Germany / USA - Sommer Cable is presenting their latest development at the InfoComm 2016: the compact pushbutton modules of the Cardinal DVM series. The new pushbutton modules make media control easy, especially in situations where an operation directly on the device is either too complicated or not possible.

"It has been our goal to develop a convenient, economically priced and yet high-quality controller solution for devices and media. With the quad pushbutton modules of the Cardinal DVM series we've hit the nail on the head. Whether you have integrated a single beamer under the ceiling or a big media controller in a data cabinet, it won't matter anymore. With our pushbutton module the direct operation is now performed a single push of a button," says Sommer Cable's key account & distribution manager Peter Rieck.

Beside the fast setup and wiring the pushbutton modules al

Belgium - For many show designers, it can be frustrating to see countless audience members gazing at I-Mag screens for prolonged spells, rather than concentrating on what really matters: the stage action. In conjuring her set design magic for Beyoncé's eagerly anticipated Formation world tour, however, Es Devlin has ensured that all eyes remain on the star's performance by creating an enormous, rotating video screen box - widely referred to as the 'Monolith' - that relies heavily on customised equipment and R&D know-how from Stageco's international offices.

Measuring 22m high x 16m wide x 9m deep, the crucial elements at the Monolith's core have been custom-manufactured and supplied by Stageco in partnership with Belgian motion control systems provider WIcreations. The Monolith is embedded in a 62m wide x 35m deep stage.

On the in-progress North American leg,

UK - Global flightcase hardware and 19" racking manufacturer Penn Elcom is launching three new climate control products for 19" racking systems.

The CRC02-DTC, the FT-DTC and the FT01-Q-DTC - are all thermostatically controlled for optimised heat management in 19" racking installations.

Digital control gives refined and super accurate heat management via continuous temperature minoring and 'set-and-forget' fan control. All the products are optimised for quiet running, have over-temperature alarms and benefit from running off a universal power supply.

The units are engineered to the robust and reliable specifications common to all Penn Elcom products

The CRC02 thermo exhaust blower is a completely new 2U virtually silent (22.5 dBA) fan exhaust unit designed especially for use with 19" equipment rack units, to expel air from the front of the rack unit.

It can be

UK - Exactly one year after forward thinking track expert Triple E's successful launch of the award winning, 'universal building system', ModTruss, the company will return to the ABTT Show, Alexandra Palace, 22-23 June.

Often described as full size Meccano by its users, ModTruss won 'Engineering Product of the Year' at last year's ABTT Theatre Awards for its lightweight aluminium construction and repetitious hole pattern, which ensures that build configurations and applications are practically limitless.

Since then, the product has been used in many prestigious locations, most notably at the Royal Opera House in London, Deutsche Oper in Berlin and to build the TV broadcast centre for the 2016 Superbowl in San Francisco. ModTruss made its European debut at the 2016 ProLight+Sound, Frankfurt, Germany, where it also garnered a great deal of attention.

Back in the UK and a

UK - Leicester City Football Club became the Premier League Champions when Tottenham drew 2-2 at Chelsea on Monday 2 May. It was a time for Leicester, as a city, to host a party fit for the champions, their fans, and the proud people of Leicester.

Working with Leicester City Council's Festival and Events Team, and Leicester City Football Club, Leicester based company Upstage Theatre Supplies were asked to help produce the Victoria Park Event, which was held on Monday 16 May, just two weeks after Leicester had won the title.

Upstage also found out, and had to keep the secret, that home -town rockers Kasabian were to perform a surprise gig of three songs to the audience that on the night totaled 240,000 people.

Terry Forryan, managing director at Upstage hit the ground running. This high profile event, which had attracted the interest of the world, would have to bring to

Belgium - Doughty Engineering has been brought on board by FEELTEC SPRLU to supply a new lighting hoist and technical grid to the Musee La Boverie as part of the museum's 30m euro refurbishment. The newly renovated museum, designed by architect Rudy Ricciotti, who is known for his work on the MUCEM in Marseille, boasts 3000sq.m of space with an additional glass box extension which opens out onto the nearby park offering a further 2000sq.m.

Following a partnership agreement with the Louvre in Paris, Musee la Boverie will lend its space to display parts of the Louvre's collection and in return, the Louvre will support the city of Liege with the planning of its own exhibitions. With the potential for some of the world's most famous artists and artworks to go on show at the new museum, FEELTEC SPRLU was contracted to handle the technical lighting refurbishment to ensure that all e

UK - Proving that 'science isn't just for geeks', It's not Rocket Science launched on ITV in February, with each of the six episodes packed with thrilling large scale experiments.

Fronted by actor Ben Miller, stand-up comedian Romesh Ranganthan and presenter Rachel Riley, the fast paced series succeeded in bringing science to life. Each week, one of the presenters put their lives in jeopardy in a series of daredevil, high risk experiments where only science could save them - and Unusual Rigging was on hand to help the production team achieve their ambitions for the show.

ITV's Kalpna Patel-Knight said, "To really captivate the audience, we planned some large scale experiments in an aircraft hangar - and each one had rather complex rigging requirements. Unusual Rigging was known to ITV as they handle all the large scale rigs on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeawa

UK - The PLASA Show (18-20 September) has begun its run-up to the 2016 event with the opening of online visitor registration and the announcement that this year's highly valued PLASA Awards for Innovation is now open for nominations. This year the PLASA Show will make the highly popular move back to the heart of West London, in its former September timeline, and reintroducing the show party, which will take place at a venue on King's Road on the Monday night. Full details of PLASA 2016's industry-leading Seminar Programme will be launched soon hosting topics from world-class designers, production teams and consultants involved with some of the world's best known venues, prolific tours and major global entertainment and sporting events taking place this year.

The Rigging Conference will run alongside the PLASA Show on Monday 19th September. With the opening key-note from well-k

USA - For its fifth year, Sunset Music Festival took over the grounds of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers stadium and continues to break records. Since the festival's inception in 2011, attendance has increased with ticket sales surpassing 30,000 for 2016. Sunset Music Festival has become the destination electronic dance music festival for central Florida. EDM fans from around the state, country and the world converged on the gulf town to enjoy over 60 artists across three stages during the two-day event held Memorial Day weekend.

2016 marks the second year that AG Production Services has been relied upon to provide production support for the festival. For all three of the stages that make up the festival, AG Production Services provided the staging, roofing, lighting and video systems.

Production and lighting designer Koen De Puysseleir from AG Production Services was tasked with

UK - When Mariah Carey kicked off her Sweet Sweet Fantasy world tour at the SSE Arena in Glasgow, Colin Luke, senior project manager at Load Cell Rental was requested by the tour's production manager Ian Kinnersley to complete a full weight report of the rig. In order to do this effectively, Colin relied on BroadWeigh.

"We were in contact with the Mariah production team from an early stage. In order to prove due diligence in terms of ascertaining actual weights as opposed to relying on calculations, Ian brought Load Cell Rental on board to weigh the entire rig", said Colin. "To do this we used 52 BroadWeigh wireless cells - a cell for each point. From this we were then able to complete a certificate for each individual truss which detailed the equipment used, the recorded weight from the cell and a detailed description of the load."

Load Cell Rental is receiving an increas

USA - Automation control systems manufacturer Kinesys is opening their doors and welcoming guests to its dedicated training facility in Atlanta, Georgia, for an event that will run from 22-23 June 2016.

This event has been designed to cover the basic operation and implementation of Kinesys equipment and will showcase a broad range of products that will appeal to individuals and companies involved in the increasingly popular discipline of automation / motion control.

The invitation is open to lighting and show designers, automation operators, rental suppliers and rigging service providers - anyone with an interest in this dynamic element of modern show production.

Key products include variable speed chain hoist systems, programmable fixed speed motor control and load cell monitoring systems. The format will serve as in-depth introduction to products like the iconic Elev

UK - Serious Stages kicked off the festival season with BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend, at Exeter's Powderham Castle, 28-29 May 2016.

BBC Radio 1's Big Weekend is the largest free ticketed music event in Europe and is held in a different UK location each year, with Exeter's Powderham Castle hosting this year's festival. Serious Stages supplied stages, decking and event structures to house production equipment and artists including Coldplay, Mumford & Sons, Bastille, Biffy Clyro and Jess Glynne.

The main stage was a Serious Stages 25m Space Roof, with a 15m trim height, flanked by two 12m goalposts, from which video screens and PA speakers were hung. Serious Stages also supplied and installed a clear-span structure for the main stage front-of-house, along with delay towers, follow spot pods and the assisted viewing platform with accessibility ramps.

In other areas, Serious a

UK - Doughty Engineering is set to début three new pieces of kit at this year's ABTT show. The Doughty team will be on hand to demonstrate the company's new Super Lightweight Drop Arm and Projector Mount - both new additions to the award winning Modular Rigging System.

The Projector Mount offers full 360 degree rotation, tilts in two directions and is adjustable to fit most projectors. Meanwhile the Super Lightweight Drop Arm,with a safe working load (SWL) of 10kg,gives lighting designers the opportunity to hang smaller luminaires. With a 16mm spigot and a safety bond slot, the Super Lightweight Drop Arm fits 48-51mm diameter barrels and is adjustable from 75-400mm in length.

Mark Chorley, design engineer at Doughty, said, "The Modular Rigging range will continue to grow as long as its users keep approaching us with their suggestions on how it could be improved. A s

UK - Hammersmith's legendary live music venue the Eventim Apollo - renowned for hosting global superstars including David Bowie, Kate Bush and The Rolling Stones has renovated its space for premium corporate entertaining.

The actual unveiling was last year, two years since its notable revamp in 2013, which saw it returned to its 1932 former architectural glory; it remains one of the United Kingdom's biggest and best-preserved Art Deco super cinemas. Now, as the venue is halfway through a 10-year capital investment plan, the beautiful interiors, ornate plasterwork, marble staircases, and meticulous finishes, plus a new flat floor in the auditorium are all set to establish the venue as one of the most coveted private hire venues in the UK.

The venue has made significant investment in an aluminium modular platform floor produced by Prolyte Group, which can be installed overni

Ireland - Global flightcase hardware and premium 19" racking manufacturer Penn Elcom is launching Penn Elcom Ireland, a new all-encompassing facility and operation which will spearhead expansion in a growing market and be headed by the charismatic Rory Winston.

Penn Elcom chairman and founder Roger Willems stated: "The Irish pro entertainment industry market shows definitive signs of recovering from the economic dip, there are many installations and other projects happening and flourishing! It's been our intention to open a base there for some time, but then circumstances converged to make this a really opportune time."

These circumstances include Rory becoming available to run Penn Elcom Ireland and also the 7000sq.ft warehouse facility in south County Dublin coming on-stream, so with these two plusses, Roger activated the plan. Stock of Penn's extensive standard flightca

Russia - Belgian engineering specialist WIcreations has designed and supplied motion control, customised staging and hardware / infrastructure for Russian singer and superstar Philipp Kirkorov's current tour which features a spectacular show design by renowned creative director, Franco Dragone.

WI has previously worked with Dragone on several projects, explains project manager Koen Peeters, and for this one the show creators turned to them to provide solutions for several staging conundrums, all of which had to be delivered in an extremely short timeframe.

With the tour starting in Russia, crew visas, paperwork and transportation needed special attention, in addition to all the engineering and physical creative work!

The first WI element of the project was to create 14 aluminium flying wings and a kinetic system to make them move. All of these flying elements have an i

UK - Bringing a wide range of global experts together to share their insight and experience, the renowned programme of seminars will again be a feature of the 2016 PLASA Show, which takes place from 18-20 September at London's Olympia. The first tranche of seminar sessions has just been announced, featuring a diverse array of fascinating and thought-provoking subjects.

PLASA Show's first year at Olympia sees the show showcasing the latest technology in Olympia's National Hall and the Gallery floor above, with the two seminar theatres, product demos and interactive showcases also situated on the Gallery floor.

As always, every session at the PLASA 2016 Seminar Programme is free-to-attend, with subjects including audio, lighting, AV, staging and business skills being covered. The first 15 have been confirmed and include the return of LSI journalist Phil Ward's popular panel

UK - Working with Entertainment Industries, Blackout was entrusted to supply the James Bond-themed Diamonds Are Forever Gala at Stoke Park, in celebration of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Diamond Anniversary, on 9 June.

Blackout's director Kevin Monks and his eight-strong team were called upon to help transform Stoke Park's indoor tennis courts into an entertainment venue fit to host glittering performances from Sir Tom Jones and Laura Mvula.

With a complex build in a challenging indoor venue with limited roof loading capabilities, Blackout designed and supplied a James Thomas ground supported super truss grid for over the stage plus an additional truss goalpost for hanging the upstage LED screen supplied by PRG XL. The truss grid also provided support to lighting from PRG XL and sound equipment supplied by Britannia Row.

The team supplied and installed over 50 motors

USA - Due to overwhelming interest, the Entertainment Technician Certification Program (ETCP) Portable Power Distribution Technician (PPDT) examination will be offered at over 190 testing centres in North America beginning 15 July for computer-based testing. There is no application deadline and once a candidate is approved he/she can usually test within a couple of weeks, depending on candidate volume. Because this is a new examination, score reports will be delayed during testing time.

ETCP uses a point system to determine eligibility to sit for examinations. A candidate must have 25 points to apply for the ETCP Portable Power Distribution Technician examination. Points can be earned through work experience alone or through a combination of training (i.e., internships or apprenticeships), licensure, and degrees from accredited institutions. Courses taken outside a formal prog

UK - The Association of British Theatre Technicians Theatre Awards 2016 took place on Wednesday evening (22 June), after the first day of the ABTT Theatre Show at Alexandra Palace, London.

An experienced jury of working practitioners and industry peers considered entries for the ABTT Awards. Both previously submitted nominations and items brought to their attention on the day, which satisfied the entry criteria were reviewed.

Commenting on the event, ABTT CEO Robin Townley said, "The Awards ceremony, held in the Petrus Bertschinger Studio (PBS), was again a great opportunity for exhibitors and visitors to gather and celebrate good technology and excellent technical practice. It was also very good to be able to welcome the Association of Lighting Designers' for the presentation of their Bursaries.

"There was a great atmosphere in the PBS which clearly conveyed the congr

UK - PLASA 2016 has announced the line-up for its ever popular Rigging Conference, which this year is supported by Unusual Rigging as Platinum sponsor. The conference is being curated for the seventh year running by Total Solutions' Chris Higgs, with a keynote presentation by Rocky Paulson, founder of Stage Rigging Inc.

Held on the first day of the PLASA Show (London Olympia, 18-20 September), this unique conference looks at the issues that are specific to rigging for the entertainment industry and regularly attracts over 150 practitioners, managers, engineers, safety professionals and policy makers from around the globe. "With 30% of its delegates attending from 20 different overseas countries, it has a truly international flavour," say organisers PLASA Events.

During Rocky's keynote presentation, he will talk about his career as a rigger and the influences from his early

UK - Over 100 bands performed on Serious Stages in front of 80,000 rock fans, as Serious supplied staging and ancillary structures to Download Festival for the first time, 10-12 June 2016.

The 13th Download Festival boasted headline performances from Rammstein, Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden, with Serious providing the stages to house rock royalty and structures to house their production equipment.

A Serious designed and manufactured 25m x 30m Tower Roof was the main stage, which was renamed The Lemmy Stage in memory of the late Mot

UK - PRG XL Video, the UK operation of PRG, LLC, has announced a significant investment with Area Four Industries UK to upgrade its hoist stock with EXE-Rise units.

In a continuing commitment to update its inventory with the latest rigging, lighting, and video technology, PRG XL Video has purchased a large number of the new EXE-Rise 8:1 range of chain hoists to update its rental offering.

The selection of the EXE-Rise units followed extensive evaluation of different hoists by a team of PRG XL Video's rigging experts including Chris Walker, Account Director, Q Willis, Head of Rigging Services, and Richard Gorrod, Head of Event Services.

This new version evolved from the already successful EXE-Rise electric chain hoist family and is designed with a WLL of 1000kg and a safety factor of 8:1. This new model includes all the key features and more of the existing product rang

Ireland - Production Services Ireland (PSI) - a lighting, rigging and visual production company based in Dublin and Belfast has recently made a substantial investment in the new EXE-Rise 1000kg 8:1 double-braked electric chain hoists - the first off the production line in Italy, delivered to PSI by Area Four Industries through Adam Beaumont and are among a total investment in over 50 new motors.

These new hoists went straight out for use on the current UK and European tour of Riverdance.

The history of Riverdance goes back to 1994, when it was an intermission act for the Eurovision Song Contest. It was an immediate hit and quickly gained worldwide recognition. Since that time, it has continuously played to sold out venues and is one of the most successful dance shows in the world.

PSI is now on a fourth tour with Riverdance, supplying all lighting

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