UK - ACCO UK Ltd has announced the formation of a new European Multi Media Group, as part of its ACCO Brands portfolio, aimed at providing the company with a major presence in the growing digital AV presentation technology sector. ACCO's entry into the market comes with the launch of the exclusive NOBO brand of digital projectors, based on Texas Instruments market leading DLP technology.

Ashley Murdoch, who recently joined the company from Sony Europe, is general manager of the Multi Media Group: "The NOBO brand is already a market leader in overhead projection and we are launching portable projector technology in line with the move towards digital devices across all of our core markets. We have developed a range of machines and a business model that specifically address the requirements of business, presentation and education users, in terms of performance, portability, re

UK - High production values topped the agenda at Liverpool's 'City of Light 2003' son et lumière spectacular, organized by Liverpool City Council's Special Events Team, and staged in the middle of the lake in Sefton Park, at the heart of the City. The event, project managed by Kirstie Blakeman, production managed by Nick Handford and designed by Lee Forde, consisted of three 25-minute shows per night, enjoyed - free - by over 15,000 people.

At the technical and creative core of City of Light 2003 - an accessible, historical take on Liverpool to celebrate it winning the European Capital of Culture bid for 2008 - was a fabulous 40m wide by 20m high water screen which formed the projection surface for the show, featuring video, laser projections and lighting effects.

A three tiered production platform, designed by site manager Stu Stalker, was built on the concrete foundations

UK - AV rental specialist Blitz created a week-long son et lumière event in the atmospheric setting of Oxford's Oriel College. The show, entitled '1326 And All That', was a specially commissioned narrative of the college's history and featured a dramatic 100ft by 50ft projection onto the façade of Oriel's Front Quadrangle, combined with theatrical lighting effects, narrative voiceover and a cast of characters from the college's past.

Blitz project managed all technical aspects of the 45-minute show, using E//T//C UK to create scroll artwork with historical material from the college's archives. Projection onto the towers, turrets and arched windows of the 360-year old buildings was via two 6k PIGI projectors, each fitted with double rotating scrollers. To achieve the correct projection angle the projectors had to be manoeuvred into a room at the top of a narrow stone spiral sta

UK - The eighth BBC Proms in The Park once again provided a festival of entertainment for nearly 40,000 people assembled in Hyde Park. CT Screenco have been providing image reinforcement for the crowds in the park since the very first Proms event, with the company's then proprietary Sony Jumbotron JTS17 CRT system.

Working through production companies, Mantaplan and Partnership Productions, this year CT Screenco supplied two 60sq.m LED screens, rigged stage left and right. The company also supplied a video delay channel via its Mini Mobile, for the benefit of those towards the rear, helping to alleviate the problems of audio synching. The live 'prom' simultaneously takes place at Donegal Square, Belfast, Pacific Quay, Glasgow and Singleton Park, Swansea before the traditional Last Night of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, which is relayed by satellite to the fou

UK - The 2003 V Festivals once again formed part of CT Screenco's busy summer season as they continue to service the event with video production. Sponsored by Virgin Mobile, the V Festivals started in 1996, and are now held simultaneously at 'north' and 'south' locations (Hylands Park, Chelmsford, and Weston Park, Staffordshire). CT Screenco provided their services through production companies Maztec in Chelmsford and Roseclaim in Shropshire. Bands this year included the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Coldplay, Foo Fighters, David Gray, PJ Harvey, Queens of the Stone Age, Ash, Underworld, Feeder, Super Furry Animals, Morcheeba and The Hives.

CT Screenco again supplied two 32sq.m (8 x 4) screens, either side of the stage, in both locations. They provided 25mm high brightness LED displays in Shropshire, while at Hylands Park they fielded a pair of 6 x 6 Lighthouse LVP1650 16mm screens, st

UK - E//T//C UK's Ross Ashton and Nathalie Vin from The Glow Project in Brighton have combined creative, technical and logistical forces to work together on a massive community arts project in Brighton this November.

The Glow Project 2003 will be sponsored - in terms of equipment - by the large-format projection specialists. The two-part event will consist of projections onto a major public building in Brighton on the first night, followed the next evening by a community arts event taking place in Adelaide Crescent and Palmeira Square, in a similar vein to the Glow Project's inaugural concept last year.

The first Glow Project was the public projection of a collection of images chosen by residents in Kensington Place - dubbed "the artiest street in Brighton". The images were converted into large-scale artwork for the projections onto walls in the street, and each hou

UK - Alternative Video Solutions Inc (AVS) provided Marshall Field's charity event Glamorama with an impressive moving Lighthouse LED screen display. The well-known department store Marshall Field's, together with US magazine, recently staged its annual fashion show in both Minneapolis and Chicago. The event was hosted by Tracey Ullman, with performances by Bond and Uncle Kracker, along with fall clothing lines from top designers.

The set for the show consisted of four Lighthouse LVP1010D 10mm pixel pitch, 1000 Nits brightness, indoor LED screens, rigged to a complex I-beam tracking system with motors and Variolift trolleys. This allowed them to be moved separately, and live during the show, into different configurations - up, down, and side to side.

"Lighthouse LED technology truly fits into the Alternative Video Solution way of thinking," said AVS president Ron Th

USA - A theatrical show celebrating 100 years of aviation, recently produced by the US Air Force, enlisted the aid of a High End Systems Catalyst and a Wholehog II lighting console to help the show take flight. Born of a Dream ran from 19-21 September at the National Theatre, Washington, D.C. Its cast was exclusively enlisted Air Force personnel.

Production was supplied by IEP/MPG from Jessup, Maryland. Programmer Jonathan Goldstein was in charge of the Wholehog II and Catalyst system. Though he'd had training on the Wholehog II, he was surprised that even without training on the Catalyst, he still found it straightforward to use. "I am already very familiar with the (Apple) Mac platform so operating the software was just as simple as using a moving light," Goldstein explains. "Setting it up was as easy as punching a DMX address, and the orbital head makes

UK - MJK Productions staged a spectacular production for the Mastercard MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) Awards 2003 at London's Royal Albert Hall on 25 September. The awards were dominated by 50 Cent, who picked up the honours for Best Hip Hop Act, Best Album and Best Single, while Justin Timberlake won Best R&B Act and Big Brovaz scored Best Newcomer.

Featuring many of the production team from the Mastercard BRIT awards, the MOBOs was directed for television by Julia Knowles and produced by Sharon Ali. MJK, for the eighth year since the event's début, were in charge of the live production and a team that included Britannia Row (audience sound), 021 (broadcast sound), VLPS (lighting), XL Video (video), Outback (rigging), Steel Monkey (set) and Eat Your Hearts Out (catering).

The show featured MJK's trademark five-minute changeovers between live performances, a substantial lighti

UK - In order to improve its service to customers, the company is restructuring, moving to new premises and changing its name. The moves come as the result of a partial management buyout, in which directors Diane Grant and Wyatt Enever have increased their stake in the company and key staff are being given the opportunity to become shareholders.

"David Hersey had the foresight to realize that if the DHA brand and reputation are to remain as strong as they are today, structural and strategic changes would be needed," says Diane Grant. "The three DHA directors are at different points in their lives: David is ready to reap some of his investment in DHA, Wyatt wants to concentrate on R&D - integrating photographic techniques into laser output on dichroic glass and digital imagery for Scene Change - and I want to steer the company through another phase of growth toward

UK - Ford of Britain hired design and communications company Imagination to produce six themed exhibition stands at Mela 2003. Mela, a culture and lifestyle show celebrating all aspects of life enjoyed by Asian Communities, took place at Wembley Exhibition Centre from 10-12 October with over 30,000 visitors attending. The event was divided into seven main areas relating to Asian culture: Lifestyle, Health & Beauty, Fashion, Weddings, Food, Business & Entertainment. Imagination created six exhibition stands heavily influenced by each subject zone. Each exhibition stand showed a relevant Ford vehicle, which was designed and decorated with an Asian theme. One car even had a bespoke oversized 'bindi' designed by leading bindi designer Manjeet Bedi (founder of Jazzy Bindi) attached to the front of the car bonnet.

Ford was one of the main sponsors of Mela 2003 and the all-encompassing

UK - At the eighth Grove Fuel Cell Symposium, which took place at ExCeL in London's Docklands at the end of September, the UK Fuel Cell Vision was launched by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). The Vision highlighted the benefits to the UK in taking a leading role in fuel cell development and deployment, and described a pathway for fuel cells in the UK over the coming years. To help get the message across to delegates, symposium organisers Elsevier - one of the world's leading scientific information providers - contracted MCL London to provide a technological dynamic in the main conference room. MCL came up with a design that was sympathetic to the event, the centrepiece of which was a 20ft screen - surrounded by various branded panels - with rear-projected Powerpoint displays from a powerful Christie Roadie X10 DLP projector.

Nick Whitehead's lighting design was domin

UK - Nearly 14,000 fans saw David Gray, Morcheeba and Nitin Sawhney perform at a free concert in Trafalgar Square - lined up to boost tourism and showcase the revamped square.

There was also a top line-up of production services to ensure that, technically, the event - organized by b-live, with production by AMP - went without a hitch. Star Hire's Roger Barrett was the show's technical director, working closely with AMP production manager Steve Allen. Other members of the creative team included LD Mark Cunniffe.

The Star Events Group installed a VerTech stage on the North Terrace of the Square, and handled the rigging requirements, with CT Screenco fielding two of the new Lighthouse LVP-1650 16mm outdoor LED screens. While the Lighthouse screens relayed images from the PA wings, the upstage centre backdrop, designed by Cunniffe, took the form of columns of 25mm LED display - th

UK - L&SI joined more than 100,000 people at the V Festival's Hylands Park site in Chelmsford for the V weekend in June, and 65,000 people at Reading for the Carling Weekend. For both events, the weather was spectacular, the perfect backdrop for strong performances from headlining bands such as the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Coldplay, David Gray and the Foo Fighters at V, and Metallica, Primal Scream, Linkin Park, System of a Down and Blur at Reading.

As anyone who's worked on them will know, the festival season presents enormous challenges to technical suppliers and employers responsible for planning and co-ordinating such large-scale events. The logistics are complex thanks to the sheer volume of equipment required and the high turnover of acts at each event. When bands 'flip-flop' between venues over a weekend, as in the case of Chelmsford/Telford and Reading/Leeds, festival sit

UK - Radio 1 has re-invented its approach to taking live events to its listeners this year, under the auspices of its live events manager, Dave McCalmont. He joined Radio 1 two years ago having previously worked with MCP/SFX. L&SI spoke to Dave after the final 'One Big Weekend' event in Cardiff, where 20,000 ticket holders got to see some of the world's leading DJs, as well as bands such as The Darkness, Travis and Dido.

Why change the format of your events?

We wanted to create events which would work within the overall festival calendar and still allow us to focus on our organization and promotion. We wanted to produce top-notch events that gave the public good, free entertainment that they couldn't get anywhere else. We were careful to place our three main shows across the summer months, starting in May in Manchester and finishing in September in Cardiff with the 'On

Finland - Audace Ltd, the UK-based manufacturer of the Intelliplate programmable control system for audio-visual installations, has appointed Starlike Oy Ltd of Vantaa, Finland to distribute its products exclusively in Finland. The deal was brokered by Audace's global distribution partner Comsec International. The deal was confirmed at PLASA 2003 recently, where managing director of Audace, Bryan Waters met with Jari Ukkonen from Starlike.

Bryan Waters commented on the appointment: "Starlike is a welcome and highly appropriate addition to our growing portfolio of high-quality distribution partners. We have been in discussion with them for several months now and with the advent of SuperHub and other plans we have for the development of the line, both parties felt that the time had come to solidify the relationship. Starlike brings a broad range of expertise and an excellent

Belgium - Philippe Raymakers has recently been appointed director general of Videohouse, a technical facilities company in the audio-visual sector. He has a degree in commercial engineering and has been active in the AV sector for many years now, both in the video world and the film industry alike.

Raymakers will report to Ludo Maes, managing director of Videohouse. Luc Meertens will remain active within the company, but as an independent consultant, continuing his task of supervising and guiding the administrative and financial departments. He will also carry on with his current project to further develop the French market. Videohouse's executive board thanked Meertens for the important contribution he has made in the past towards the company's successful development.

(Sarah Rushton-Read)

Germany - G-LEC Europe, manufacturer of the G-LEC LED Curtain, has taken the first step towards setting up an international sales team with the appointment of Christoph Müssener as sales director. Previously sales manager with Trendco, where he worked with major brands such as Wybron, Avolites and Radlite, Müssener brings substantial knowledge and understanding of the entertainment industry to the company. Müssener will manage international sales and act as co-ordinator for the international offices, currently France and G-LEC's UK representative office at Fourth Phase, London.

Lars Wolf, G-LEC's managing director, who will devote more time to the development of the company, said: "The G-LEC brand is growing fast. We had a tremendous response at PLASA 2003, plus we are looking forward to showing at LDI next month, and Christoph's experience and dedication will help us co

UK - Entec Sound & Light has launched a visual/video division with the purchase of a RADlite digital media server from Projected Image Digital. This will go into immediate use on the forthcoming Jools Holland tour, specified by LD Simon Honnor.

Entec's Noreen O'Riordan says that apart from its immediate use on the Jools tour, they also picked RADlite to add another element to their expanding range of LED fixtures - which includes the - James Thomas Pixelline - as it runs their Pixeldrive control software. "All those associated with RADlite - David March at Projected Image Digital and Simon Carter and Emma Long from IRAD - were incredibly helpful, and took time answering all our questions at PLASA," she said.

At PLASA, LD Dave Byars (Blur) gave an impressive hands-on demo of Pixeldrive in action on the James Thomas Stand, and talked over his own show experiences of us

UK - Large format projection specialist E//T//C UK supplied two different corporate events at London's Billingsgate old fish market with widescreen projections. Both events, which were staged on concurrent evenings, were produced by GSP. The first, titled the Emerging Markets Ball featured a Brazilian theme, and the second, the Swaps Ball, was a fantasy theme involving Billingsgate, fish and 17th century London life. Scrolling artwork for both was created by E//T//C UK's Ross Ashton and Paul Chatfield.

The two PIGI 6kW projectors were positioned on 'the Bridge' of the venue, which partially separates the main hall into two halves. They were beaming onto a 25m wide by 7m high screen and soft-edged down the middle. Two video windows were incorporated in the artwork to allow logos and video images to be dropped into the panoramic montage.

Artwork for both shows was loaded into bo

UK - Synelec UK has appointed London-based Net-Logix as a new trading partner. With headquarters in the city, Net-Logix offer 25 years combined experience in the IT industry, with particular emphasis on dealing room applications and command and control centres. They offer a range of professional IT services designed to increase the operational efficiency of financial and investment institutions.

Head of Synelec UK, Steve Murphy, said: "We have been very impressed with the company and the combined experience of the personnel in offering turnkey solutions for control room applications.

Net-Logix MD, Adam Clark said: "We look forward to a long and successful trading relationship with Synelec UK, it is important for them to have a strong partnership in the UK and we believe we can offer that. We have been designing command and dealing rooms for a number of years and with

UK - Creative Technology was the sole technology provider for Sub Postmaster 2003 (the annual Post Office and Convenience Retailing Show) at Wembley Exhibition Centre this month. The lighting design, by CT's project manager Rob Merilees, made extensive use of LED lighting technology using the new Color Blast 12 fixture by Color Kinetics (CT is the first company in the UK to stock the units).

The Color Blast resembles a 12" x 6" flat panel and utilizes high output LEDs to project a 21° soft edged beam. Merilees said: "The RGB colour mixing enabled us to provide an exact colour match for the client's Pantone references."

The main feature of the stand was the walk-through tunnel, which ran the full width of the stand and was dominated by vibrant slowly fading colour changes from the Color Blasts, with graphic displays on the 10 plasma screens. The canopy feat

UK - ACCO Multi Media Group has announced an initial three models in its range of Nobo digital multi-media projectors. All are based on Texas Instruments' market-leading DLP technology, offering high-end features and technology and significant price comparability with analogue LCD projectors.

The Nobo X20M, X11P and S11E are exclusively specified by ACCO to meet the requirements of users in the business, presentation and education market sectors. Portable, lightweight, compact designs, they offer performance specifications that include high luminosity and contrast ratios, almost silent operation, high reliability, long operating life and virtual plug and play operation, say ACCO.

All three models feature the Texas Instruments DLP, 12º double data rate Digital Mirror Device (DMD) chips, progressive scanning, Pixelworks image processing, 4:3 and 16:9 ratio display modes, PAL, S

UK - Audio-visual specialist Integrated Circles has launched a new addition to its range of solid-state audio and video players - the SoundStore MP3 - offering solid-state audio playback and 10-year warranty for constant daily operation. Integrated Circles' latest product boasts high quality stereo playback as standard, vastly extended programme duration, built-in audio amplification and the option to interact with lighting and other special effects. Its ability to store up to 127 discrete audio passages makes it an ideal tool for Oral History playback, amongst many anticipated uses.

"Over the past 25 years we have dealt with a lot of different clients and their individual requirements," says Integrated Circles founder and technical director, Simon Beer. "With the SoundStore MP3 we aim to meet as many of these needs as possible. This latest addition to our product

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