UK - West Midlands and Bristol based AV specialist Central Presentations (CPL) has boosted its stock of Sony HD digital cameras, lenses and accessories with a new £250,000 investment.

This is to service current and ongoing work due to an excellent end to 2010 and a busy start to 2011, as well as to meet the increase in client demands for HD video, and to maintain the company's policy of keeping abreast of the latest technology in this fast moving world, says the company.

The cameras are Sony HXC-100 HD/SD studio spec units. These are HD/SD switchable, can also run both formats simultaneously and have an array of programmable function buttons on the camera head. The camera uses the latest 14-bit A/D conversion circuit and 2/3-inch Power HAD FX CCDs for superior picture quality.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Behind the Scenes, an initiative of The ESTA Foundation, announces its second annual holiday card student design contest, open to any lighting, set, video or costume full-time design student interested in creating an original design for a 2011 card.

The winner will be chosen by an all-star panel of previous holiday card designers including Bob Bonniol, Beowulf Borrit, Ed Coco, Christine Jones, Scott Pask, Bruce Rodgers, Douglas Schmidt, and Tim Hunter Design. The winner's design will be among the cards offered for sale to raise money for Behind the Scenes, which provides financial assistance to entertainment technology professionals who are seriously ill or injured.

The winner will also receive a free pass to a Live Design Master Class in lighting, sound, or projection (winner's choice) to be held in May in New York City.

"This is an incredible opportunity for stu

USA - A Midas PRO6 emerged the clear winner for the World Outreach Church in Murfressboro, Tennessee, US when selecting a console for its new 2,800 capacity main sanctuary. "The sound quality and navigation are unbeatable," reports church technical director Derric West.

West got to work demoing several different consoles onsite while the new sanctuary was in its design phase, swapping test consoles in an existing sanctuary every other weekend, but keeping the same mics and PA. "The console was the only variable," reports West, "and it was any easy choice once we put the PRO6 in."

Regular services are likely to include around six vocals in addition to the pastor, choir and soloists, plus contemporary bands with drums, bass, guitars, keyboard and additional vocals. West configures the PRO6 with 80 inputs to facilitate swapping bands and inputs with

UK/USA - When ETC developed the iRFR app, which turns any iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch into a remote controller for ETC lighting desks, the intention was to provide convenient and affordable facility-wide lighting control to venues around the world.

The iRFR has accomplished much more than that, however. All the proceeds from purchases of the £30 app are donated to Light Relief and Behind the Scenes, organisations which provide emergency funds to entertainment-technology industry professionals dealing with illness or injury. When buying the app, users choose either the LR or BTS version, depending on which charity is closer to home.

In the year and a half since it became available, the iRFR app has raised some £21,500 for Behind the Scenes and Light Relief. That money has gone directly to workers in the industry who are going through crises and has been used for much

China - The recent opening and closing ceremonies to mark the 16th Asian Games, held on Haixinsha Island, Guangzhou, differentiated from similar events seen previously - with the spectacular event making the city as the background and the Pearl River as the stage. In fact the event started on the river, with a ship sailing from east.

In order to make the ceremonies a success, the island was equipped with a series of public address systems, with QSC's Q-Sys control chosen to provide tourists from all over the world with "crystal clear sound reinforcement".

A Q-Sys network provided coverage to every corner of the island, with a powerful Q-Sys Core as the engine, and Q-LAN's low-latency Gigabit Ethernet network implementation as the transmission network.

There were eight control rooms on the island, two of them based centrally and the remainder as satellites. Two Core

Qatar - PR Lighting fixtures featured heavily in two high profile, but completely diverse events in Qatar recently.

December proved a busy month as nearly 150 of the Chinese manufacturer's flagship products were deployed by local distributors, TechnoPro LLC (Qatar) for the 2nd World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE) in Doha.

The three-day event, which was officially opened by His Excellency Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al-Thani, Chairman of WISE, in the presence of Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Qatar Foundation, was attended by over 1,000 delegates from different countries.

Auditiore designed and managed the production, which was held in eight different ballrooms within the Sheraton Resort and Convention Hotel. They, in turn, tasked TechnoPro with providing a complete technical infrastructure, including audio, light, and video equipment.

The co

China - On 10 January 2011, the Chinese pavilion - Oriental Crown - on the EXPO fair grounds in Shanghai was the scene of an impressive event, when the BMW Group was presenting their car product range to about 2.000 invited guests.

For the purpose of the BMW event, the fixed sound system of the hall was completed by K&F SCENA 15 monitors.

A much bigger open-air stage was located on the south side of the pavilion.Here, line arrays from Kling&Freitag were deployed. On the right and on the left side of the scene, floating formations of four Sequenza 10 N (for the remote area) and two Sequenza 10 W (for the close area) were flown on each side. Over these hangs there were three Sequenza subwoofers. All speakers were driven by K&F SystemRacks with ready-to-use configuration, the signal processing was done by CD 44 integrated digital system controllers. The equipment was supplied by

Czech Republic - Veteran Scots rock group Nazareth enjoy cult status in the Czech Republic, a fact that was once again evident at their show in Hradec Králové where they sold out the 3,000-seater Aldis Congress Centre for the last stop of their Still Loud 'n' Proud tour. The ACC is a venue notable not only for its impressive size but also for the quality of its infrastructure, acoustics, sightlines and artists' dressing rooms.

To ensure the sound was worthy of the setting, the tour organizers contracted Dvur Králové nad Labem-based rental company Sound Service to handle the sound reinforcement. For the Nazareth production, the team led by company chief Oldrich Skalický opted for an extensive Dynacord system, with a combination of horn-loaded Dynacord F12, FX 20 and FX 12 boxes combined with a Cobra 2 line-array system.

The system included six F12 CHW, t

Germany - Optocore has appointed Synthax GmbH as its distributor for Germany and Austria. Optocore sales and marketing director, Tine Helmle, stated that the decision was based on many factors - not least being that the company is headquartered close by, in Munich.

"Synthax is highly committed, and has assigned four members of staff to work on the brand," she said. "Their proximity to us will also improve training opportunities, client support and general communication."

Marketing opportunities will also be enhanced by the fact that Synthax do not represent any digital consoles within their distribution portfolio. Tine Helmle explains, "Because we are aligned with certain console manufacturers - either in technical co-operation partnerships or producing bespoke emulation mode products - this has resulted in certain parts of the market being excluded in

Robert Juliat has announced a further addition to its international family of dealers with the appointment of Lighting Bits Ltda of Brazil. Operating out of Sao Paulo and headed by Daniel Ridano, Lighting Bits Ltda will be exclusively responsible for Robert Juliat products across Brazil, and non-exclusively across the wider Latin American market.

"The quality and reliability of Robert Juliat fixtures is unique," states Ridano. "Robert Juliat is a dream product in any project where quality is a must. In addition to this, the technical and project support offered by the Robert Juliat team is superb."

Lighting Bits exhibited Robert Juliat fixtures - Cyrano 2500W HMI, Victor 1800W MSR and Buxie 575W MSD followspots and the full range of RJ zoom profile spots - for the first time in September 2010 at the Lighting Week trade fair in Sao Paulo. "The response was fan

Power Cuts - The BBC has axed its annual Electric Proms season after five years, citing financial considerations. Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan said it could be achieved "in an alternative, more cost-effective way". Sir Elton John, Robert Plant and Neil Diamond were among the artists who took part in the 2010 event. Marcus Davey, the Roundhouse's artistic director, called the decision "sad" but said he hoped the venue would develop other projects with the BBC "in due course".

Show Business - London theatre continues to defy the effects of the recession, reporting overall results for 2010 that saw record box office revenues and a minimal (0.79%) drop in attendance. Society of London Theatre president Nica Burns said that she was delighted with the results, which she claims represent an ongoing "golden period" for London theat

UK - Following "huge interest" in A.C. Entertainment Technologies' free dedicated 2012 digital switchover open days last year in partnership with Sennheiser and Shure, the company's Audio division has announced it will be holding more events in March 2011.

As a distributor of wireless microphone and IEM equipment brands, A.C. Audio has been keenly following the Ofcom ruling with a view to advising users on how they can best prepare for the switch to Channel 38 (606-614 MHz) in 2012.

Forming part of this service, the upcoming open days will be held at AC-ET's UK offices in conjunction with the manufacturers as follows: South (High Wycombe) with Shure on 9 March and North (Leeds) with Sennheiser on 17 March.

The format of the events will remain the same, with attendees receiving an in-depth 2012 digital switchover Q&A session by members of the BEIRG committee and dem

UK - White Light has seen 2011 get off to a busy start, with the company supplying the lighting rigs to major new productions not just in the UK but as far afield as South Africa.

The show travelling south is Dreamgirls, the production which opened recently at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem before touring the USA is now moving to the Teatro at Montecasino in Johannesburg before travelling on to Cape Town. Directed and choreographed by Robert Longbottom and designed by Robin Wagner, the show features lighting by Ken Billington, with whom White Light has enjoyed many collaborations since supplying the London production of Chicago in 1997 - a show the company continues to supply to this day.

Dreamgirls' production electrician Gerry Amies is currently putting the rig together at White Light's London base. It will ship from there to South Africa in time for th

Germany - The Schauspielhaus Bochum (Playhouse Bochum) is one of Germany's biggest and best known theatres. Built in 1908 as a variety theatre, it became the town theatre in 1915 and was the biggest stage in the Ruhrgebiet. During an air raid in 1944 it was nearly completely destroyed, and then rebuilt based on the design of architect Gerhard Moritz Graubner in an operation lasting until 1953.

Since then the theatre has been modernised at various times, and was recently equipped with a grandMA2 system for lighting control, consisting of three grandMA2 full-sizes, two grandMA2 lights, three MA VPUs (Video Processing Unit), 40 MA NDPs (Network Dimmer Processor) and 25 dimMA Digital Dimmers.

Andreas Bartsch and Bernd Felder, joint heads of lighting at the Playhouse comment, "We have been working with two grandMA2 consoles and three MA VPU or more on both stages of our theatr

USA - Harman Professional has appointed Aaron Simon to the position of director of licensed products. Simon will be responsible for spearheading an ongoing range of new and existing initiatives specifically designed as part of a strategic music artist endorsement programme. He will report to executive vice president of marketing and sales, Michael MacDonald.

Prior to joining Harman Professional, Simon led the strategic marketing, partnerships and promotions department at Disney Music Group. Simon also worked with record companies such as Jive Records (Sony/BMG), Atlantic Records (Warner Music Group) and Virgin Records (EMI). "I could not be more thrilled to be part of the Harman team," stated Simon.

(Jim Evans)

The Netherlands - At ISE 2011, Christie is showcasing products from across its diverse business groups, including dynamic signage, 3D projection and control rooms amongst others.

A second stand dedicated to the event staging market demonstrates a configuration of Christie MicroTiles, alongside Christie's Roadster M Series transformed into digital luminaires - active, powered and lit - via the recently-launched Christie Nitro Solutions. The YK50, latest addition in the range, is available to view whilst the larger YK100 and YK200 models will be on the truss, controlled via the 42 Controls S.P.O.C. desk.

The main stand features the technology preview area where the Christie L2K1000 is located. The Christie L2K1000 is a 2K LCD 10,000 ANSI Lumen projector (2048 x 1080) featuring Christie's 4D Color technology. Christie will also present its successful Mirage Series 3D DLP proje

UK - West London-based rental company Entec is supplying lighting designer Mark Wood with a lighting package and video projection package for his tour with Marina & The Diamonds, currently enjoying the success of her debut album, The Family Jewels.

The lighting rig consists of a set of six Clay Paky Alpha Spot HPE 300 moving lights, which are mounted on different height cases and on the drum riser across the back of the stage.

In front of these are four scaff poles approximately 8ft high, onto which are mounted four PixelLine LED battens, covered with two different grades of diffusion filter. These are pixel mapped and also have video run through them.

Four half mirror balls are dotted around the stage - in a randomly organised fashion - used during the grand finale of Guilty, so when they are hit by a number of narrow beamed fixtures from the floor and the air

India - The country's first permanent full moving image son et lumière - ISHQ-e-DILLI - The Love of Delhi, installed at Purana Quila, a 16th century fort founded by Mughal Emperor Humayun in 1533 - was officially opened by India's Vice President, Shri M Hamid Ansari.

Ross Ashton's UK-based The Projection Studio were technical, design and installation consultants for the projection hardware and control elements, and for the creation of the project's show material. Ashton collaborated closely with ISHQ-e-DILLI's creative director and initiator Himanshu Sabharwal of Delhi-based Two's A Film Company.

Ashton specified the first Christie 20K video projectors used in India for a son et lumière application, which are controlled by a Watchout system. The three projectors are housed in special hides and create an image 50m wide by 20m tall on the building. A major tec

UK - Communications and events managements specialists the drpgroup has hosted a seminar and networking event in conjunction with the International Visual Communications Association (IVCA) to help build ties between the UK corporate visual comms industry and its Chinese counterparts.

The event, held in early January, saw professionals from UK businesses and representatives from Chinese companies XL Stobo, China Guanghua Science and Technology Foundation and Cultural and Creative Industry Foundation and the China Image Film Festival come together at the drplondon offices for presentations on the future collaboration of the two nation's industries.

Speakers included the IVCA's CEO Marco Forgione and China Guanghua Foundation's Zheng Wenjun who spoke about the immense potential for collaboration between the UK and Chinese comms industries and the benefits of partnerships in one o

UAE - Nicolas Kyvernitis Electronics Enterprises, distributors of Clear-Com in the United Arab Emirates for the live sound market segment has recently supplied rental firm Artes with the new Tempest wireless intercom system. The deal includes the 2.4GHz 4-channel base station, 4-channel belt stations and a number of CC-95 and CC-260 headsets.

"Artes already use a two-wire wired intercom system for their various events, however a wireless intercom system offers a number of benefits for both the production crew and especially the client," commented Richie Hiranandani, marketing manager. "After analysing the options available, the Tempest system from ClearCom was the best solution for a wireless intercom system due to its features and use of the 2.4GHz frequency band."

(Jim Evans)

Czech Republic - A new multicultural congress centre has provided the Czech city of Zlin with a new purpose built facility for staging concerts, conferences, exhibitions, symposiums and more.

Designed by noted architect Eva Jiricna - with an overall construction budget of CZK 650 million (£22.75m) - the contract to design and install the audio at the Congress Center Zlin was undertaken by Inton SRO. After winning a competitive bid, they recommended a Martin Audio line array solution for the 837-seat Great Hall.

Two separate Martin Audio line array systems were detailed, with eight W8LMI and a WMX sub (biamped) installed each side as a main PA system, and a further eight LE1200's provided for stage monitoring. Forming the second zone is a Martin Audio OmniLine Micro Line Array system, eight modules per side - reinforced by ceiling speakers for conference purposes.

Said

The Netherlands - Tannoy has unveiled at ISE 2011 its "most significant new product range in several years", in the form of VX Series.

VX Series heralds a number of advances in Tannoy's core offering to the pro sound reinforcement market, says the company, as well as marking the dawn of a collaboration with Lab.gruppen on the self-powered 'VXP' versions - the first product of its type to feature both Tannoy and Lab.gruppen technologies.

With an expanded range of enclosures and transducer compliments, the new VX Series combines Dual Concentric driver technology with smart, ergonomic, portable and install-friendly new cabinet designs, enhanced build quality, and "carefully thought-out functionality".

In addition to an extensive passive range, there are also self-powered loudspeakers, the VXP Series.

With 10 passive models in the range (nine of which are a

UK - At its annual general meeting last week, Ken Bennett-Hunter was voted in as the new chair of Skillscene.

On acceptance of this strategically significant national role, Bennett-Hunter said, "I am pleased to have been elected as Chair of Skillscene. Representing, as it does, theatre managements, unions, trade associations and trainers it is uniquely placed to influence the future of training and qualifications, particularly in the area of technical theatre. I look forward to working with Creative and Cultural Skills, the National Skills Academy and others to ensure that training and qualifications meet the needs of the industry."

Outgoing Chair, Anamaria Wills, who also led its forerunner, Theatre Technical Training Serves, as well chairing Skillscene since its inception in 2005, warmly congratulated Ken on his appointment. A vote of thanks was given to her in rec

UK - At its recent Annual General Meeting, Ken Bennett-Hunter was voted in as the new Chair of Skillscene.

On acceptance of this strategically significant national role, Ken said: "I am pleased to have been elected as Chair of Skillscene. Representing, as it does, theatre managements, unions, trade associations and trainers it is uniquely placed to influence the future of training and qualifications, particularly in the area of technical theatre. I look forward to working with Creative and Cultural Skills, the National Skills Academy and others to ensure that training and qualifications meet the needs of the industry."

Outgoing Chair, Anamaria Wills, who also led its forerunner Theatre Technical Training Serves as well chairing Skillscene since its inception in 2005, warmly congratulated Ken on his appointment. A vote of thanks was given to her in recognition of her

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