UK - PLASA London 2014 welcomed visitors and exhibitors to ExCeL, London for the second consecutive year on 5-8 October and impressed with a ground-breaking show floor, an inspiring education programme and a host of important announcements. While exhibitors revealed their latest product innovations, the organisers uncovered plans for the future of the show.

Speaking at the PLASA Awards for Innovation and Sustainability 2014, held on the penultimate day of the show, PLASA's CEO Matthew Griffiths revealed some of the changes for 2015, which will redevelop the scope and delivery of the event. Under the leadership of Christopher Toulmin, PLASA's Director of the Events Division, the show is being remodelled to become a PLASA Member-focused event: developments will include moving from four days to three days, introducing a new floor plan concept, expanding the education offering and i

UK - Edinburgh-based Black Light has continued its work with one of the UK's leading football clubs by outfitting Arsenal's flagship shop with the latest in sound and AV technology. The success of the project at the Armoury store showcases Black Light's technical expertise and creativity and the fact that its team can deliver exceptional installations that bring interactivity and excitement to the retail environment.

"This project was the second time that we have worked on a retail project for the club," said Phil Haldane, who led Black Light's installation team. "Our client for the job was 442 Design and, as we'd worked with them before on the club's shop at Brent Cross Shopping Centre, they were confident in our technical and creative abilities."

The brief for the project was to install sound and AV systems throughout the newly refurbished Armoury store.

UK - UK projection specialists QED Productions have outdone themselves once again by taking on one of the most challenging projection mapping projects to date for the Branchage Festival, held on 24-28 September in Jersey.

For this ambitious film festival finale, QED Productions teamed up with Radiophonic Workshop, who performed a specially commissioned live score, and NOVAK, who provided the animations. In keeping with the theme of this year's festival 'Make Your Own Island', QED Productions decided to make their own island using projection mapping, with the iconic St. Aubin's Fort as its centre-piece.

Said QED Director Paul Wigfield: "From start to finish the challenge was extreme. At first we didn't even know whether it would be possible. We had to cover the whole island otherwise it would not have looked impressive enough when viewed from such a distance and at high ti

Germany - MultiTouch will demonstrate displays for corporate collaboration and personalised interaction at ORGATEC Modern Office & Facility 2014.

A bespoke 4x 55"-display MultiTaction iWall and a 55" Interactive Table will feature, each running the MultiTaction Experience software platform. ORGATEC 2014 takes place at Koelnmesse, Cologne, 21-25 October, and MultiTouch is located on Stand A067, Hall 11.2.

"In the future, businesses will supply office workers with less personal technology but will provide more publicly accessible technology that is personal, as individual work spaces migrate to the cloud," explains Petri Martikainen, CEO of MultiTouch. "These workspaces will be accessible from any interactive platform in the office or home. Our demonstrations at ORGATEC will show how this can be achieved today in the work place using MultiTaction technol

UK - S+H Technical Support has designed and supplied stage lighting and an interactive projection wall for the newly opened Woolacombe Bay Holiday Parks' Twitchen House Holiday Village in Devon, UK.

The new £2.5m entertainment complex opened this summer after work began in 2013. Great attention to detail has been paid in the design of the glass complex that has been built and carefully integrated with the historic Edwardian pile of Twitchen House ... under the watchful guidance of English Heritage.

The new facilities include the Sail Loft entertainment lounge that contains the stage and the impressive interactive projection wall, and the all-day glass roofed Bar 5 cafe / bar together with a tasteful lighting scheme to reveal the magnificent facade of Twitchen House after dark.

S+H - based locally in Ilfracombe - was approached by owner, entrepreneur Rudi Lancaster with

Canada - The Quartier des Spectacles Partnership has announced the two works to be presented for the fifth annual Luminothérapie event, from 10 December, 2014 to 2 February 2015. Visitors to the Place des Festivals will be dazzled by a giant kaleidoscope called Prismatica by the Toronto architecture firm RAW Design, the first Luminothérapie competition winners from outside Quebec.

Meanwhile, the Quartier's eight video projection sites will be lit up by a digital carnival called Fascinoscope devised by Lüz Studio, a Montreal-based visual design studio. There is also a major new development this year: audience interaction will be taken further than ever with a set-up that will allow the public to play games on the projection surface outside the Saint-Laurent metro station.

"Luminothérapie allows us to offer both fertile ground for creators to experimen

Belgium - Creative lighting and visual design practice Painting With Light has announced a restructure, with Luc Peumans becoming the majority shareholder and CEO with immediate effect, taking over all the company's day-to-day management.

Luc founded Genk based Painting With Light in 1999. He comments, "To move forward on the same trajectory for the next 15 years, I needed to be fully in control and accept responsibility for our future strategies, investments and direction ... and so the deal was negotiated on that basis".

He adds that he and his former business partners - Dimi Theuwissen and Jim Stas - are looking forward to new challenges and horizons and that they have parted "on the best possible terms", and very proud of what the award winning company has achieved to date.

Painting With Light specializes in creating lighting, set and visual designs f

USA - Holo-GauzeTM, the 3D display solution from Holotronica Ltd, has enabled the creation of "the world's biggest, brightest, highest-resolution indoor hologram effect" during superstar DJ Eric Prydz's EPIC 3.0 show at Madison Square Garden - the third in a series of visual dance music events.

The performance, on 27 September, utlised a 20m x 5m Holo-Gauze screen which displayed huge hologram effects, including a giant helix, huge speaking head, and numerous rotating particle effects, realised by Realtime Environment Systems Ltd (RES) producers of the show.

Holo-Gauze comprises a metallic, highly transparent gauze (patent pending), and is the only gauze able to work with 3D polarised projection systems which use a minimum of two projectors - although it can also produce believable 2D hologram effects using one projector. During the EPIC 3.0 show, three merged 40,000

UK - The first MusicVidFest, a one-day conference focussing on the business of creativity in music videos, is taking place at the BFI Southbank on Monday, 10 November - the same day as the 2014 UK Music Video Awards - with Grammy Award-winning US director Joseph Kahn now confirmed as the event's keynote speaker.

Produced by the team behind the UKMVAs and BUG, the inaugural MusicVidFest aims to create discussion and debate on key topics affecting the craft and business of music videos, and will include panel discussions with leading lights of music video creativity in the UK and further afield, from producers and directors, to independent and label commissioners, managers and artists.

MusicVidFest will also feature representatives from the key music video platforms, and will culminate in a Question Time on the future of music video where audience members will get the chance to

UK - The promise of reduced maintenance costs for outdoor theme park cabling systems is offered by the Han-Eco(R) Outdoor connector from Harting.

The new connector is based on a robust high-performance lightweight plastic material which, when mated through its FPM (Fluor Polymer Rubber) flange seal, provides IP65, UV, ozone and acid-rain resistant protection.

Insert options allow simple field installations using screw-terminal monoblock assemblies with 10, 14, 20 and 28 ways at 16 A. Alternatively, mixed audio, video, communications, data and power signals can be handled in a range of four different sized housings.

This modular integrated cabling approach makes Han-Eco(R) suitable for exposed conditions in theme park audio-visual/multimedia installations, and reduces costs by enabling extended maintenance intervals through its ability to withstand adverse outdoor environment

USA - Gefen's new 4K Ultra HD Extender over One Fiber delivers resolutions up to 4K (3840x2160 @ 30Hz) with RS-232 and bi-directional IR using one SC-terminated fiber optic cable.

This long-range solution is effective up to 1000m at 4K resolutions and up to 2000m at 1080p/60 full HD. RS-232 offers an easy method of system automation while bi-directional IR facilitates control from both local and extended locations, the company says.

Installation is plug-and-play simple, requiring a single strand of multi-mode fibre optic cable to connect the sender (source) to the receiver (display). The use of fibre optic cabling provides EMI (electromagnetic interference) protection for mission-critical applications. The metallic enclosures further insulate against ambient noise. Automatic calibration based on the length of the cable is included to refine the quality of the delivered video.<

Russia - Moscow-based d3 Studio Russian Visual Artists have used d3 to design and deliver the fixed creative LED video treatment for Vegas, a new shopping centre in Crocus City, Moscow.

Russian Visual Artists (RVA), famous for their 2013 LED ice-rink in Gorki Park, have recently seen the opening of Vegas, a new shopping mall in Moscow that displays a dazzling amount of LED on both the exterior and interior of the building, all driven by d3. RVA worked on this colourful and energetic fixed install for approximately a year in various stages.

The project was brought to RVA through Philips Lighting, who had successfully worked with them before. Philips were already confirmed as Vegas' LED supplier, and decided to present RVA's preferred d3 approach to their client, Crocus Ltd.

Recognising the simplicity of the d3 production suite and several key features such as mapping, having

UK - XL Video is supplying LED screens, and IMAG projection system and camera / PPU for the continuing Il Divo A Musical Affair tour, now on its final leg through the UK and Europe.

The tour's video elements are being co-ordinated on the road by Stuart Merser of Vis-à-Vis Video who designed the touring screen and visual concept, is directing the camera mix and also produced all the playback content together with James Cooksey from Basic Monkey and Ben Mason at Red Dog.

Merser's working relationship with XL Video dates back 13 years to the start of his professional career, and comments, "They are still my first choice of touring video supplier - the service is consistently good and the crew are excellent."

Production manager Andy Proudfoot and XL also go back a long way, and XL's project manager is Paul 'Macca" McCauley who has worked on the Il Divo acc

Europe - Panasonic will next month (November) release the world's shortest throw detachable lens for 3-chip DLP projectors.

The new ET-D75LE90 ultra-short throw lens allows projection distance to be shortened by approximately 60 per cent compared to traditional short throw lenses, meaning savings in space and opening up new areas for projection.

When the lens is installed on a 3-chip DLP projector, a 200 inch screen can be created from just 1.5m; compared to a distance of four metres with a traditional lens.

The new lens complements Panasonic's existing ultra-short throw lens designed for 1-chip DLP projectors (ET-DLE030). Both lenses offer installers maximum flexibility and are backwards compatible with older projector models.

3D visualisation solutions specialist, EON Reality, have used Panasonic ultra-short throw lenses to create an immersive multi-wall environment in w

UK - 7thSense Design, has delivered its Delta Media Server to a 4D theatre at one of the UK's largest theme parks, Thorpe Park. The Angry Birds 4D effects theatre, part of the new Angry Birds Land, was developed and supplied by Simworx and opened to the public this summer.

The new 326-seat 4D theatre sits at the heart of a new 4,000sq.m area in the theme park, near London, built exclusively for the famous international game and brand, Angry Birds. The multi-sensory experience offers visitors a custom-produced 4D film and in-theatre special effects including wind, smell, water, leg ticklers, bubbles, smoke and catapult simulating seats to create an 'in-game' experience for park-goers.

UK-based Simworx was contracted to create and install the 4D experience by park operator Merlin Entertainments and Finnish company, Rovio Entertainment.

7thSense Design supplied a dual-head Delt

UK - Branding specialist Sunbaba is set to "shake-up product launches, conferences and exhibition stands" with a new 3D graphic.

Designed on display polyester and polyester voile, the system fuses Sunbaba's tension fabric frame with LED colour-changing light battens, to stunning effect.

Unveiled at the Showman's Show, where it won the company the Best Stand award, the initiative captivated all-comers, bringing stereoscopics to a waterfall scene without any need for 3D glasses.

Trevor Booth, technical director at Sunbaba, comments, "We hung one of our mesh fabrics in front of the same image on a solid fabric, both finished with a special silicone keder. We have tried a number of variations over the years, but this is the first time we have been able to combine the two graphics in a single frame."

Booth achieved the breakthrough by adapting software desig

USA - Continuing a series kicked off at InfoComm MEA in October, Audinate and Bose Professional will hold their next session of the AV Networking Roadshow - focusing on Dante technology - at the Holiday Inn Midtown - Embassy Ballroom in New York City. The session, titled Introduction to AV Networking, is a one-day session on 19 November, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The event is sponsored by Bose Professional and Audinate, with support from Attero Tech, Audio-technica, and Digital Audio Labs.

Intended for AV and IT professionals who have a novice or intermediate understanding of AV networking, these sessions expose attendees to the current state of audio networking and control for AV systems, emerging technologies and trends in AV networking.

The instructor-led training uses a variety of components from Bose and other participating manufacturers, and provides an opportu

UK - West London-based lighting and visuals rental specialist Colour Sound Experiment is actively engaged in a work experience initiative in conjunction with Elstree University Technical College (UTC), offering a selection of students a practical and grounded introduction to the world of lighting festivals, concert tours and live events.

The scheme is being developed by EUTC lecturer Stuart 'Woody' Wood - himself a production industry professional before taking up teaching full time - and a number of professional technology partners including Colour Sound.

Embracing the Science of Art and the Art of Science, Elstree UTC is a groundbreaking learning environment for 14 to 19 year olds, with the aim that a blend of academic rigour, project based learning and industry partnerships will help spawn tomorrow's creative technologists.

The lively UTC curriculum embraces all areas of

UK - The annual Barclaycard Mercury Prize shortlists 12 of the best albums from the UK and Ireland released during the year. Held at the Roundhouse in London, this year's ceremony saw shortlisted artists such as Bombay Bicycle Club and Jungle perform throughout the evening hosted by Nick Grimshaw. The event culminated with the announcement that Young Fathers had won the 2014 Barclaycard Mercury Prize for Album of the Year.

For the fifteenth year the Mercury Prize's technical director Rob Lipfriend engaged Creative Technology (CT) to provide the video display services used during the event.

As with previous years, the stage was horizontally split into two. This enabled one stage to be set up whilst the other was in use, providing the audience with seamless entertainment from one act to another.

CT supplied the main screen using a curved 38 x 7 ground stacked Barco C5 with abo

UK - A new PAX ProAV Group has been formed as the company expands. "The new PAX ProAV Group is formed to better reflect its leading market positioning in professional voice evacuation, pro audio, AV DSP and conferencing," a statement reads. Within the PAX ProAV Group, the company's established products including, Messenger Pro, Terracom, Penton, ATEÏS and XAVTEL will be marketed as distinct brands.

Optimising their potential as specific solutions in an integrated systems' design, the PAX ProAV Group will position dedicated sales and support teams targeting the brands' individual market sectors.

Romano M. Cunsolo explains: "This was a strategic move to make it easy for our customers and internal staff alike to focus on the technologies and products in our portfolio needed for each individual project. Our sales and technical people have a wealth of experience in

France - Paris-based art and design team, Danny Rose has expanded its presence in creating super-sized creative content and multimedia immersive experiences for its extensive international client base.

Best known for transformative projection mapping spectaculars, Danny Rose creates, directs, produces and animates artistic content.

The company's growth is stimulated by recent project successes including the Play Me! interactive projection mapping installation onto Customs House at Vivid Sydney 2014.

"Over the past 20 years we've firmly established ourselves with a solid foundation in creating a catalogue of shows, that can be localized according to size and requirements," said Sergio Carrubba, creative director and projection designer at Danny Rose. "Our content brings messages to life in a big way."

The Danny Rose team comprises experienced proj

USA - Successful TV producers have a knack for spotting and locking up budding talent, be it a performer, writer, designer or other creative type. Nothing out of the ordinary about that - but it is highly unusual when the 'talent' that's tapped is a lighting fixture. Such was the case recently on the set of Bet on Your Baby, when the show's producers told lighting director Adam Portelli that they wanted to include the Nexus 4x4 panels in the next project they did together.

Portelli and lighting designer Michael Veerkamp, both of Team Imagination, added the Nexus panels provided by the Los Angeles office of 4Wall Entertainment Lighting to the hit game show for its second season.

"Our lighting team was new to the show this season and we wanted to give things a refreshed look, while still retaining the program's signature feel, which has been so popular," said Po

France - MultiTouch has announced the opening of a new European showroom in Paris, France, further strengthening its commitment to the key European market.

The Paris showroom is located at Châteauform's new luxury City Le Cnit premises at 2 place de la Défense and includes a permanent installation of MultiTouch's new turnkey, medium-sized 4m x 2.5m MultiTaction iWall. Châteauform specialises in arranging full-service business events in its luxury, all-inclusive premises around Europe.

"We remain committed to European expansion, alongside incredible growth in North America and the Asian markets," explains Petri Martikainen, CEO of MultiTouch. "We've been searching for an appropriate location for a Paris showroom for a while, and the City Le Cnit premises offer the perfect mix of high-tech and traditional, 1950s style, creating an incredible venue for our

UK - XL Video supplied full video production - LED screens, cameras / PPU, media server control and crew - to Flourish Creative who produced Google's high profile Brandcast event at the Evolution event in Battersea, London. The annual event was part of the inaugural IAB UK's Digital Upfronts and showcased some of the most creative stuff happening on YouTube to 1100 invited guests.

It was the second year that XL Video has supplied the event. XL Manager Guy Vellacott and his team worked alongside brand experience agency Flourish Creative's director Guy Tremlett and technical production manager Mark Brattle to create a slick streamlined video-orientated set environment to suit the vibe of the event.

Highlights included presentations by Google and YouTube executives together with some of the channels' most successful content creators like fashion and beauty vlogger Zoella and supe

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