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Events

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UK - The Swansea Bay Summer Festival is one of the UK's biggest carnival events watched by crowds of over 35,000. Celebrating 200 years since the abolition of slavery, this multi-cultural event builds to a crescendo of samba drums and high energy street dance with the City Streets - Summer Beats concert held on the 26 August.

Total Sound Solutions turned to Harman Pro for the sound system. Company director, Chris Hooke chose a JBL VerTec VT4887 compact line array set-up for the job. He reports: "This was right on the edge of a residential area in Swansea so obviously we had to be very careful with the sound. We were able to use JBL's Line Array Calculator software to tell us exactly what angles to use to get the exact coverage without sound over-spilling into the residential area. There were two hotels literally about 20m past where we wanted to fire so the main adva

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USA - Bandit Lites recently worked with the University of Tennessee Athletics Department and Host Communications/The Vol Network to host the first-ever Big Orange Blast.

The free community-wide pep rally kicked-off the 2007 UT home football season. Festivities featured performances by Bandit's own public relations manager, Kimberly Ainge in addition to Waycross and Jason D. Williams. Tennessee head football coach, Phillip Fulmer and select members of the Tennessee football team also participated with the Pride of the Southland Marching Band, UT cheerleaders and Smokey.

(Jim Evans)

PLASA Show 2025 - Banner - June-Aug 2025

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Dubai - Following the appointment of PALME Middle East exhibition director, Alexander Heuff, show organisers IIR Exhibitions Entertainment & Installation Technology Group have announced the arrival of Neil Hickman as group exhibitions director. Most recently he has spent four years as director of the Cityscape series of events, based in Dubai.

Commenting on the continuing potential for sound and vision integrators in the region, Hickman said, "The boom in hotel build and future tourism attractions shows no sign of letting up - new projects are being announced on an almost daily basis. As a result, the professional sound, light, music, audio visual and systems integration industries are expected to quadruple in the next three years as a result of opportunities in both the commercial and residential sectors."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - HSL supplied and co-ordinated lighting and sound production and 40 crew covering all 10 arenas at Creamfields 2007 for producers Loudsound Events. This, the largest Creamfields event to date featured a host of international DJ's and bands including main stage double headliners Groove Armada and the Chemical Brothers, and was the second at their new site in Daresbury near Warrington.

It's the sixth year that HSL has supplied technical production to the UK's best-known dance event. They brought ML Executives onboard as their audio partners to deal with all-things sonic, and all departments worked closely with event production manager Lee Charteris.

HSL's on site co-ordinator was Ian Stevens, He collaborated with project manager Mike Oates who oversaw all the paperwork, advance logistics and prep.

Two dedicated HSL crew chiefs - Dave Jolly and Jonny Harper were appointed,

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UK - As we reported during the PLASA Show last week, this month has seen DiGiCo unveil its concept of the future, the SD7, in front of 120 of its distributors, sound engineers, designers and rental companies who were invited to an exclusive party held at London's Tower Bridge and then again at London's PLASA07.

The SD7 is based around a new technology developed at DiGiCo, called Stealth digital processing, and could ultimately bring a whole new dimension to digital mixing, says the company.

"The party was mainly to celebrate our MBO," says DiGiCo marketing director David Webster. "But it also gave us the chance to let our guests have a sneak preview of what we're working towards. The SD7 is purely a concept, but who knows what the real possibilities could be."

Stealth is a culmination of embedded FPGA and the new Tiger Sharc from Analogue Devices. John St

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UK - PLASA 07, the first PLASA Show managed in-house by PLASA Events, has been judged an 'outstanding success' by exhibitors and visitors alike - with a large number of this year's exhibitors already confirming their intention to return to the show in 2008. The show featured over 500 new product launches and attracted over 50 new exhibitors.

With the show floor packed on Monday morning, PLASA Events also announced its acquisition of the A.C. Lighting North trade show, bringing the PLASA Events' team's expertise and drive to this fast-growing event for the north of the UK.

PLASA 07's radical new layout saw an easy-to-navigate, one-floor event occupy both Earls Court 1 and 2, combined with lower noise limits and a smoke-free atmosphere - plus exhibitors' determination to make the most of the new opportunities with brand new stand designs. The massive growth in innovative video a

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UK - Le Maitre chose the recent PLASA Show in London to celebrate the company's 30th birthday. Company directors Rick Wilson and Karen Haddon were joined by members of the media and industry luminaries to help them celebrate their great achievement.

In a short address, Wilson gave praise to all those people, past and present, who had helped them on the way: "Le Maitre has benefited from a great deal of help from both the industry and the media," he said. Karen Haddon added: "It's hard to believe that from such small beginnings, Le Maitre is now such an established international brand."

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Recently formed Scattered Media has announced the launch of its second exhibition - evenTech Ireland 2008 which is scheduled for 18-19 November, 2008, at the RDS, Dublin.

Scattered Media's Darren Brechin says: "As with other regions, the scope of development in Ireland now presents the perfect opportunity for the evenTech Ireland forum and similarly, the event will give a well-timed boost to the Irish entertainment and installation technology industry."

The launch of evenTech Ireland 2008 closely follows the announcement of evenTech Scotland 2008 - scheduled for 20-21 February, 2008 at the Marriott Hotel, Glasgow.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - This year's winner of the Michael Northen Bursary, who received an honourable mention last year, is Georg Spindler who entered his lighting design for The Memory of Water, which formed part of the 2007 student show at LIPA.

Described by the judges as "creative in a very theatrical way, this was a beautifully documented and reasoned entry, with well presented sketches and photographs," the design won Spindler the £500 Bursary.

Presenting the award on 11 September at PLASA 07, Rick Fisher, chairman of the ALD, said: "There was definitely no 'favouritism' because this year, for the first time, the judges were not told the names of the entrants, so to us all the entries were anonymous."

The judges - ALD members Rick Fisher, Sam Gibbons, Mark Jonathan, Mary Pope, Paul Pyant, Mike Robertson and Mark White, also representing ETC - were unanimou

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UK - HSL supplied lighting for all main live music and DJ venues at Bestival 2007, and co-ordinated the sound supply via their audio partners ML Executives. The operation was led by site project manager Ian Stevens, involving nine artics of equipment and 38 crew.

The hugely popular 'boutique' style music festival produced by Loudsound Events is now in its fourth year on the Isle of Wight and has expanded to a capacity of 30,000. The site surface area at its Robin Hill Country Park location has also increased. Main stage headline acts for 2007 were the Chemical Brothers (Friday), The Beastie Boys (Saturday) and Primal Scream (Sunday).

HSL has been involved with Bestival since its inception in 2004, and once again worked closely with event production manager Lee Charteris and Loudsound's Jim King and Jo MacKay in co-ordinating all the site's technical production and infrastructu

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UK - ETC's PLASA Award for Innovation for its Eos lighting control system has meant a hat-trick of Awards for the company. This is the third such honour that the Eos has won, following product of the year awards at LDI at the end of 2006 and Showtech 2007 in June.

ETC's CEO Fred Foster says: "It is truly gratifying to receive this PLASA award, as well as the other recognitions that the Eos system has received. And it particularly validates the creative efforts of the Eos development team, lead by Dennis Varian, Anne Valentino and Dan Duffy."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - For the second consecutive year, Stage One has been crowned 'Supplier of the Year,' receiving a Gold Award at the 2007 Event Awards.

"We are completely committed to providing a service for our clients that is second to none and winning this award is a reflection of the sheer hard work and professionalism that the entire Stage One team brings to bear on each and every project with which we are involved," said Simon Wood, sales director, stage and marketing.

Stage One won this award for their work on three high profile projects: the Asian Games, Eurovision Song Contest and Mercedes-Benz World.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - A million people thronged to the banks of the Thames during the weekend of 15-16 September to attend the Mayor's Thames Festival. This annual event - which takes place between Westminster and Tower Bridges - celebrates London's river with continuous open air arts, pyrotechnics, illuminations, river events, street theatre, massed choirs and music, and is designed to transform the public open spaces along the waterfront.

The Festival is now in its tenth year, and for the past seven of those, Suffolk-based Pyramid Audio has been nominated main contractor for the sound stages. For the first time this year they committed themselves to using a single loudspeaker brand - and filled all six stages with DragonSpirit systems.

Fleece, the owner of Pyramid Audio, starting using DragonSpirit speakers almost two years ago and has subsequently featured them at various events around the

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USA - Renkus-Heinz will present a panel discussion on Digital Audio Networking in Live Sound at the 123rd AES Convention, 5-8 October in New York.

Ralph Heinz, senior vice president of Renkus-Heinz, will moderate the discussion. Panelists include Dave Shadoan of Sound Image, Steve McCale of Digidesign, Mike Reeves of Dolby/Lake and Bill Evans, editor of FOH magazine. Rik Kirby, vice president of operations for Renkus-Heinz, and Joe Barnes of Whirlwind will also be on hand.

"We're proud to present the insights and experience of this diverse group of panelists to AES attendees," said Ralph Heinz. "From power users like Dave Shadoan to product experts like Mike Reeves and our own Rik Kirby, the panel offers a broad spectrum of viewpoints. We expect this seminar to be as informative and educational as the event we held at InfoComm earlier this year."

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Cyprus - Production specialists, AGC Ehitiki have invested in Soundcraft's digital programme. At this month's PLASA Show in London managing director Loris Demetriades confirmed an order for a new Soundcraft Vi6, with 64-channel Stagebox and local rack.

"We have been in operation for 20 years and have always used Soundcraft desks - we haven't looked at anything else," he states.

AGC Ehitiki specialises in providing concert support - scaling up from small gigs to major arenas - and committed to the purchase once they knew what was on offer. "We liked the simple, user-friendliness of the desk, with its intuitive interface, and of course the sound," said Demetriades. "Add to that the optical MADI card and the Lexicon FX card and it's a great package."

The system was supplied by Soundcraft's territorial distributor, ALA Equipment Company, whose manag

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UK - Martin Audio took the opportunity of presenting their annual awards during PLASA 07 - recognising outstanding achievements in their partner channel worldwide.

This year the recipients, who were honoured with a presentation on the Martin Audio stand, were as follows: International Distributor of the Year: Audiosales, Italy; European Distributor of the Year: Algam, France; Far East Distributor of the Year: Dah Chong Hong, Hong Kong; Record Sales of Tour Sound: Ampco Belgium, Belgium; Record Sales of Installed Sound: Audiotonas, Lithuania; Record Sales of Cinema Sound: Arttech Cinema, Poland; UK Dealer of the Year: LMC Audio; Best New UK Dealer of the Year: Willow SV; Most Improved Territory: SSBC International Co., Taiwan; 25 Year Lifetime Achievement: Rea Sound, Northern Ireland.

(JIm Evans)

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Australia - Following the success of the Colour Your World Conference in March, Mandylights' Greg Yates was again behind the drawing board and then the lighting console for Australia's largest conference - the Hillsong Conference, which saw an abundance of Martin gear in use including the new semi-transparent LC series video screens.

This conference attracted more than 26,000 Christians from 68 nations representing 19 denominations who call the Acer Arena home for five days as part of the annual Hillsong Conference. Considered Australia's largest annual conference, each year it attracts pastors, worship leaders, musicians, community workers and individual believers representing hundreds of churches.

During the conference, the rig has to light everything ranging from the contemporary worship music that Hillsong is famous for, through to ballads from Guy Sebastian and Pau

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Australia - The recent AOG (Assemblies of God) National Conference staged at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, Queensland, hosted Christian bands each night of this three day event, while each day leading speakers led thought provoking sessions around contemporary Christian concerns.

Sound system supplier IJS was contracted to fulfil all audio requirements. The brief was clear, as IJS engineer for the event, Rob Bird explained: "The show requirements were specified by Hillsong Church; they submitted a generic rider that you would expect to see for any large touring act. They asked for Yamaha PM5D consoles and the rest was pretty much a list of the usual along with detailed stage plots and line lists. They tour all their own engineers."

Bird, in collaboration with fellow IJS engineer Nathan Davis, determined a d&b J-Series system best suited the mixed d

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USA - Following last week's announcement of an AES seminar on the subject of Digital Networking, hosted by Renkus-Heinz, the company has confirmed two further seminars.

The first is titled 'Iconyx Digitally Steerable Arrays: Technology, Applications, Innovations', from 2:45 PM to 4:15 PM on Sunday 7 October.

Secondly, Ahnert Feistel Media Group (AFMG) will conduct two seminars on 'Tools & Techniques for Measuring & Optimising Loudspeaker Systems', and will discuss actual applications of EASERA and the new EASERA SysTune software. The seminars will be held in Room 1E04 at the Javits Convention Center on Friday 5 October.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - The annual Behind the Scenes motorcycle raffle at LDI has become a hugely popular event. Because this year's bike is so special, The ESTA Foundation wanted everyone to have a chance to participate in the raffle, even those unable to attend LDI. A limited quantity of tickets will be available for purchase online from October 1-31 at www.estafoundation.org/bts/events/LDI2007_Raffle.htm. Tickets are $50 each or five for $200. Raffle tickets also include the chance to win the 2nd place prize of a $2500 VISA gift card or the 3rd place prize of a $1000 VISA gift card.

Raffle tickets will be available throughout the LDI 2007 show at the Behind the Scenes booth #1245 and in the evenings at the ESTA Annual Dinner, the Rose Brand Party, and LDI's Texas Hold 'Em Tournament to benefit Behind the Scenes

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UK - Show Way 2008, the new Italian entertainment technology trade show which launches in February, was presented to an international audience at PLASA 07. The organizers say that the new show met with approval both from the audio and lighting manufacturers present and from the associations of the World-ETF (World Entertainment Technical Federation), which consider the initiative an important professional trade fair opportunity in Italy.

Several associations, such as VPLT (Germany), ESTA (USA), PLASA, Secartys (SPAIN) and JASST (Japan), confirmed their support for the show and ensured their presence and that of their members at Show Way.

Show Way is organised by APIAS in association with Promoberg at the Bergamo trade fair, a modern trade fair complex strategically positioned on the Milan airport system. Milan-Orio al Serio airport is only 2km from the exhibition pavilions, wh

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UK - An interesting set of challenges awaited Star Events Group on the Isle of Wight in early September, when they provided a range of structures for the fourth annual Bestival.

Although - unusually for 2007 - the weather managed to stay fine for the entire duration of the build, festival and load out, the site of this chilled-out event provided Star Events Group with a number of challenges.

Bestival takes place at Robin Hill Country Park, a well-known local tourist venue that nestles in a scenic valley, featuring woodland, lakes and winding paths. This year the event expanded to take in part of an adjacent farm, but a major concern for Star Events Group team of 12, led by Andrew 'Bomber' Phillips, was the undulating nature of the terrain.

"All the structures we built were on sloping sites. There wasn't one that was on flat ground," says project manager Phil Addyma

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UK - For the fourth year, the Stage Electrics Welsh Trade Show is being held at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff. The event takes place on Wednesday 10 October with doors opening at 11am and closing at 5pm.

Industry suppliers Allen & Heath, Avolites, ETC, Le Maitre, Lee, MA Lighting, Martin, Pulsar, RCF, Roland, Rosco, Selecon, Sennheiser, Strand, Yamaha and Zero 88 will be exhibiting their latest products, offering demos and providing expert advice.

The show is a free event, open to everyone and no tickets are required. Stage Electrics staff will also be presenting products at the show including the Apollo Right Arm and products from Prolyte, Prolyft, Stage Dex, Teclumen, San-Ei & Swisson.

Visitors can take the opportunity if they wish to pre-register via the Stage Electrics website to be entered in the prize draw and to receive a goody bag on the day.

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UK - Blitz combined forces with 2LK Design to provide a complete AV solution for the QinetiQ exhibition stand at the Defence Systems Equipment International (DSEi) exhibition held at ExCel London.

Blitz project manager, Stephen Rickard comments: "The QinetiQ stand was particularly noteworthy as it involved the use of the highest resolution widescreen, soft edge projection system yet supplied by Blitz, creating a 15.5m wide display by using four Panasonic DW10000 projectors plus the Watchout GFX system to create an image of 6666 x 1080 pixels."

Blitz also provided 18 LCD screens, 13 plasmas screens and a quantity of laptops displaying various QinetiQ products throughout the stand.

Andy Bowen from 2LK comments: "The DSEi Global Defence Conference was established to provide delegates with insight into the latest approaches to acquiring and supporting capability,

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