The Millenium Dome, for long derided as Labour's £850m vanity project and awarded white elephant status, is now - as the 02 Artena - the most popular music venue in the world, overtaking New York's Madison Square Gardens. Simon Moran, managing director of SJM Concerts - who has promoted Take That and The Spice Girls at the O2 told the Daily Telegraph: "There was a huge gap in the market for a 21st century standard venue in London rather than one for the 1970s with a large capacity. They found a huge gap in the market. They deserve credit for that."
More on the environmental news front: The Theatres Trust's Annual Conference takes place on 10 June 2008 at the Cottesloe Theatre in London where theatre owners and managers, manufacturers, suppliers and consultants, architects and engineers, will be invited to debate the impact of climate change on theatre buildings and what influence the reduction of our carbon footprint will have on theatre use in the 21st Century. The implication of new legislation to reduce carbon emissions being introduced through Climate Change, Energy and Planning Bills will be addressed by the Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MBE MP, Minister for Culture, and Peter Head, director, planning and integrated urbanism for Arup in opening and closing contributions.
And finally . . . The signal strengths of laptops and mobile phones are set to be radically improved if new technology developed by Oxford scientists comes to fruition. According to a BBC report, engineers at Isis, a technology transfer spin-out company of the University of Oxford, have found a way of creating antennas which can work in three "planes" but that are small enough to fit in hand-held devices. I'm on the train . . .
(Jim Evans)
