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Rigging / Staging

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UK - Folkstone’s Magistrates Court sentenced Maidstone Studios Limited to pay a £30,000 fine and £6,487.76 worth of damages after a worker fell to his death.
Justin Newitt fell five metres through an opening on the roof at the TV studio on 23 September 2015 after using an unsafe mobile access tower to climb to the roof.
The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) identified a lack of planning with regards to the condition the tower, which had ladder sections the wrong way round, damaged bracing and inadequate guardrails. No formal planning had been recorded and there had been no supervision on how the work was being carried out.
HSE also highlighted that Mr Newitt had not been trained to erect the tower safely.
HSE inspecto

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USA - Celebrating its third year of exhibiting at InfoComm, Current RMS demonstrated its rental management software to all that came by stand C1510 over the three days.
Since last year’s show, Current RMS has released a number of new features, showing that it’s expanding as per the changing needs of the industry the cloud-based software was built for.
Do a Deal, the most recent feature update, was well received by booth visitors, providing users with the ability to set a round figure on quotes and orders they create for their clients. For example, if a job comes out at £6,453, it can be rounded up or down to create a neater price and much friendlier quotations. Deal prices are flexible, and can be set on product groups, or the entire job, distributing the change in revenue accordingly and allowing users to keep track of the profitability for each job.
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HOF - Banner Apr 2025

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Europe/Asia - Milos held its annual product academies at its bases in Roudnice nad Labem, the Czech Republic (13-14 April), and in Guangzhou, China (10-11 May).
The two-day product academy has been designed to provide attendees with the knowledge and skills for working safer while carrying out rigging duties and constructing support structures.
The Czech Republic event brought together local attendees, but also visitors from Slovakia, Germany, England, Scotland and Australia. The product academy in China drew attendees from China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore, India, as well as from Australia, New Zealand and Kenya.
Eric Porter, certified rigging consultant and internationally renowned rigging professional, gave rigging presentations and provided rigging consultations. Norbert Tripp, Area Four Industries technical director and structural engineer, held presenta

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Poland - Protec European Events partnered with their client Xerox once again to deliver the audio, lighting, video and rigging at the Xerox Forum 2018 held in Warsaw.
This event, held in the Doubletree Hilton from 22-24 May, included three days of presentations and 23 seminar sessions with the highlight being the Xerox International Operations Premiere of the new Xerox IridesseTM Production Press.
Xerox hosted 400 of their top graphic communications customers, resellers and business partners from around the world.
The project ran in a few separate spaces or scenes – a daytime conference, a pre-reveal with Kabuki curtain, the reveal element and finally, the conference and demonstrations on the new machine.
Sean Godefroy, HOD Protec video, chose three Barco 20k projectors, one for each side screen and one for a kabuki drop drape projection. He chose the Ch

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Switzerland - Verity Studios AG, an indoor drone technology specialist, has announced that it has raised $18m in a Series A funding round. Fontinalis Partners, a venture capital firm focused on next-generation mobility technologies, led the round. Other investors include Airbus Ventures, Sony Innovation Fund, and Kitty Hawk. Verity plans to use this funding to expand its live events business, with a heavy focus on US growth, as well as to expand into other commercial verticals.
“Verity has assembled an exceptional team, with credibility, valuable IP, and extensive technical know-how, all while building a fast-growing business in the live events market,” says Chris Cheever, co-founder and partner at Fontinalis. “Our firm was founded to invest in and help scale the world’s best mobility technologies, and what Verity has developed has broad applicability beyond entertai

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UK - The winners of the Association of British Theatre Technicians (ABTT) Theatre Awards 2018 have been announced.
The awards ceremony took place on 6 June (Wednesday) at Alexandra Palace, London.
The five awards for sound, lighting, engineering, widget and stand were complemented by a special award to mark the retirement of Roger Fox, the theatre show's director, acknowledging his 40 years work on building and developing the event since 1978.

The winners, who were picked by an experienced jury of working practitioners and industry peers, are listed below, along with the jury's comments:

ABTT Sound Product of the Year
EM Acoustics for EMS-41
"This speaker features a compact design with a 4” driver and coaxial compression driver, producing similar output to the larger EMS-51, but at half the size,

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UK - Flightcase Warehouse has acquired Production Park-based heavy-duty case company Box Clever Cases, effective 4 June.
The deal reflects an “ambitious growth strategy”, which has seen the Tamworth flight case manufacturer invest in “product, people and process”. Flightcase Warehouse is also launching an enhanced protective case service for Production Park businesses, including an on-demand delivery service, and is transferring all manufacturing to Tamworth.
Sam Austin, managing director of Flightcase Warehouse, comments: “The Flightcase Warehouse acquisition of Box Clever Cases complements our overall offering whilst strengthening our hand in the production and live events marketplaces through maximising the unique and exciting opportunities Production Park affords us. We’re an ambitious company continually leading the way in both exclusive services and p

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Europe - The MTN Shop, an e-commerce platform offering entertainment, manufacturing and recreational products from industry-leading brands, has updated its websites (shopmtn.eu / shopmtn.com).
Visitors will now benefit from seamless navigation across multiple industries, with over 30 brands available from one place. The shop offers more than 10,000 products across three categories - entertainment, industrial and rope access. One major change to the MTN offering is the addition of film industry rigging gear to service the full range of entertainment rigging professionals.
Apart from enhanced aesthetics and a more advanced navigation, the websites benefit from optimised filtering and search, a live chat function, and secure online payment options. ShopMTN.eu is fully compliant with EU GDPR data protection regulations.
(Jim Evans)

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UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) will demonstrate its extensive portfolio of leading theatrical technologies - including new lighting, rigging, audio and video products from Chroma-Q, Spotlight, Follow-Me, Sixty82, BroadWeigh, Tourmate, Sennheiser, Shure and Green Hippo - at the ABTT Theatre Show 2018 this week. Highlights include:
Lighting: Chroma-Q's premium performance Color Force II LED cyclorama & effects light, and Inspire XT RGBW LED house light - both multi award-winners - and new Studio Force II high output variable white fixture; ProLights' Eclipse LED Fresnel in a choice of white colour temperatures, plus various effects lighting models; a preview of Spotlight's Hyperion 6-colour LED Profile and Fresnel, alongside many other theatrical LED fixtures; Follow-Me's remote follow spot control system for harnessing multiple moving lights from any brand i

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UK - The PLASA 2018 Members’ Day and AGM took place on Thursday 31 May at the Royal College of Physicians in Regent’s Park, London to reflect upon a year of specialist projects, industry collaboration and growth.
Members and guests enjoyed a productive day with an insightful AGM, followed by a networking afternoon in the venue’s unique ‘physic’ garden. The lively guest speaker, Caroline Russell from The Ideas Centre Group, encouraged audience participation with her creative approach to problem-solving, then attendees were invited to stay for drinks into the evening.
PLASA Treasurer Mark Surtees presented the 2017 accounts and announced that PLASA is in a place of financial stability, highlighting an increase in profits due to commercial growth within Events and Media. Newly elected Chair, Adam Blaxill, added later that all profits funnel back int

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UK - J&C Joel has announced the appointment of Alan Jackson as UK sales manager.
Jackson has more than 35 years’ experience in the industry including working for Hawthorn for 14 years, most recently as their installations director. He will work closely with the UK sales team to develop inclusive relationships with customers, drive a focussed approach to the UK market and raise awareness about the broad range of products J&C Joel provide.
Jackson comments: “As a Yorkshireman, it’s great to go back to my roots and work with a fantastic Yorkshire based company. I’ve had a long connection with J&C Joel and I’m really looking forward to developing the UK sales team, meeting customers and raising the profile of the team and the company’s products and services.”
J&C Joel CEO James Wheelwright adds: “Alan is a great addition to our senior

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Portugal - Ampco Flashlight played a major role as supplier of all lighting, rigging, video and motion systems for the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest.
Preparations started as early as October 2017. The dedicated team of commercial, technical and logistics specialists, working closely together with local Portuguese partner Pixel Light, laid a solid base for a flawless production in the Altice Arena. Build-up started early April and ended with a 60-hour speed load out.
Over 2500 fixtures, almost four kilometres of truss and a huge amount of, cabling, dimmers, distro’s and a state of the art data network was used in this massive TV production attracting over 350m viewers worldwide.
Marc van der Wel, project director, commented: “It was very exciting being part of the team, and seeing how our specialists put so much effort, experience and knowledge into this proje

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USA - CyberHoist by CyberMotion is on tour again, this time with Vegas native band The Killers on their Wonderful, Wonderful tour. The band finished their European leg at the end of 2017 before starting their US leg at the beginning of the year.
The primary driving visual elements on the stage were video-constructed triangles with one anchored on the stage and an inverted triangle hanging above it nicknamed ‘The Flying V’ made up of video tiles that would fly apart, turn, twist and move into different shapes utilizing the CyberHoist automated moving system. 12 active CyberHoist 1000kg and 1 MotionCue control system, all with spares, turned the Flying V into an ever-changing video spectacle. These automated hoists came from CyberMotion North America and controlled by David Diamond, the show operator and motion specialist.
Diamond explains, “Working with LD

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UK - Wirral-based Lift Turn Move (LTM) has reported two of its apprentices have now joined the company as full-time staff members. Jonathan Street also joined as an apprentice on an engineering apprenticeship.
Charmaine Pude came to LTM in 2016 to gain office experience and work towards her NVQ Level 3 in Business Administration. She has recently passed her NVQ and subsequently been given a full-time job at LTM as a sales and purchasing assistant.
Joshua Field-Baines approached LTM in 2015 wanting to work in engineering. He has since completed his apprenticeship and is working towards his advanced apprenticeship qualification in BTEC HNC in Engineering which includes an NVQ Level 4 and he is also doing his LEEA foundation training.
John Jones, MD of LTM, comments: “We are very lucky to have gained two valuable team members at LTM. We know how important it is

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UK - Unusual Rigging will showcase its wide range of products available for sale and for hire.
Tom Nightingale, Unusual's technical manager explained: "For Unusual, ABTT is undoubtedly the most important event in the trade show calendar. It gives us the opportunity to meet with the people right at the heart of the very industry that we aim to serve. We are incredibly well known for the projects we work on but people are often surprised when we talk them through the extent of our sales, hires and services offerings."
Several members of the Unusual team will be on hand for the duration of the show and . Tom continued: "In previous brochures we've focussed on the specific products tvisitors to the stand will be able to pick up a copy of the company's new Sales and Services brochurehat we can offer, but really, the range is so huge, no brochure could really do each product

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UK - Rope Assemblies is set to debut its new Anchor Strop on stand A22 at this year's ABTT show. The Anchor strop is a 6mm stainless steel wire rope with thimble eyes on both ends, copper ferrules, and has been designed for general PPE requirements.It has an EN362 hook on either end and joins the company's existing range of Anchor Strops and is perfect for use in a wide range of industries – wherever a person works at height, near unprotected edges or in confined spaces.
The Anchor Strop will be joined on the stand by Rope Assemblies' lighting and climbing ladders. Ann McCorkell, technical manager explained: "The Lighting Ladder was created in conjunction with one of our customers who needed a solution for hanging lights vertically without the space consuming aluminium ladders."
Consisting of two lengths of wire rope with spacing of end stops, karabiners at the end a

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UK - Doughty's new Lightweight Lighting Stand will make its debut on stand C30 at ABTT, to be held on 6-7 June at at London’s Alexandra Palace.
The stand, which recently appeared at PLASA Focus Leeds and Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt in prototype format, is now in production.
The stand takes the all the principles of a Tank Trap but packages them into a neater model. It comprises a flat, round plate and slim tube, slotted at each end to allow cables to run unseen inside it. A 28mm receiver is incorporated in the top of the stand which will take an industry standard 28mm spigot. When used in conjunction with a speaker adapter, the stand can also be used to hold small speakers.
Dan Phillips, project sales co-ordinator at Doughty explains: “This robust piece of kit has a sleeker appearance than the standard Tank Trap and comes with a stacking slot which allows

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UK - Cardiff-based events services provider 11th Hour has been appointed by Associated British Ports South Wales to supply a temporary passenger terminal in Cardiff Bay for the Marco Polo cruise ship.
The terminal comprises a 57m marquee fitted out with a bespoke interior, with the company also supplying several security elements, including bag-scanning and metal detection equipment.
Project manager Bruno Hunt is in charge of the technical aspects of the terminal, whilst business development manager Jason Venables oversees the customer-facing side of the operation.
The project overlaps with 11th Hour’s involvement in the Volvo Ocean Race, a round-the-world yacht race that arrived in Cardiff on 29 May, with the company supplying a range of facilities for the Race Village.
(Jim Evans)

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UK - Star Events’ X Stage highlights the creativity at AEG Presents’ first All Points East festival in Victoria Park, where sets from LCD Soundsystem, The XX and Bjork drew sizeable audiences this Bank Holiday weekend.
Working with Loudsound and LarMac Live, including the main East Stage, a 20m VerTech, the North Stage, with its concentric arches, the West Arena and all the requisite support structures.
An ambitious in the round experience, with a hovering DJ platform, the X Stage “puts the finest electronic talent into the heart of the audience”.
Star Events’ design team joined two 5m wide/38m span arches at the apex to bring the X Stage to life, using kit from the yard together with ‘specials’ built for the project.
Alongside its considerable lighting capacity, each leg of the structure houses an inward facing speaker configuration, whic

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UK - Aurora Lighting Hire supported lighting director Gurdip Mahal on a major installation for Revolution, one of the largest entertainment sets on UK television.
SKY One took over the vast space at Cardington Studios for extreme sports show Revolution. Hosted by Jackass star Steve-O and Maya Jama, Revolution is an extravaganza of high speed action featuring BMX riders, skates and boarders going head to head across a spectacular custom designed course.
Working with award winning lighting director Gurdip Mahal for the eight-episode run, Aurora provided a vast array of lighting, control and rigging equipment to light up the large-scale production.
To achieve the intense colour applied throughout the show, a mix of over 200 Robe 1200, VariLite VL3500 and Martin Quantum Wash fixtures were installed to provide a highly controllable, vibrant

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UK - The north Bristol warehouse of lighting and rigging supplier Utopium has suffered a fire on the night of 21-22 May, destroying the entire lighting and rigging inventory, the company reports.
An investigation has been opened into the cause of the fire. The whole team are said to be devastated by the fire.
Utopium founder Colin Bodenham comments: “It is heart-breaking to see everything we have created destroyed in one devastating event. The main consolation is that nobody was hurt in the blaze. We are focused on fulfilling our commitments to clients approaching a busy summer season working with trusted partners in the industry. I am allowing myself a little time to grieve the loss of some treasured artefacts amassed over the years.”
More news is expected soon. 
(LSi Online)

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Portugal - Stage engineering specialist WIcreations supplied four of their heavy duty TP06 stage elevators to the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC) production which was headed by technical directors Ola Melzig and Tobias Åburg.
The event, viewed by 200m across the globe, was staged at the Altice Arena in Lisbon.
The four TP06 lifts were installed under the stage which was part of the elaborate set designed by Florian Wieder, and were used for two of the 43 finalists, Austria’s third placed Cesár Sampson and Belarus contestant Alekseev.
The project was designed and co-ordinated for WI by Geert Stockmans and tech’d and looked after on site by Mateo Marastoni working alongside Robert Roos who was the production’s props and special staging co-ordinator.
One TP06 lift was positioned centrally beneath the stage and surrounded by the other three, all of

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UK - Event production company VisionEventsManchester (VE-M) has upgraded its equipment inventory, adding a selection of Doughty equipment to its stock.
Darren Howard, director, VE-M explains: "As VE-M has expanded, we found we were regularly hiring in stands and so it was really a natural choice that we should purchase some Doughty kit."
The company which was born out of Vision Events back in 2011 focuses on bringing together various elements of event design under one roof, making its clients' lives easier when organising often complex events. The addition of Doughty items to the company's stock is part of a major overhaul of VE-M's video, lighting, audio and rigging stock as the company continues to grow. Keen to invest in high quality technologies, Darren turned to A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) – one of Doughty's UK distributors to handle the entire upgra

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UK - Hire and events company SLX has announced the successful applicants for its 2018 bursary scheme, which sees the company supporting five students enrolled on production courses with £3000 of hire equipment as well as networking and development opportunities.
Spanning the UK, the students attend different institutions and are enrolled on a variety of technical production focussed courses. Third year students and graduating this year are Ashley Holdom (Rose Bruford) and Ryan Searle (Bristol Old Vic) and the 2nd year students receiving the bursary are Alex Silvester (University of Bolton – Backstage Academy), Georgia Wren - LIPA and Ben Linwood (Guildford School of Acting).
As well as receiving the £3000 bursary to support a project of the student’s choosing, the five applicants were also welcomed into SLX Avonmouth, spending two full days in May with the SLX
  1. Steeldeck secures new production facility
  2. InterAmerica Stage completes rebrand
  3. Sixty82 hits right note at PLASA Focus Leeds
  4. AC-ET backs Backstage Academy
  5. Second Warehouse goes mobile
  6. Unusual Rigging chosen for Tina Turner musical
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PLASA Leeds 2025 - Large MPU - April 2025
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