South Africa - Opened in 1997 by Nelson Mandela, the multi award winning Durban ICC celebrated its 15th anniversary with a Grand Banquet. With 33000sq.m of space available to clients, the Exhibition Centre is the largest flat floor, column-free exhibition/conference space in Africa.

This year the Durban ICC was named "Africa's number 1 meeting and conference centre" by the prestigious World Travel Awards, for the 11th time in 12 years. The ICC has welcomed kings, queens, presidents, actors, icons and entertainers and has hosted some of the biggest, most high profile conferences in the world.

The anniversary project's objective required event organisers to showcase the capacity, versatility and flexibility of the ICC to stage major international events

Makulu Events was awarded the tender to organise the event and with the ICC, invited a number of companies to propo

UK - West Midlands-based video and production specialist Central Presentations Ltd (CPL) will be the main supplier of specialist broadcast and AV equipment to the re-launched Giltbrook Studios in Nottingham.

Giltbrook offers a cutting edge facility in the heart of the Midlands for all types of productions from drama and commercials to business television, infomercials and green-screen shooting.

The project to rejuvenate and bring the space right up to date - originally opened as a purpose-built, sound-proofed TV studio in the 1970s - is the brainchild of TV professional Andy Swain and other key individuals with extensive broadcast industry experience, who have teamed up with studio owners, Finishing Post.

Says Swain, "Many people have fond memories of working at Giltbrook over the years and the 'new' Giltbrook will be a vibrant and exciting space with great functionalit

UK - Visualization expert Barco proudly reports that the British Museum, one of the world's most prestigious museums, has recently purchased a Barco RLM-W8, RLM-W12 and a cutting-edge HDX-W18 projector. The projectors will ensure eye-catching picture quality at the Museum's Clore Education Centre. "By purchasing three different projector types, we can offer our diverse audiences the image quality to meet their needs," said Chris Power, head of AV at the British Museum.

Barco and the British Museum have successfully worked together on various projects over the past few years. The Museum installed its first SLM-10 projectors back in 2005, they were originally set up at the Museum's Clore Education Centre, which houses two theatres used for lectures, conferences, concerts and other performances. Barco was also the Museum's visualization partner for the First Emperor exhib

UK - XL Events, working with WRG, supplied a wide range of video equipment and services for EE Live at Birmingham's NEC. The five-day launch event saw Everything Everywhere Limited present their new brand EE, which incorporates superfast 4G mobile and fibre home broadband to multiple audiences including sales staff, retail partners and customer care teams.

XL Events were brought on board by WRG as the technical supplier for video services and attended early design discussions for the event. Utilising the expertise of Project Manager, Guy Vellacott and Technical Director, David Mulcahy, XL was able to recommend and specify a number of cutting edge technologies which helped shape the overall event.

"Our early involvement in the project meant we were able to talk to WRG about new technologies and demo the applications of these as relevant to their event," explains Guy V

Nepal - Investment in Alcons Audio systems is being made by cinema owners in an ever-increasing number of countries across the globe. The company has recently broken yet more new territory with the installation of systems in Nepal.

Located in the Sundhara district of the capital Kathmandu is QFX Civil Mall, the country's largest shopping area, covering a total of 25,000sq.ft.This houses a new three-screen multiplex cinema, the QFX Cinemas, which are capable of seating up to 939 viewers at any one time. This is Nepal's first truly world-class Cineplex and is one of a trio of cinemas owned by QFX in the city.

QFX is the brand name of Quest Entertainment (QE), which was launched in Nepal a decade ago with the QFX Jai Nepal Cinema. The company is also involved in film distribution and production and as such has a thorough understanding of how important high quality sound is to mod

UK - PR Lighting has added the new, super-bright XLED 1037 to its popular XLED moving head portfolio.

Characterised by the use of 37 x 10 Watt RGBW LEDs (containing four colours in one), another key feature is its wide linear zoom, with beam angle ranging from 12° to 54°.

Additional features include a linear CTO from 3200K to 10000K, linear colour mixing with macro function, , 0-100% linearly adjustable dimmer and an electronic strobe (0 to 25fps).

In terms of movement, the XLED 1037 offers speed adjustable pan and tilt (with pan angle of 0°-540° and tilt of 0°-270°) with auto position correction function. It also enables auto speed adjustment of the fans, brightness and contrast adjustment and boasts an advanced cooling system, with LED lamp overheating and DMX512 control display statuses.

There are various control options, since the XLED 1037 is W

UK - Immersive teamed up with Tait Technologies and Universal Music to deliver video pixel mapping for the X Factor's Final, broadcast, live on 9 December from the MEN Arena, Manchester.

With a live audience of 12,000 the X Factor's dramatic and nail biting final between James Arthur and Jahmene Douglas was hosted by Dermot O'Leary alongside a panel of judges that comprised Gary Barlow, Nicole Scherzinger, Tulisa and Louis Walsh.

The show saw Immersive's multi-skilled team collaborate with production designers Florian Wieder and Matthias Kublik, along with lighting director Dave Davey, to deliver an ever-changing, visually exciting televisual spectacular.

Video was mapped across the entire upper tier of the X Factor audience by way of hand held pixel tablets, which ultimately formed an organic moving video screen as the shows special guest, Grammy Award winning

USA - Encompass Technologies has completed a major sound and video installation for the sizeable new restaurant/sports bar/nightclub, John Barleycorn River North in downtown Chicago.

The fast-growing integrator had worked on a host of other venues for owners Sam Sanchez and Michael Gonzalez. As Tim Pickett, principal for Encompass, explains, "There are four John Barleycorns and we've been involved with all of them, two from the ground up and two complete rehabs. Sam and Michael also own two Moe's Cantina clubs that we worked on.

"For John Barleycorn River North, they definitely raised the bar several notches with a substantial budget of $285,000," adds Pickett. "Unlike the club in Schaumburg where there was a focus on live sound, John Barleycorn North functions as a sports bar and restaurant during the day and becomes a nightclub with a DJ upstairs that can

The Netherlands - SGM has kept up its domination of major European dance spectaculars this year by putting on an awesome display at the GelreDome football stadium in Arnhem.

Promoted by Dutch entertainment specialists, Q-dance, Qlimax is considered to be one of the leading hardstyle events in the calendar and contains some of the most sophisticated production values of any one-off spectacular.

Lighting/production designers Jonas Smith, Tamil van Draanen and Marcel Binnenmarsch chose a total of 24 SGM Six Pack (SP-6) blinders, operating from the VIP decks, 28 powerful SGM P-5 washlights and 25 x X-5 white strobes flooding the stage for a crowd of more than 30,000 who attended Qlimax last month.

The promoters remarked on how impressed they were with all the SGM effects, but singled out the P-5 as being the best product they had used in any Qlimax show - according

USA - The progressive Bloomington Centre for the Performing Arts (BCPA) in Illinois recently carried out a technical upgrade that has seen a number of GLP's impression Spot One and Volkslicht Zoom LED fixtures replacing traditional tungsten heads.

These were supplied by GLP dealer, JR Lighting Design, Inc. following an experiment by the venue's technical manager Rodney Stickrod to see whether the new generation of LED lighting was technically capable of providing a full theatrical alternative.

BCPA had wanted to make the upgrade in its newly renovated 1,200 seat main performance auditorium. Having seen the GLP fixtures at LDI in Orlando, he was introduced to Jason Reberski, President of JR Lighting Design Inc., who set up a demo.

The traditional tungsten wash system, used primarily in saturated colors, consumed thousands of watts of electricity. "Aside from energy savin

UK - It has been three monumental years for Manchester stalwarts Elbow. Yet whatever their successes, a more unassuming and firmly grounded band you could not wish to meet. This doesn't mean they're averse to the odd risk, as show designer Cate Carter found out on their recent flurry of UK arena dates.

"The tour was to be short, just six dates and we had no production rehearsal. By definition I needed time to have an intricate show pre-programmed on a desk powerful enough to run a complex structure of cues and give me the time and space to be objective: More than anything I wanted time to look at what I was doing and how that affected the way I called the follow spots, the Kinesys movement cues, and how the lighting and video sat together in the show." A taxing self-imposed brief, yet Carter chose this moment to migrate to a new operating system, a grandMA2.

"I'

UK - The first of Robe's new Robin DLF LED Wash lights to go on tour in the UK were just ideal for Rob Sinclair's lighting design for The Human League's recent UK tour - which incorporated ten of the PLASA Innovation Award winning fixtures.

The rig also contained several other Robe fixtures, including five DigitalSpot 7000 DTs, which together with the DLF Washes, were used to illuminate and project on to a scenic back wall above and behind the band, constructed from ten Airformance Design 'Waben Blocks'.

The concept of utilising the Blocks originally came from lead vocalist Philip Oakey, who had seen these at a festival during the summer and thought they would look very cool onstage - which they did.

All lighting and digital lighting equipment for the tour was supplied by Blackburn-based HSL - who have the largest stock of Robe fixtures in the UK - and like to ensure that al

UK - Today Scala, Inc. has announced the installation of more than 350 digital signage screens at Britain's third largest shopping centre, Westfield Stratford City. The installation was carried out by Scala-partner Esprit Digital.

Included are 12 double-sided wafers, four inside and six out, four wall mounted 55in digital posters, ten 12 screen bulkhead video walls above each of the main concourses, a 5x5 screen array in the Vue Cinema foyer and two, 27 screen walls, one above the other outside Marks & Spencer. Crowning glory is the centrepiece, 5 tonne, 102 screen double sided video wall outside the John Lewis store. And it's the largest LCD video wall in Europe and probably the world.

All the Westfield Stratford City screens, predominantly Samsung, are used to display in-house interactive marketing messages and centre and store information, as well as information about event

UK - Green Hippo's Nick Charalampidis is moving on to pastures new after five years at the company.

Over the last two years Charalampidis has enjoyed working on-site supporting Hippotizer projects such as Eurovision and Jay-Z and has decided to do more 'hands on' work with the system. From January he will be joining heavy Hippotizer users Fix8Group, integrating their fleet of Green Hippo servers on projects worldwide.

"Nick has Green Hippo's full blessing for this move. He is taking his extensive Hippotizer knowledge out into the field and will continue to be an ambassador for the company's products," says the company.

(Jim Evans)

UK - When BBC One's The One Show was chosen to launch the BBC One Christmas line-up, they commissioned arts and technology collective seeper to produce a large scale projection on to the front of the BBC.

The projection was used to map seeper's specially-produced promo film of the BBC's upcoming Christmas shows including Strictly Come Dancing, Doctor Who, Miranda, and EastEnders on to the building in Wood Lane, west London.

In the weeks running up to the launch, seeper brought in XL Events to specify and supply the projection element of the project. Several meetings and site visits were required to select the most effective placement for the projectors.

With companies such as Network Rail and Marks and Spencer in the close vicinity, great consideration was taken as to how the rigging of the projectors would affect the neighbours of the chos

UK - London-based projection artist Ross Ashton, returned to Gateshead's Saltwell Park for the Enchanted Parks 2012 event, with a large format show Glass House celebrating the work of Victorian stained glass artist, William Wailes.

The six and a half minute piece was projected on to the front face of Saltwell Towers, Wailes' magnificent former home in the grounds of the Park, and ran every evening for the duration of the after dark experience.

It was accompanied by a soundscape created by Karen Monid and the whole work was designed from the start as an integral visual and audio narrative.

A single PIGI 6Kw projector with a double rotating scroller was used to project the images, fitted with a 25cm lens and located 35 metres away producing a 20 metre wide picture.

Challenging environmental conditions included temperatures down to -5ºC and 15 cm of snow on the ground

UK - The same 20K ANSI lumens PT-DZ21K Series projectors that helped deliver a spectacular performance for the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony have been selected by AtoV, an industry leading AV solutions and rental company based in Manchester.

Having been providers of leading edge AV staging technology since 2002, AtoV provides its customers with quality end-to-end Full-HD projection, display and video equipment solutions. A total acquisition of 12 PT-DZ21K and PT-DZ770 Panasonic projectors will refresh AtoV's rental fleet with most progressive projection technology available and clients will continue to benefit from AtoV's quality control structure.

"After significant research and bench-testing the latest projectors, we selected Panasonic. As projection specialists we pride ourselves in creating the most impressive visual presentations for some of the UK's hig

USA - Elation Professional says it is making it "simpler and more affordable to produce high-quality visual content on LED video walls, projection screens and broadcast displays". The company has unveiled the Zeus Media Server, a full-scale media server with two full HD outputs and a powerful Arkaos Media Master Pro engine that lets you easily programme and play smooth visuals from any DMX lighting desk, MIDI controller or as a stand-alone unit.

Designed for live concerts and productions, theatre, clubs and houses of worship, Zeus is designed for quick and easy setup, and is especially suited for applications that call for precise, real-time visual displays. It features Arkaos MediaMaster Pro 3.0 software, including Arkaos' patented Kling-Net protocol, which automatically configures and distributes real-time video data to remote display devices by pixel. With Kling-Net

UK - Nearly New AV (NNAV) has appointed Liam Norris as business manager. As of January 2013 he will take responsibility for business performance, strategy development, and buying and selling of the full NNAV portfolio.

Norris joins NNAV from PSCo Technical Distribution, and brings eight years of sales, marketing, business development and client networking experience in technology-focused industries such as AV, business communications and converged mobile voice and data solutions. His remit as NNAV business manager will include the support of trade partners to buy and sell all types of used AV equipment with a focus on the UK, Europe and US, as well as emerging markets, including United Arab Emirates (UAE), Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, Brazil and India.

"This is a fantastic opportunity to take part in building a new business in such a fast-moving industry,"

The Netherlands - Artistic Licence Engineering will be demonstrating dVnet, its innovative new digital video-to-network converter, at ISE 2013. Visitors to the stand (8-R232) are guaranteed an exciting visual display as dVnet drives Pixel Pad, the LED array product from Abstract, the company says.

The latest addition to ALE's Rack Pack range, dVnet is aimed squarely at retail and architectural applications in which a media facade or light sculpture is to be controlled by video, and the complexity of a media server is not required. dVnet is all a user needs to convert a video creation to light. The digital video input is in HDMI format. Configuration is simplicity itself, with less than ten mouse-clicks required to render video to a media wall.

dVnet can also play-back video clips manually loaded onto its internal hard drive, or via the incorporated play list manager which faci

The Netherlands - Dataton will "usher in a new era of innovation and creativity at the 2013 edition of Integrated Systems Europe". The company's latest products, marketed as additions to the Watchout suite of multi-display production and presentation software, will be showcased on Dataton's biggest ISE stand so far.

While the exact nature of the products to be showcased at ISE remains a closely guarded secret until the show opens its doors on 29 January, Fredrik Svahnberg, Dataton's marketing director, comments: "We have continued to update Watchout this year with new features such as 3D stereoscopic playback, live video streaming, interactivity, and multiple languages. What we are going to show at ISE marks the start of a major move forward."

On the first day of ISE 2013, Dataton will host a booth party at 17:00 on stand 7-K175 to celebrate its 40th year i

UK - OneBigStar has supplied production and equipment for the Chris Moyles Live tour. Moyles recently took to the road with his long-time breakfast show collaborators Aled Haydn Jones and Dominic Byrne, along with house band, Rockaoke.

Working with Accept Management who provided tour and production

management, OBS designed and supplied the scalable set, LED video / mixing, LX and control and mic / IEM packs, along with techs and operators.

The show's format was very much in keeping with the style of the breakfast show and so every night varied in content. Combined with the diversity in in-house

specifications, this ensured that flexibility was a necessity both in pre-production and on the road.

Amongst the production supplied by OBS, and making its UK debut, was the new Chauvet 7mm PVP SMD LED Panels [12m2 4: 3 format] fed with a Roland V800HD Vision Mixer. Other rental

The Netherlands - Mitsubishi Electric's MDT701S will make its European debut at ISE 2013. The flagship 70" edge-lit LED display is the largest professional LCD monitor ever offered by Mitsubishi, equally suited to both public display or corporate settings, says the company.

"Large format flat panel displays are increasingly popular in public display applications such as signage and point of information, as well as corporate presentation and education. The large, Full HD screen and elegant narrow bezel design of the MDT701S creates an impressive visual presence as well as delivering excellent performance and low cost of ownership thanks to its use of LED backlighting," says the company. "LED illumination means reduced power consumption and slimmer profile, while delivering a 5000:1 contrast ratio and increased colour gamut. Lifespan is also increased and LEDs

The Netherlands - Later this month, Panasonic will be at Integrated Systems Europe to present a host of new display and projector innovations.

The new video wall display from Panasonic, the TH-55LFV50, will be exhibited at ISE. The LED LCD display is a solution for digital signage as well as for the rental and staging market. The highly energy efficient video wall features a robust design to minimise breakages and the industries narrowest bezel to bezel of only 5.3 mm thickness.

Display solutions for lobbies, airports, showrooms and retail stores will also be showcased at ISE. Panasonic will present new Large LCD displays, TH-70LF50 70 inch and TH-80LF50 80 inch and digital signage LCD displays; TH-42LF5 42 inch and TH-47LF5 47 inch. These new displays boast the utmost attention to design detail, feature narrow bezels and can reproduce Full-HD images. For robust outdoor applic

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