OCU alumni, who mixed FOH for the ISB concerts. "We can utilise this rig in a variety o

Spain - Last month, Barcelona's MACBA (Museau díArt Contemporani de Barcelona) was taken over by the Sonar del Dia electronic music and multimedia arts festival. Over the three-day event more than 200 performers from 29 countries performed on its stages. The offerings varied from funk to intense trip hop and hip hop to the truly bizarre. Sound company Croma 440 provided 15 sound engineers and system techs for the event. Over 80,000 people from all over the world attended the festival. The sister festival Sonar de Noche, held on the outskirts of Barcelona brought out the better known bands such as the Beastie Boys and DJ Miss Kittin, among many others.

2007 marked the seventh year of Croma 440 taking the Sonar del Dia contract. The largest of the four stages was the open air Village, where trip hop and funk ruled with 12 Adamson Y18s and six Adamson T21s, wi

UK - PLASA has announced the four contenders for the first Gottelier Award, to be presented at this year's PLASA Show (9-12 September, Earls Court, London).

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 significant and sustained contributions to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology - whether in audio, lighting, rigging, staging, or any other related field.

Following a six-week period of gathering nominations from across the industry, the shortlist of leading nominees can now be revealed, ready for the voting process to begin.

The nominees are as follows (in alphabetical order):

Tony Andrews is a highly regarded designer and manufacturer of high quality point source loudspeaker systems, w

Germany - Sirius Showequipment AG recently provided a live sound reinforcement system for a concert in Rostock, Germany held in protest of the G8 summit. The concert drew an audience of more than 70,000, bringing together a lineup of international artists and political figures to address the issue of poverty around the world.

The two-day concert featured artists including Brigada Flores Magon, Mono und Nikitaman, Patchanka and Chaoze One, as well as several speakers and short films. The PA system included 64 JBL Vertec full-size line array elements, with VT4880 subwoofers arranged in matching arrays directly beside the VT4889 arrays.

"We chose the Vertec line arrays because they are very efficient and able to cover all styles of music during a concert like this," said Wolfgang Neumann of Sirius Showequipment. "Everybody was really happy with the performance of t

UK - Chauvet continues its steady foray into the touring industry with a strong presence at this summer's Ozzfest. The manufacturer lights the Jägermeister's Mobile Stage, a self-contained portable stage, which premiered in July as the secondary stage for the heavy metal festival.

When not in use, the unit appears to be just another huge 34ft trailer, but at the push of a button, it unfolds Transformers-style to reveal a professional stage. The complete sound and lighting rig is set up in minutes. Mötley Crüe's Vince Neil observed: "The stage is an awesome portable stage with top notch sound and lights. I look forward to playing on it again."

All power for the stage comes from a built-in generator, and with a sound system designed for an audience of 10,000, power constraints were a prime consideration when the lighting system was planned. Designers found a solutio

UK - St George's Metropolitan Cathedral in Southwark, London, has recently made a substantial investment in an extensive new sound reinforcement system, which includes a portable 16-channel Cadac S-Type console.

Designed by Mark Hornsby for Paul Gillieron Acoustic Design, and installed by Orbital Sound, the system is designed to handle the Cathedral's wide variety of events and congregation sizes, forming part of a major £500,000 refurbishment. Key requirements for the sound reinforcement system included scalability and ease of use, incorporating discrete speaker positioning around the Cathedral, and a flexible, mobile mixer.

The Cathedral is the mother church for the Roman Catholic diocese of Southwark, and regularly holds congregations of up to 2000. Designed by the Victorian architect Pugin, the original building opened in 1848 but was destroyed during the Blitz and r

UK - Lighting designer Paul Normandale used 120sq.m of Chroma-Q Color Web 250 to provide a low res visual effects backdrop for the main stage at BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend event in prreston.

Artists featured on the main stage included Scissor Sisters, Razorlight, Kasabian, Kaiser Chiefs, Stereophonics, Natasha Bedingfield, The View, The Fratellis, The Fray, The Twang, Jamie T and Mika.

Lite Alternative's Paul Normandale provided the creative direction for all three stages at this year's event for SJM, assisted on the main stage by lighting director Glen Johnson.

The brief was to create a dynamic, encompassing visual range which as well as achieving a big look for the live stage audience, would translate well on camera for the TV audience.

The back wall of the stage featured a 19m wide by 6m high drop of Color Web 250, with further panels turning the stage corners to provide

UK - The audio setup for the Live Earth concert at Wembley, supplied by Britannia Row Productions, remained essentially the same as it had for Concert for Diana the previous week, minus one DiGiCo D5 that had been used specifically for orchestral requirements and was not needed for Live Earth.

The stage was once again on a revolving system, to account for the quick band change overs, with an A/B set up of splits, front of house and monitor systems and trucks. Two DiGiCo D5 Lives sat at the front of house position with engineers Chris Coxhead and Chris Morrison at the A and B consoles respectively. Mike 'Bunny' Warren operated the show/presenter console. DiGiCo's Tim Shaxson sat at a further, offline, D5 that was used by guest engineers to check their settings.

"Our main role was to help the visiting band engineers to set up, or modify, existing D5 session files which woul

UK - i-Pix' new BB LED Wash Lights were again in action on the summer festival circuit. The latest festival to feature the BB - a totally new style LED blinder unit from i-Pix - was last weekend's The Glade.

Now in it's fourth year and set in the beautiful Berkshire countryside near Aldermaston, the boutique 'electronic music' mix of Glade offers a laid back funky vibe with "a strong aversion to all things corporate/mainstream and a great love of everything alternative, underground and interesting".

Lighting for the Glade (main) stage and the tented Vapour stage was supplied by west London based Colour Sound Experiment, who have serviced the Glade Festival's main venue since the inaugural event in 2004.

Colour Sound's Jasper Johns designed the Glade Stage rig based on a flexible, generic design, that could be used by all artists. The lighting was fitted to the roof

UK - Exhibitors at this year's PLASA Show (9-12 September, Earls Court, London) are being reminded to make their nominations for the prestigious PLASA Awards for Innovation by this year's earlier deadline of 24 August.

The date has been brought forward this year by one week to allow more time for the judges to assess the nominated product, and also to allow for greater planning in the display of the nominated product in the L&SI-sponsored PLASA Innovation Gallery, a major feature of the show, which in this year's single-level layout for the PLASA Show, will be positioned at the junction of Earls Court's two halls.

PLASA's Awards for Innovation seek to recognise new products which fulfil the criteria of 'Innovation' - i.e. that they "advance the industry by demonstrating a new style of thinking, improving technical practice or taking a key step forward in terms of s

Spain - In Liébana, a valley in the Cantabria Province of Northern Spain, many thousands of pilgrims travelled to the monastery of Saint Toribio de Liébana to attend a series of social and cultural events culminating in a spectacular show titled IDE, presented by the Catalan theatre company La Fura dels Baus.

Set in a National Park, the play was based on mythological characters and stories of the region. The Park laid down stringent noise and lighting conditions relating to the show. The production company, Goma 2 Producciones Audiovisuales, called in pro audio sound and lighting rental company Siempre Creativos to rig for the performance.

Sound Chief David Castelló, chose d&b audiotechnik's J-Series line array system to provide the sound. Assisted by David Roselló from d&b Spain and Jonas Wagner from d&b's Central Application Support based in Germany, t

UK - ETC has released the dates of Congo and Congo jr demo sessions at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The sessions will be conducted by David Gray - a former board member of Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society and currently ETC's associate regional manager for the Southern Region.

There is no requirement to be working at the Fringe to attend. Sessions are being held at Assembly Universal Arts (venue number 7) between 9am and midday each day from 13-17 August and 20-22 August.

Anyone interested in attending should contact ETC on telephone: +44 (0)20 8896 1000.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Launched at the summer NAMM show in Austin, American DJ has introduced new array of LED products. The new offerings range from LED versions of the Jewel and Vision to high impact colour bars.

The Jewel LED is an LED version of the classic moonflower effect. It features an output similar to a 100W halogen lamp with 47 sharp red, green, and blue high output coloured beams.

The Vision LED features an output similar to a 400W halogen lamp with 26 large, sharp red, green, and blue high output coloured beams. It can be operated as a sound active light show or as a DMX effect.

The Revo Scan LED, a flat-mirrored scanner, has an output comparable to a 250W halogen lamp, with 52 total red, green, white and blue LEDs. There are three operation modes: Master/Slave, Sound active, and DMX. The Revo scan has 4 DMX channels with a four button LCD display and is linkable via XLR connec

Australia - The ENTECH trade show has been scheduled for 11-13 February 2008 at the Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre.

"With over 3000 visitors to ENTECH 2006, this is the best place for Australia's professionals to gain an overview of the industry, and meet others in their fields," says event manager Louise Brooks.

"For 2008 we've also added a bar within the tradeshow, so visitors can relax, catch up with colleagues and get together with old and new friends - without having to leave the venue."

The ENTECH conference programme is returning in 2008, with seminars and workshops from leading industry figures and accredited training bodies. Details of the conference program will be available on the ENTECH website shortly.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Rental company Sound Image provided the live sound system for the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago. The show was staged on 28 July at Toyota Park, Chicago's newest outdoor concert facility that can accommodate up to 28,000 concertgoers.

First staged in 2004, the Crossroads Guitar Festival was created by Eric Clapton to bring together musicians of all genres. In addition to Clapton, featured artists at the all-day show included Jeff Beck, Sheryl Crow, Robert Cray, Jimmie Vaughn, BB King, Albert Lee, Stevie Winwood, John Mayer and many more.

"This was a once in a lifetime musical experience," observed Dave Shadoan, president of Sound Image. "The amount of musical talent that was pulled together in one place, on one stage, for 11 hours of live music, had to be experienced to be believed. On events like this, JBL's Vertec system really proves itself."

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