UK - Royal Ascot 2010 sees the official launch of the Betfair Lounge. Designed and installed by LCI Productions. Described by some as "Betting flies Upper-Class" the facility allows those new to Betfair a chance to learn how the website works, whilst the company's key account holders can enjoy discreet hospitality with fast connectivity.

The Betfair Lounge is a boutique take on the sports bar format. Guests are surrounded by multiple displays of live racing, other sports and up-to-the-second market odds.Six Apple iMac terminals provide access to Betfair.com.

The project makes use of Samsung HD LCD screens, Extron and Kramer switchgear, AV Stumpful's Wings and ISEO control platforms and LCI's bespoke engineering solutions. The audio and video systems are entirely integrated and re-configurable from fixed touch-screen control surfaces and wire-free iPads. As well as th

UK - ETC and Northern Stage have completed the commissioning of Sensor dimming and Unison Paradigm control systems at the three city centre venues which make up Bradford Theatres.

Northern Stage Services was charged with exchanging the theatres' complex building management system for something much simpler. Project manager David Culshaw comments, "The previous system was aging and becoming unserviceable and it was only a matter of time before the theatres experienced a major outage. We recommended Sensor and Paradigm because they are without doubt the best products on the market in terms of functionality and reliability. We've also seen first hand the excellent long term support and backup that ETC offers.

"We only had five weeks where the venues were dark in which to install the equipment, as a new show needed to open. ETC was very efficient in supplying everything

Norway - Hi-tech education facility, Bjornholt Upper Secondary School in Oslo, recently took delivery of an Allen & Heath iLive digital mixing system for installation in its performing arts auditorium.

The system, comprising an iDR-48 MixRack and iLive-T112 Control Surface, has already been used to manage a variety of events from a large 1300-capacity presentation incorporating delay speakers, to a small 150-capacity music concert with performances from several bands.

"With the processing power built in, we don't need to use outboard equipment any more," explains Bjornholt School building manager, Agnar Andersen. "The show recall function makes set up times very quick, and due to the surface layout, our students have adapted faster to the controls than they have with other consoles. Also, everybody has commented that the sound has improved a lot through our exis

Australia - Rockhampton's Pilbeam Theatre - one of the finest theatres in regional Australia - offers a diverse range of productions all year round, from the best local, national and international entertainers. When owners Rockhampton Regional Council came to purchase and install a new PA system into the theatre, it was done in true country-style - with a shoot-out!

"We began the process of selecting a PA with a shoot-out," explained Matthias Conway, senior technician at the venue. "We were deciding between an Electro Voice's EVA Line Array, Nexo's GEO S12s, and a JBL VRX system. We hung the EVA system, comprising of two EVA-2082S-906 and two EVA-2082S-920 boxes, on the left side of the venue and four Nexo GEO S12 speakers on the right side. We used one Dynacord H5000 to power all the EV boxes with no processing at all. Although we didn't use subs with the EV boxe

UK - Llanelli-based Vaughan Sound Installations (VSI), part of the PAI Group, has installed and integrated new sound, lighting, video and control elements for The Pierhead in Cardiff Bay, transforming the main room of the Grade One listed building of the National Assembly for Wales into a multi functional space.

It is one of the city of Cardiff's most familiar landmarks, originally built in 1897 as the headquarters for the Bute Dock Company.

The venue's main hall can now be run as an interactive visitor attraction or utilised for numerous events and functions. VSI worked to a technical specification originated by theatre consultant Paul Covell, adding their own expertise and specialist knowledge.

The new installation includes a projection system that shows a seven-minute video biography detailing the history of the Pierhead. This combines various archival and current materia

Trinidad - Fashioning itself as an essential element in the educational, social and economic development of San Fernando, Trinidad, the Naparima Bowl Cultural Centre recently hired systems integration firm AMR Export to install a Soundcraft Si3 digital console to handle the wide variety of music and theatrical productions showcased throughout the year.

As part of an audio system upgrade to the 38-year-old venue, AMR was tasked with installing an affordable audio console that would have a small footprint, while still supporting a high channel count necessary for the variety of productions.

"It was important to find a system that allowed the sound crew to easily learn and quickly adapt to multiple productions," said Aaron Rudden, owner of AMR Export. "The Naparima Bowl plays host to a wide variety of programmes and the Si3 allows users to easily set and monitor le

Poland - The celebrated Zbigniew Hubner Theatre in Warsaw underwent a major renovation earlier this year, with a full audio refit spearheaded by the installation of a Midas PRO6 into the Scena 100 performance hall by Audio Plus, distributors of Midas and Klark Teknik in Poland.

Zbigniew Hubner Theatre, which was founded in 1945, has long been a focal point of Polish theatrical culture, attracting leading artists, directors, musicians, choreographers and stage designers both nationally and internationally. The venue has a long history of using Midas consoles, with a Midas Legend 3000 and a Venice installed in theatres two and three respectively.

Sebastian Ku?ma, the theatre's head sound engineer, chose the PRO6 having previously used the Midas Legend 3000. He was particularly impressed with innovations such as the ability to control the time of crossfades between two scenes wit

Poland - Mazowsze, Poland's national folk song and dance ensemble, has installed an Aviom Pro16 personal mixing system, an important element of the audio setup in its newly constructed theatre located at the European Regional and National Culture Promotion Centre in Karolin. Designed by Konsbud-Audio in Warsaw for the most demanding concerts and musical events, the Spectacle-Education Hall houses the Aviom Pro16 system, which has made difficult sound checks a thing of the past for engineers and Mazowsze musicians.

Mazowsze focuses on historical folk dances well-known throughout Poland. Its internationally famous performances, rich in Polish tradition, explore and define the identity and development of the country's culture. The colourful and creative costumes worn by the dancers complement the upbeat and often fast-paced music that, prior to the installation of the Aviom Pro16,

UK - London based Cover It Up supplied the recently finished Dancing On Ice tour with specialist printed draping, a concept that worked so well that production manager Andy Gibbs from Phil McIntyre Entertainment decided to use a similar style of draping for the current Britain's Got Talent tour.

For the Dancing On Ice tour, Cover It Up supplied a black wool serge 'touring package' of borders and legs, to cover all masking eventualities.

Where it became more interesting was the supply of a series of printed drapes. Two of these were straightforward kabuki drops printed on a gloss satin fabric, the result of a lot of research to determine optimum 'falling' properties - so it ended up in a neat quickly foldable pile on the floor rather than an unwieldy mass that was difficult to move. Cover It Up arranged for these to be printed at a specialist facility in Ma

Brazil - A Midas PRO6 has been installed into one of Brazil's newest venues, the SESC Gama theatre in capital city Brasilia, by AV company Projesom which has been supplying the industry for over 30 years. The 400-seat venue, which opened in April this year, hosts a variety of productions from plays to rock concerts.

"Three years ago we installed a Midas Verona 480 for the same client in another theatre," says Ruslan Viana, Projesom's chief audio engineer, "but it was time to take the step forward to Midas digital. It has been a great success."

Amos Miranda, Projesom's chief electrician on the project, says, "Everyone has been impressed with the user-friendly controls, the flexibility and durability of the system, and, of course, the Midas sound. The PRO6 stands head and shoulders above everything else. There is no doubt that the theatre has the audio w

UK - The Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2010, a bold geometric structure designed by Jean Nouvel, has opened to the public.

The main build contractor, was Stage One. The company was responsible for the manufacture and installation of all the structural steelwork, flooring, a 12m high freestanding wall leaning at a 30ยบ angle, central canopy area, seven metre high steel-framed glass cube section and bar/café areas - all in striking shades of red.

"We are honoured to have been asked to construct the prestigious Serpentine Gallery Pavilion for the second year running," said Mark Johnson, managing director, Stage One. Our involvement in the construction of the 2010 Pavilion, which required completely different manufacturing capabilities to the 2009 Pavilion, highlights the truly diverse range of skills and services we can offer to our clients.

The company worked cl

Italy - Proel features in installation projects for several venues in San Teodoro, just a few kilometers from Sardinia's Emerald Coast. Quadra Luce & Design, a company based in Pesaro, chose Proel's systems for sound reinforcement in the Bal Harbour Restaurant and the Ripping Discotheque.

Both projects, designed by architect Marco Lucchi, benefited from the cooperation of AFA Arredamenti, a leading company in wooden and custom furnishings, which took care of the details regarding style and design.

Bal Harbour Restaurant and Beach Bar features a wide terrace with a swimming pool and restaurant. Its Proel Audio System includes 18 TFLV12P satellites, 10 TFLV115SP subs, six PRL250, 6 PRL600, and six PRL950 amplifiers, all controlled by AMX systems.

The Ripping Discotheque, located in San Teodoro's town centre features two dance floors, Black Diamond and White Diamond, where Proe

UK - When Kingston University's Drama and Dance Department decided it needed to add a bright yet compact fixture to its equipment stock, able to give dramatic colour washes and more without the complication of ordering scrolls or the weight of moving lights, it turned to White Light to supply the new SeaChanger Nemo fixture - the first Nemos to be supplied in the UK, and one of the first to be supplied in Europe.

Building on the strengths of the established SeaChanger dichroic system, which adds colour mixing to existing ETC Source Four fixtures, the SeaChanger Nemo is a new profile spot that uses the LIFI Plasma lamp as its light source. This plasma lamp gives the Nemo 10,000 lumens of light output from just 285 watts of power - more than from a standard 750W HPL lamp - from a source that also has a 15,000 hour life and a very white light, with a colour rendering index value of

UK - SFL Group has installed an L-Acoustics Kiva ultra compact line source system into the New Community Church Central Hall venue in Southampton, used for prayers and worship, New Community training courses, performance and arts events.

Built as a Methodist hall in the 1920s, Central Hall has been owned by the New Community Church since 1989, and the installation was part of an ongoing renovation project. With a seating capacity of up to 800, the tiered venue has seating blocks at both sides of the stage, as well as raised seating at the back of the hall.

"Central Hall has an intimate, inclusive feel, with people sitting around three sides of the stage," says SFL's technical director Mark Payne. "Sometimes the stage is moved forward so it's almost in the round. The installation called for lots of horizontal coverage as it's very wide, plus a lot of vertical cov

China - LED display solutions provider Lighthouse Technologies was among the winners announced at the recent 2010 Outstanding (Top Ten) LED Display Application Projects Contest awards presentation ceremony held by Shanghai Committee of Science and Technology. Lighthouse won for its massive American Airlines Centre Display Project.

For this project, Lighthouse installed 25 LED screens of differing shapes, pixel pitches and functions at the American Airlines Centre, covering an area of more than 8,700sq.ft. As one of the top NBA facilities, the American Airlines Centre is a combination of tradition and state-of-the-art technology. The newly installed Lighthouse screens have increased the video display capacity of the facility by 300 percent.

The contest involved simultaneous demonstrations in magazines and on websites, followed by three elimination rounds and an evaluatio

UK - DTS Titan LED wash lights were used to illuminate several life size animatronics at the London edition of Dinosaurs Unleashed - the UK's largest interactive dinosaur encounter - which has now just opened at the Bournemouth International Centre (BIC).

The lighting has been installed by Ian Austin of Kent, UK-based STL Lighting, who purchased the Titans specially for the exhibition from DTS's UK distributors, Lightfactor.

Austin designed both interior and exterior lighting schemes for Dinosaurs Unleashed, which ran until May on the Land Securities Parklife site in Oxford Street, London. The brainchild of Nicky Allison of Progressive Events, the slightly industrial setting made an appropriate home for the 24 dinosaurs, one of a number of temporary events/uses that maximized the prime real estate during a break in the ongoing process of redeveloping the site.

Austin'

UK - ALD, STLD and Clay Paky have announced the nominations for the 3rd Knights of Illumination lighting design awards. The awards will be held on the evening of Sunday 12 September 2010 at the IBIS Hotel London Earls Court.

The awards will provide public recognition for outstanding achievements in lighting design by UK based lighting designers, in a number of professional areas. At the same time, these awards will forge closer ties between the world of lighting design and the lighting Industry as a whole.

The awards for The Knight of the Illumination are nominated and judged by a panel of professional reviewers working in the specific categories, selected and coordinated entirely by STLD and ALD.

Television nominations

Light Entertainment

Mark Smithers for Mission 2110

Martin Kempton for Who Dares Wins

Lee Allen for Blue

The Netherlands - Last month, the Ms Nieuw Amsterdam was launched from Italian shipbuilder Fincantieri's Marghera shipyard in Venice. It is the fourth Nieuw Amsterdam from Holland America, with the first dating back to 1906. With a capacity of 1380 passengers at a length of 780 feet (238 metres), the luxury cruise ship celebrates the glamour and history of New York City (formerly called New Amsterdam). The ship is also home to five Broadway-style shows, with lighting design and pre-programming completed in wysiwyg R25.

Four new shows debuted at the maiden launch: Avalon, Cantare, It Takes Two and NYC. Another show on board is Garage Band, which is a re-run of a show that was debuted on the Ms Oosterdam last year.

The creative team for all five shows (which will run for approximately five years) includes show director John Charron at the helm

UK - The Lyttelton Theatre's hydraulic lifts were installed around 30 years ago and have given the theatre a great many years of reliable service. However, when The White Guard was staged earlier this year, the National's systems engineering team found themselves in a quandary. The show required that they synchronise all three lifts and they found that the existing system simply didn't have the required functionality.

Guy Kendall, head of electronic systems at the National was responsible for finding a solution. The brief was simple: provide a new control system for the three lifts and the main stage wagon to enable synchronous motion.

"Once we had the brief from the designer we knew that the existing systems could not provide the functionality required,' explains Kendall. "So we contacted Stage Technologies with a seemingly impossible challenge. They had to

Switzerland - The opera house in Zurich has installed a new communications system from Riedel Communications. Riedel delivered a flexible system combining Artist digital matrix intercom and Performer partyline technology.

At the heart of the installation at the opera house is a Riedel Artist 64 digital matrix intercom system. Due to its redundant power supplies and CPUs the installation provides maximum system stability. A total of 11 Artist 1000 control panels are used.

A C44 Performer digital partyline system interface provides the seamless integration of 10 Performer beltpacks. Riedel Performer combines the flexibility of traditional partyline technology with digital audio quality and provides excellent quality of speech transmission.

"For our communications infrastructure we needed an installation that we could absolutely rely on in terms of stability and flexibilit

Philippines - In an effort to educate and promote its citizens about the importance of environmental protection, the municipality of Carmona, Cavite selected Lighthouse Technologies to install its new Green Channel LED display.

The new display, comprising 16 R16i/o 16mm LED panels, is located at the inbound tollgate of Cavite Province, a high traffic area for motorists and pedestrians alike.

Content provider Icon Advertising manages the screen content, which is displayed from 6:00am to 10:00pm every day. In addition to dynamic advertising, the Green Channel will also deliver 15-second 'fillers' that provide useful tips on how everyone can do their share to protect the environment. The screen itself is eco-friendly, as it has eliminated the need for tarpaulins, posters, and other physical advertising materials.

Lighthouse worked closely with local partner Avolut

Romania - AV and security integrators Avitech, who are also the Romanian distributors for Christie, are slowly introducing sophisticated command and control room monitor environments to the nation's telecommunications industry.

Having successfully completed a complex two-phase integration at Ericsson's new Global Service Delivery Centre, based around Christie components, they have now provided a turnkey solution for Romtelecom, one of the country's largest communications companies .

Avitech received last year the go-ahead for the implementation of another important project, this time for Romtelecom. The project had to offer severely improved monitoring and control possibilities for the client's national network.

Avitech replaced the existing system used to check feeds with specified 27 x 67" Christie SXGA+ cubes, with RPMSP-D132 single chip DLP projection, featuring dua

USA - Alfred University has chosen PowerLift automated hoists and the SceneControl 500 rigging controller - products designed and manufactured by J. R. Clancy, - for its new theatre in the Miller Performing Arts Centre. The 498-seat proscenium theatre is slated for completion on 15 October.

J. R. Clancy has supplied 20 PowerLift automated hoists - 12 fixed speed hoists for electrics, borders, legs, scrim, teaser and tormentor, and the Wenger Diva acoustical shell; and eight variable speed hoists for moving scenery. A single counterweight lineset will be used to raise and lower the house curtain.

The SceneControl 500 will control all 20 automated linesets.Designed by Clancy's in-house team of rigging professionals, this intuitive touch-screen system shows operators a 3D representation of the stage and the scenery hanging on each batten. Operators can set simple or elaborate cue

Italy - QVC, the home-shopping channel broadcaster owned by Liberty Media Corp, will start a service in Italy for on-air launch at the beginning of October.

Experienced Berkshire-based broadcast integrators, TSL, won a competitive tender to design and install a highly sophisticated broadcast system, with audio mixing based around two Studer Vista 5 32-fader production consoles with SCore Live and D21 I/O extension frames installed in the two identically-configured live studio control rooms and central technical area.

TSL has a long history of specifying Studer Vista consoles, and their audio applications manager, Martin Dyster, said that in this instance the desks were chosen for their compact form factor, the familiarity that QVC's newly-recruited sound engineers already had with the Studer topology - and the comfort the client was given in knowing that Studer's Italian distr

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