DYMO will show the latest in its Rhino industrial range of handheld labelling machines at PLASA 2011. Designed specifically for every application in datacom, IT, pro AV and other industrial environments, the labelling tools' features include hot key technology to make the job both fast and easy.

The company cites benefits including performing labelling jobs with 77% fewer keystrokes than the competition, hot keys to eliminate guesswork, quick formatting of common labels, a pre-programmed library of terms and symbols, memory storage for up to 1,000 custom labels, quality craftsmanship and integrated shock bumpers, and customizability for adding graphics and logos to labels.

The labels are also designed withstand moisture, heat, solvents, oil, dirt, chemicals and UV rays without smearing, fading or peeling, and the machines feature lithium-ion rechargeable batteries for fast charging a

UK - West London-based lighting rental company Colour Sound Experiment supplied site wide lighting, projection and AV for the Secret Garden Party festival - one of the UK's original 'boutique' style events, a celebration of music, arts, creativity and expressive fun. A cast of thousands is encouraged to engage with ideas and dreams for four days of imaginative freedom in a secret garden location in East Anglia near Huntingdon.

It was the first time that Colour Sound has worked for the event, and it was also the first outing for Colour Sound's new BT12 12 mm pitch LED screen, a new lightweight product that has been designed and manufactured exactly to their spec.

The investment is to cater for the growing demand for visual and scenic display surfaces that are becoming increasingly integrated into 'lighting designs'. For Secret Garden, a total of 210 panels of the BT12 screen wa

UK - Systems integrator IVC Media, has announced that it has completed the installation of a video conference and IPTV system to help improve services for the charity Help for Heroes (H4H). As part of the deal, IVC worked to supply discounted equipment and arranged advantageous terms from suppliers and manufactures for the installation at the personal recovery and assessment centre for wounded servicemen and women at Tedworth House in Wiltshire.

H4H leases Tedworth House and is currently carrying out a £17m renovation project that will see the first group of personnel using it this month, and by September 2012, it will be operating at full capacity. The personal recovery and assessment centre will provide the facilities to support the two key parts of the recovery process; the holistic life skills course and the activities to get the wounded, sick and injured back out doin

UK - Pixled will launch its new F-9 LED surface at the 2011 PLASA Light & Sound show at London's Earls Court Exhibition Centre in September.

This capitalises on the "phenomenal success" of the fully flexible - bends both ways - Pixled F-6 surface that was launched at last year's PLASA.

The design and architecture for the 9mm pitch F-9 features all the same dynamic characteristics that have proved so popular with the F-6 - high resolution, light weight, very easy to build and set up, curvable in both directions - both concave and convex.

F-6 and F-9 modules can be mixed and fitted together if desired in the same quick-lock touring frames. These utilise the rapid hanging and footprint system that has proved such a winner for touring and temporary installation environments.

Like the F-6, F-9 is also available with standard Pixled or super-HD resolution Mitsubishi pr

USA - The Styx/Yes 2011 summer tour features a wall of creative content displayed on a new high resolution LED video screen supplied by Pete's Big TVs.

"It is a nice lighting rig, but the LED screen is visually the whole show," said Pete's Big TVs President Peter Daniel.

The 22-city Progressive U.S. Tour features a 12.5ft high by 48ft wide LED screen made up of 230 Elation EPV15 flex LED panels. Daniel was instrumental in the manufacturing of the 15mm flex panels. Seeking higher resolution, Daniel approached Elation about cutting the size of the 19mm flex panels to just under half a square metre. Thus, the EPV15 flex was born with 1024 pixels. Pete's Big TVs has purchased 600 panels to add to its rental inventory.

"It was a smart purchase," Daniel said. "Everyone on the tour is happy with them."

At 15 lbs. each, compared to 105 lbs. for

UK - The regional office of property management company CB Richard Ellis has recently purchased a PlasmaRiser 42, manufactured by Birmingham based Audio Visual company DARE Professional Audio.

PlasmaRiser is a portable audio visual presentation system, that fully encloses the screen until a simple button is pressed and the screen rises from the housing.

The PlasmaRiser is to be utilised within a newly refurbished suite of offices at the regional HQ of CBRE. It will be used for meetings, customer and project presentations and video conferencing. PlasmaRiser is a simple plug and play solution to presentation requirements.

Paul Muldoon project manager at CBRE said, "The PlasmaRiser gives us great flexibility within our facility, it is a unique solution that represents great value for money we had not seen any like it."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Saville Audio Visual provided a spectacular Ganges backdrop for an Indian wedding in Whites Hotel at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton. The projected skyline image - over 105ft wide - was delivered by a single 18,000 lumen Christie Roadster projector. A second projector flown from the lighting truss produced an interactive fish pool effect on the dance floor.

The event was designed by Dianne Lynn from The Event Co in Mobberley, Cheshire with Saville providing the stage sets, lighting design and audio technology, including a full d&b line array. The backdrop image was created in-house using Cinema 4D software and projected onto a seamless white cyclorama cloth, 36m wide x 9m high.

Other equipment included six 8ft x 6ft projection screens to create a window effect, using 15/30 Source Four Profiles and gobo masks, plus 150 staging units to create the raised areas. The lighting al

UK - The team behind the UK's National Student Drama Festival are seeking entries and support for the first ever International Student Drama Festival, which will take place next year from the 22-30 June in the UK.

The NSDF12 - ISDF - being presented in conjunction with Sheffield Theatres, RSC, LIFT, The Old Vic Tunnels and Menier Chocolate Factory - will feature a nine-day celebration of young people's theatre featuring the best of British work alongside exceptional student productions from across the world.

The Festival is an opportunity for young people to come together and present their work on the world's stage to an international audience of theatregoers, industry experts and peers. Participants don't have to be studying drama to be a part of it - they just have to enjoy it and want to watch it and make it.

NSDF12 - ISDF will feature over 100 performances of 20 internat

UK - InfoComm International will continue its programme of support for the UK's AV rental and staging community when it hosts a range of education sessions at this year's PLASA show next month.

The sessions will take place at London's Earl's Court on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 September. They will be led by Andre LeJeune, CTS, InfoComm's rental & staging staff instructor, who has more than 30 years' experience of staging and presentation and has been responsible for many large-scale productions for corporate clients around the world.

Topics covered will include 'Lighting for Video in the Large Meeting Environment', 'Audio Techniques for Corporate AV Events', and 'Project Management for Stage Labour'. Each session will last 90 minutes and will earn attendees 1.5 RUs (Renewal Units) towards continued InfoComm CTS certification. All sessions are free to attend.

Chris Lavel

USA - PLASA Events has announced its first ever PLASA Focus: Tech, a three-day audio/video/lighting workshop and live concert to be held 20-22 February 2012 alongside the recently announced PLASA Focus: Austin 2012 event.

PLASA Focus: Tech will bring together industry experts Richard Cadena (Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light), Brad Schiller (The Automated Lighting Programmer's Handbook), Chad Yeary of Portal Designs, Damon Lang of Nomad Sound, and Coolux USA for a hands-on learning programme.

The workshop will include a lighting track with design, visualisation, and programming; a video track with video content design media server programming; and an audio track with audio system design live mixing. Each attendee will programme and/or operate the lighting, audio, or video for a portion of a live concert before an audience on the final night.

UK - Jodrell Bank, home of the famous Lovell radio telescope, has given visitors another reason to visit following the recent upgrade and expansion of its Discovery Centre. Electrosonic installed the audio-visual and interactive elements of the exhibits under subcontract to fit-out contractors, The Moule Partnership.

Part of the University of Manchester, the Discovery Centre works alongside the Observatory to educate visitors about the research and the live science that is carried out by the Jodrell Bank team. The new £3m project includes a new entrance building, the Planet Pavilion, and a new Space Pavilion for exhibitions and events.

Teresa Anderson, director of the Discovery Centre says, "We are delighted with the exhibition. It's a huge improvement on the last centre and the visitors are really enjoying the interactive elements. The exhibition enables us to insp

UK - "Once again Hippotizer played its role beautifully. It never fails to deliver what we need across a wide range of applications we throw at it," remarked Digital Insanity's Richard Bagshaw after completing the first ever Transmission 001 event at Jodrell Bank.

The festival took place on Saturday 2 July at the new Jodrell Bank Discovery centre in Cheshire and saw a crowd of 5000 turn up to enjoy the music, headlined by the Flaming Lips, and a three-minute projection piece on the Lovell Telescope, especially created for this pilot festival, which was to be highlight of the night.

There are plans for six 5000+ capacity events to take place at this site in 2012 when the telescope celebrates its 50th birthday.

For the projection, six 20K Christie projectors where mounted on top of a four-story scaffold tower behind the FOH control tent and the content was man

Rose Bruford College will be featuring its two innovative new programmes in Performance Sound and Creative Lighting Control. These three-year BA programmes are unique in Higher Education, and with two year's of graduates working in the industry, says the college, they are already making their mark.

BA (Hons) Performance Sound reflects the growing importance of sound in every field of performance - from theatre to music concerts, from sports events to dance, and from site-specific installation to radio drama. The programme combines sound design, technology and operation, with a strong emphasis on live production, and has recently attracted the support of key players in the audio industry, including sponsorship by Harman Pro Group UK in the shape of a Soundcraft VI-1 digital mixer.

BA (Hons) Creative Lighting Control has been created in response to rapidly growing industry demand for s

The Show Translations closed caption system uses the latest technology to deliver real-time captioning, in a wide selection of languages for the hearing impaired, increasing the accessibility of theatre productions and fulfilling the theatre's commitment to corporate responsibility.

Using a high reliability wireless network, the system delivers captions for the performance to full colour, widescreen personal handsets. The captions are updated automatically over the network, so all the theatregoer has to do is select the language of their choice, sit back and enjoy the show. An operator in the theatre controls the system, so the captions are always synchronised with the performance.

Unlike traditional theatre captioning, the system is designed to eliminate any distractions to other audience members. The screen is black, and the brightness of the captions carefully controlled to avoid

USA - The collapse in high winds of a temporary concert stage at the Indiana State Fair on Saturday claimed five lives and left almost 50 injured, according to US news reports. An investigation into the circumstances surrounding the collapse began on Sunday, and its findings will be watched with great interest by the event production industry.

In addition to issues surrounding the build and stability of the structure itself, the question of why the event was not stopped and the audience evacuated far sooner will surely form a major part of the investigation.

It is reported that organisers had urged audience members to seek shelter just minutes before the sudden winds hit the stage structure - far too late, as it turned out, for an effective evacuation. With news reports claiming that forecasters at the National Weather Service had predicted the strong winds of 60-70mph up to t

UK - Artist, architect and designer Ron Arad has invited his favourite artists, musicians and friends to create works for a 360 degree video projection installation at the Roundhouse, London. Bloomberg are the primary sponsor.

Blitz Communications has been commissioned to provide the technology to bring the design concept to fruition. The installation takes the form of a curtain made from 5,600 silicon rods, 8.1m high, creating an 18m diameter 360 degree canvas for film, live performance and audience interaction.

Blitz installed 12 Barco RLM W8 projectors which are mounted on the truss ring above the silicon rod curtain. Each of these projects a portrait image 8.1m high by 5m wide, overlapped to produce a seamless 360 degree display at 13,520 by 1,920 pixels.

Media delivery and control is implemented using 12 Dataton Watchout display PCs networked to a Watchout control serve

UK - London based AV and technical production services company Presentation Rentals (PR) has become the UK's largest stock holder of Core Lighting's Point 20 battery powered wireless DMX controlled LED uplighter fixtures.

The purchase of 48 fixtures is part of a new investment to help service a busy summer of varied events and part of the ongoing planned expansion of PR's lighting department. This reflects a generally buoyant trading period over the last six months and a demand from clients for the latest in lighting technology.

Presentation Rentals works across all sectors of the corporate presentation, live and experiential event market, supplying full lighting, sound and AV equipment packages and crew. The company has built its reputation on providing excellent quality kit and technical expertise.

PR MD Ian Coull says, "Having the latest LED technology onboard makes

Singapore - Broadcast Professional and their sister company Electronics & Engineering have invested in an additional seven Green Hippo demonstration units for their three overseas offices. Their offices in Malaysia and Indonesia have each been furnished with a Hippotizer HD, HippoCritter and GrassHopper. The headquarters in Singapore is showcasing the Hippotizer HD and HippoCritter and has now added a GrassHopper to complete their demo stock.

"Broadcast Professional believes in providing the best solutions for customers and Green Hippo have proven themselves to be one of the best media servers to date with their powerful engine, flexible system and ease-of-use as well as a customisable ZooKeeper interface," says John Paul Tan, product manager at Broadcast Professional Singapore. "It is an all in one solution in a box for intermediate or advanced techies who would

Batmink Distribution, one of the largest UK distributors of professional audio, lighting and effects equipment, will introduce a number of new products at PLASA 2011. New brands on show include Visage Lighting, Vector Audio, Pro-Flite Flightcases, Pro-Stage Portable Staging and Lumaform LED Illuminated Furniture.

Of particular interest is the Visage LED Multipar RGBAW - a new PAR unit that delivers a truly impressive light output from 18 x 8w LEDs. 12 x RGBW and 6 x RGBA 4 in 1 LEDs produce full spectrum colour mixing and control is achieved through DMX, auto programs, sound to light or master slave functions. The black multipar housing is more robust than conventional PARcan bodies and completes this tough, powerful unit.

Another brand making its PLASA debut is Lumaform. Offering a range of LED illuminated furniture in a variety of styles; Lumaform is at the cutting edge of this exc

France - Christie helped set a world record when it displayed the French 3D premiere of Warner Bros Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows - Part Two on a 29.9m wide by 12.33m high screen at the Palais Ominisports de Paris-Bercy on 12 July. Guinness World Records certified the event.

Using six Christie Solaria Series CP2230 DLP Cinema projectors, configured in two clusters of three, with each projector's output rated at 32,000 lumens, an audience of 8,500 were thrilled to witness the epic finale between good and evil in full stereoscopic 3D.

As each cluster projected the image for one eye, the system achieved passive 3D projection with light conditions exceeding the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) recommended standard. The Christie CP2230 features Brilliant3D 2K technology and is Christie's brightest digital cinema projector for screens nearly 100ft wide.

"We're re

UK / Belgium - ArKaos has chosen PLASA 2011 to launch its radical new network protocol, Kling-Net.

Kling-Net has been designed to allow the distribution of real-time video data to remote display devices, such as LEDs or LED panels, over Ethernet.

"Many basic and first time users are afraid of using LED lighting because of the complexity of networking and control issues," says ArKaos CEO, Marco Hinic. "Traditionally, using and networking LED lighting has required a high level of technical knowledge which has been a deterent for many. We wanted to remove all this complexity and replace it with a simple to use protocol which automatically takes care of the magic numbers for the user."

Kling-Net uses a Media Server to do all the work to make operation simplicity itself. It adds a layer of 'intelligence' to even the most simple LED device and enabling it to ta

Germany - Creative production agency Drive Productions has provided a new 4D installation for Polo Ralph Lauren, to support the launch of the brand's new 'Design Your Own Polo Shirt' collection. The atrium of one of Europe's largest luxury department stores, the KaDeWe in Berlin, has been taken over for the entire month of August, with a bespoke 4D digital arts installation from Drive Productions running six times a day.

Creative Technology (CT) is on hand to assist in the 4D mapping process. Working from Drive Productions' brief and drawings detailing the venue's limitations and the production restrictions of the pillars positioned in the middle of the floor, CT provided three Barco FLM R20 projectors, complete with lenses and fibre to feed the projectors from Drive's D3 processor.

Overnight rigs between the store shutting on the Saturday evening and the installation needing

UK - Video projections co-designed by Nina Dunn from UK creative agency Knifedge will feature prominently in the headline show at this year's Edinburgh International Festival - a production of Richard Strauss' spectacular opera Die Frau Ohne Schatten (The Woman Without a Shadow).

This epic production from St Petersburg's renowned Mariinsky Opera is masterminded by two British artists, stage director Jonathan Kent and production designer by Paul Brown. The play contrasts an imaginative spirit world with the stark reality of human existence.

Dunn's video designs are key elements in evoking the mystery and beauty of the spirit world. From a technical perspective, the rig consists of one 20K Christie front of house projector and four on-stage Barco DML 1200 moving head projectors. The show, originally plotted on a Grand MA and run on the Catalyst media server, has been re-p

UK - When English Heritage opened the new attraction at Dover Castle, Operation Dynamo: Rescue from Dunkirk, it deployed audio-visual and show control technology from AV systems integrator Electrosonic to recreate the drama of World War II's Dunkirk evacuation.

Situated in the network of 60m long secret tunnels, 26m underground behind the famous White Cliffs of Dover, the attraction makes extensive use of AV technology to present the events of 26 May to 4 June 1940. In the highlight of the attraction, 23 projectors create giant images that run the entire length of the space augmented by spectacular lighting effects.

Denmark-based Kvorning Design & Communication, which designed and produced the new attraction, and Electrosonic faced some difficult tasks, including working in a historic site, dealing with the climate underground and projecting images in spaces where no su

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