UK - Bath- based production, rental and installation company Enlightened has designed and installed a bespoke Milos Quatro 290V trussing ground support system for a new performance space that has been created in a Grade 1 listed building on the Corsham Court campus of Bath Spa University.

Enlightened's Simon Marcus has been using and specifying Milos products for many years and the company has a substantial quantity of different Milos products in its hire stock. "Milos has a wide range of trussing and accessories, it is very strong and has all the right technical specs as well as looking great for a host of different applications," he says.

The new space is called The Image Capture Studio and will be primarily used for postgraduate studies, assorted productions and media related research. It includes a full image capture studio, green screen, projection facili

USA - Tomcat USA participated in Event Live Expo 2011 held at the LA Convention Centre, 12-14 April where the company showcased an array of truss products to create solutions for the entertainment and live event industry. In addition, case studies were presented on product and custom project solutions.

"For 24 years Tomcat has provided innovative solutions to the touring and the live events industry" stated Don Dimitroff, sales & marketing director, Tomcat USA. "Being part of a cutting edge trade show that brings stakeholders together is a wonderful opportunity for Tomcat to share a different perspective with industry pros from all aspects of live entertainment."

Tomcat exhibited standard truss products including Bax, Edge, Core, Light Duty and heavy Duty truss. In addition Keith Bohn, custom projects director, presented daily case studies on product and pr

UK - J&C Joel installed 49 acoustic roller banner units in the Apex Centre, Bury St Edmunds' newest multi -purpose community venue.

The adjustable roller banners allow the Apex's technical staff to alter the venue's acoustics to complement any performance. The acoustic panels consist of cognac wool serge (WS011) bonded to black premier wool serge (WS090) and are ideal for reducing sound reverberation in the performance hall.

The acoustic roller banner units fitted by J&C Joel's installation team are of differing lengths and widths depending on their positioning within the hall. The majority of the banners were made with a single drop of bonded wool serge, but a number of dual sided banners were installed which are operated by a single motor within the unit's housing.

The acoustic roller banner system is controlled through a multi channel hand held unit which enables the bann

Singapore - JM Rental and Showtec Group started working together for the first time during IDEX 2009, International Defense Exhibition and Conference, by providing more than 700 panels of Lighthouse R16 and again in IDEX 2011 by using R7-ER panels.

After the success of IDEX 2011, the show sentiment has led to a new collaboration talk between JM Rental and Showtec Group. Showtec Group decided to spend their investment budget on R7-ER from JM Rental which creates market expansion and a stronger bond between two companies.

"The image quality of R7-ER is more than just outstanding. There's no way to select any other outdoor panels besides R7-ER." Henry Ang, managing director and the founder of Showtech Group, explained. "We actually didn't just invest 70sq.m. to keep in our stock. Together with JM Rental, we have approximately 700sq.m R7-ER available which is actual

UK - The Pioneer Lighting and Sound Activists page on Facebook - run by John Lethbridge and Iain Price-Smith - aims to develop and maintain contacts between lighting and sound professionals both past and present who have worked in the entertainment technology industry from the 1960s to the present day. The P.L.A.S.A page aims to help users search for old colleagues who have left the industry and re-establish contact.

"We are also seeking to look back and celebrate the technical developments and the designers behind them as we moved forward from being a cottage industry in the early days of lighting and sound, to the super sophistication of today's technology," comments Price-Smith.

Be sure to "Like" the Pioneers page if you've ever wondered what became of your long lost industry contacts and to ad

UK - WiSE (Women in Stage Entertainment), will be gracing the show floor at PLASA Focus 2011 with its own stand which will be lit by GDS LED up-lighters and decorated with WiSE sponsor logos.

This year's WiSE sponsors include: Lee Filters, Charcoalblue Theatre Consultants, White Light, Rosco and Avolites, which between them are gorgeously, fabulously and wonderfully generous. (WiSE is not being sycophantic here, these words describe the various sponsorship levels. This means, for a relatively small donation, you too could be labelled gorgeous, fabulous or wonderful! If this is something you aspire to and you would like more information about how WiSE will spend your money please see WiSE fundraising co-ordinator Caz Williamson on stand.)

Accompanying Williamson will be co-founder of WiSE, Sarah Rushton-Read. Both will be on hand - at stand RA-C7, just to the left of the PLASA informa

UK - Rigging Services has announced the appointment of Scott McAughtrie as manager of its North West branch in Manchester, UK. McAughtrie has a strong event industry background spanning more than 20 years. Formerly with well known AV providers Gearhouse, Blitz and MCL he brings a wealth of maturity and experience with him, which is already proving beneficial to the development of new business as well as growth with existing clients.

Rigging Services has opened its third location in the UK just over two years ago in Manchester and has great aspirations for business growth regionally.

Paul Fulcher, director of Rigging Services comments, "A multi-location business such as ours depends upon the local team to act with independence, strength and speed. Whilst at the same time recognising that they are part of a bigger entity with a need for adherence to the company's quality an

UAE - Dubai- based Al Laith Event Services energised imagination and teamwork to come up with an inventive engineering solution to construct three massive mobile scenic horses' heads, which were an integral part of the spectacular closing parade of the 2011 Dubai World Cup horseracing event at Meydan Racecourse, Dubai.

Working for the show's producers and designers M-IS, Al Laith was commissioned to engineer and develop the superstructures and movement systems for the three heads. Each measured 20m high, 19m long and were 3m wide.

Al Laith had to ensure that they could safely be 'ridden' by up to 26 performers and driven for at least 1000m - in potentially seasonal windy conditions - for the celebrations following the conclusion of the 2011 Dubai World Cup.

The heads represented the three legendary equestrian bloodlines - the Darley Arabian, the Godolphin Arabian, and the By

UK - The Arena Group provided 60 temporary tower structures and 1,450 temporary tiered seats overlooking the finish-line in front of Buckingham Palace for the capitals' largest sporting event, the Virgin London Marathon, 17 April 2011.

Arena supplied all of the mile and kilometre marker towers along the 26.2mile route, which the 36,000 runners passed by from Blackheath to the finish line in St James Park. Arena Group built the markers that signified distance achieved, from the first mile to '800m To Go' on the main and Red Route, totalling approximately 60 individual constructions.

Owing to the busy location, only six of these towers were built on the Friday prior to the race, with the remaining markers being constructed the Saturday before, complete with sponsors' branding.

Arena's project manager, Martin Clark comments,"As the marathon route runs straight through the

Denmark - Kastrup, Copenhagen-based Litecom A/S has recently invested in James Thomas 52-inch SuperTruss - custom-sprayed in black - from Danish distributor, Light Partner. The truss forms the base inventory initiating the company's newly-launched rigging department.

Litecom took delivery of Supertruss amounting to 265m in length - more than two and a half football pitches - and it has been in constant use since. The truss has been on many major televised shows in Denmark including X Factor, and the Zulu Awards.

Litecom MD, Kristian Dreier, comments, "We wanted to start up our own rigging department to make everything easier, more flexible and to be able to rig our own projects, with black truss, instead of the normal aluminium look we could rent."

"No one in the television industry likes to look at aluminium trusses, so we've always had to cover

Germany - ChainMaster recently enjoyed a record-breaking appearance at Prolight + Sound 2011 in Frankfurt, welcoming trade visitors from more than 50 countries (40 per cent of whom were new clients), meeting additional sales partners from Asia and Africa, and enjoying an outstanding response to its new products.

ChainMaster Bühnentechnik GmbH from the German region of Saxony hired more than 100sq.m of exhibition space to display its latest products. They included a wireless load measuring system with a category 'd' performance level which enables the continuous, real-time measurement of loads on chain hoists or suspension points for professional users.

Trade visitors from Germany and abroad were especially interested in the new XYZ touch panel announced beforehand. This additional controller for the BGV-C1/SIL3 stage control system is available in both cable and wireless vers

Poland - A Kinesys automation system with K2 control has been supplied to the Very Good Company (VGC) based in Warsaw, Poland - the first Kinesys system to be available in the country.

VGC, one of Poland's leading rental and staging companies, decided to explore Kinesys after initially seeing a system in action during the Depeche Mode Tour of the Universe world tour and were hugely impressed.

Sales director, Grzegorz Niemczyk and chief production manager, Piotr Lukasik were accompanied by lighting designer, Artur Szyman on their visit to Kinesys in the UK to further investigate the motion control system and fully discuss all available options. Following this visit, they decided to purchase a system and chose the powerful K2 software control solution over the more basic Vector control, with future system expansion in mind.

The powerful K2 3D software was also chosen du

UK - A chance conversation 21 years ago led to the invention of the now ubiquitous

Le Mark PAL Road Case label. As with most inventions, the demand came first when the question was put by west London-based SPS to Le Mark's MD Stuart Gibbons: "Can you build be a road case label that I can write on over & over again and will stick like . . . a limpet to a blanket and never fall off?"

Along with screen printing colleague Kevin Isaac, Stuart Gibbons created the first ever Plastic Adhesive Laminate (PAL) Road Case label under the then (but now forgotten) Roadie Label name.

Le Mark has chosen to produce a 21st anniversary celebration version of their original Roadie Label - this time, however, with a glowing photo luminious background bearing the slogan: "Light in a Dark Place".

Le Mark have agreed to support Stage Hand as their 2011/12 season charity and wil

USA - Stage Technologies Las Vegas has announced the latest schedule of its popular three-day training course - An introduction to automation and the eChameleon suite. The first session dates are 1-3 August inclusive, with dates for last-quarter training sessions to be announced later in the year. This course is aimed at programmers and operators as well as professionals from other disciplines interested in learning the features of eChameleon software.

Utilising Stage Technologies control interfaces, delegates will be given an opportunity to get hands on with eChameleon and learn some of the current techniques and principles used to plot and run some of the biggest shows in the world. eChameleon is the common software platform across all Stage Technologies control consoles, offering unrivalled ease of use, power and flexibility.

The three-day course will cover the funda

Qatar - The partnership between Qatar and AVtech tech has been getting stronger as Doha is emerging as a major venue for international sport events. Qatar hosted the 2011 AFC Asian Cup finals from January 7 to 29 this year. It was the 15th time the tournament has been held and the second time it has been hosted by Qatar.

Since the 15th Asian Games, Doha 2006, AVtech has been providing all broadcast, AV solutions for sports venues and games. So when it came to the AFC Asian cup, AVtech was the obvious choice.

AVtech is a leading supplier of high-end audio, video, broadcast and lighting equipment from the some of the most reputable manufacturers in the world. The company is well known for designing leading-edge live performance systems and projects with superb performance-ready systems in the field of sound, lighting, video and multimedia applications.

For ACF, AVtech, along w

UK - Cheltenham and Peterborough-based Event and Management Services Ltd has been appointed to oversee technical operations and production delivery for the Scarborough Open Air Theatre season 2011.

The newly redeveloped theatre, which can accommodate up to 8,000 in its largest format, was opened by The Queen in May 2010 and held its first season between June and August 2010 with capacity audiences to see shows such as a Gala Evening with Jose Carreras, Dame Kiri te Kanawa and '80s rewind.

For 2011, the arena seating has been extended from 6,500 to 8,000 using temporary decking to bridge the lake that sits in front of the stage and the season opens on 5th June with Sir Elton John in concert.

Pete Allison, MD of Event & Management Services said: "This is a great piece of work for us, we're well used to consulting on and managing the production and site issues around large

South Africa - Gearhouse In2Structures launched its new Combi Dome venue structure at a special event staged at the Country Club Johannesburg.

The two-day launch event received a massive response, with over 600 people visiting the new structure - a six-bay version of the 20m wide Combi Dome. The theme of the event was Your Vision Your View, emphasizing the real portability of the Combi Dome and its ability to be set up anywhere that suitable ground conditions apply. Gearhouse South Africa provided all technical elements to enhance the setup.

Designed as a 'compact' venue, Combi Dome still has a serious load capacity of 1500 Kgs per arch - which will facilitate a good amount of production equipment, and the structure is certified to withstand wind speeds of up to 120 kmh.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Wakefield Wildcats' flying start in 2011's rugby league season has seen them awarding a new stadium security contract to Showsec. The event crowd management specialists have been employed for their professionalism and to assist in the club in their aim to gain a Super League license for the 2012 - 2015 season.

Showsec's first season has seen 60 SIA Licensed security professionals and stewards successfully ensure the safety of visitors and sports stars across five games in Yorkshire. Led by Showsec area manager Julian Kumah the team covers all aspects of security, from control room and car park operators to stewards on the stands and entrance gates.

"We're passionate about offering progressive security solutions that are tailored to the range of events and venues that we work with," says Kumah. " We are seeing an increase in contracts from sporting organisat

UK - Packed aisles and major new product launches firmly established PLASA Focus as an unmissable industry event for the north of England. Some 1956 visitors, representing a 9% increase in the total number of attendees in 2010, headed to the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds last week to see 130 brands launch dozens of new products to the UK market. A total of 2457 attendees, including exhibitors, enjoyed Focus's trademark sunshine, free lunch and informal, friendly atmosphere.

Among a lengthy list of new products receiving their UK launch were the Chroma-Q Studio Force and Jands Vista V2, both launched by AC Entertainment Technologies; a new generation of moving heads from Robe; Avolites' Sapphire Touch and a preview of its Titan V5 software; the Wave 28 all-in-one modular PA from Adam Hall; Christie's new Nitro Solutions range of motorised moving yokes; the new Showtec luminaire

UK - Britain's Got Talent's dance group Flawless are coming to the end of their largest ever tour - 60 dates covering major cities of the UK.

With more dates, less rest, tighter install deadlines and even more demanding choreography the Flawless team requested Le Mark's Manero Portable SubFloor to be used at every venue possible.

Artistic director Marlon Wallen comments, "We have used the Manero floor throughout our 60 date UK tour and we really feel that it has made a significant difference to the quality of our performance. The give in the floor has protected our bodies during flips and multiple somersaults and we have noticed its superior quality when compared to other professional dance floors we have performed on in the past."

(Jim Evans)

UK - PLASA's forthcoming European AGM and Members Lunch is expected to attract a strong turnout on the back of a significant 12 months for the organization.

It's just a year since members of PLASA voted overwhelmingly to merge with leading North American trade association ESTA, and on the 1 January this year, the two formally came together under the PLASA name, creating one of the largest membership organizations in the industry with over 1100 members worldwide.

Though still in its early stages, the merger has already greatly strengthened PLASA and given it a new profile in the industry, reinforced by a new PLASA logo and brand identity. The first phase of a new PLASA website has gone live and the first meetings of the new Regional Boards and over-arching Governing Body have also taken place. New services and research projects have been introduced, and the teams are currently

UAE - Gerriets, the German producer of fabrics, projection screens and stage technique has announced the formation of its latest operation - Gerriets Stage Equipment (FZE) with industrial and trading license in the Middle East region.

"Due to increasing demand for high quality entertainment based products and services, Gerriets decided to form Gerriets Stage Equipment (FZE)," says the manufacturer. "With the formation of this company, we will be able to fulfil the regional needs of our clients much more efficiently, directly from our UAE facility.

"We are pleased to announce that Mr. Axel Beisenwenger will be the managing director of Gerriets Stage Equipment (FZE). Mr. Beisenwenger offers years of experience, knowledge and contacts in the theatre and event markets within the UAE."

Gerriets has a number of new products scheduled and has also published

UK - After nearly five years at Mondiale Publishing, TPi editor Rachel Esson has left to try her hand at PR & Marketing with Yorkshire's newly re-branded rehearsal and production facility LS-Live.

Rachel will be co-ordinating all aspects of PR and marketing for the company, based at the South Kirkby headquarters initially and then working remotely from London. She commented: "I'm very sad to leave TPi but equally excited to be taking on a new challenge at LS-Live. It's a new role and there will be lots to get my teeth into considering it has undergone a dramatic transformation with new on-site bedrooms, dressing rooms, studios and green room.

"There's also the new industry-led training facility Backstage Academy and its short courses and foundation degree in Live Events Production to promote, along with the boost to LS-Live's hire stock of a new range of outdoor stag

UK - Continuing its ongoing supply of case solutions to audio console manufacturer DiGiCo, 5 Star Cases has produced the latest case for DiCiCo's SD range of digital consoles.The SD11 is the newest sound mixing product from DiGiCo, following on from the success of the SD7, SD8, SD9 and SD10 consoles.

The SD11 is DiGiCo's smallest sized sound desk to date. It is two consoles in one - a rack-mountable and a table top mixer with smart end cheeks and an arm rest - and an easy one-person lift from truck to table top, ready for action.

5 Star's design team was commissioned just before Christmas 2010 to create a special case for the SD11's planned launch at the recent Prolight+Sound 2011 exhibition in Frankfurt. "Once we saw the prototype SD11 at the end of last year, the first thing that was obvious to us was its neat and compact size," says 5 Star's MD Keith Sykes.

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