PCI LiveDesign, the London-based production company which recently merged with Ultimate Events, was commissioned in October for two Microsoft events. Following a long-standing working relationship with Ultimate Events combined with the success of Blackout Triple E’s involvement with the Microsoft Tech-Ed Conference 2001 in Barcelona, PCI LiveDesign again contracted Blackout Triple E, and project manager Chris Brain, for the project in Cannes.

Brain and his six-strong team made the journey to stylish Cannes to drape a drinks reception and party as part of a weeklong Microsoft conference. The theme required the team to turn their hands to more unusual drapes - plastic fish, to compliment the famous Palm Beach. The company also provided and installed 30 fibre optic starcloths (proving that it isn’t just at the annual Film Festival where the Stars come out in force), as well as a truss box for the light and sound system. Plus, track and drapes were hung to reveal the many drinking and refreshment bars when drawn back.

After successfully completing the project, the Blackout Triple E team travelled back to England, only to return to Cannes a week later for a second Microsoft event, this time at the house of designer Pierre Cardin. This was for a three-day event marking the launch of the Microsoft’s new XBox games console, for which Blackout Triple E installed 14 fibre optic starcloths along with general rigging equipment.

Adam Hall has announced the opening of their new Spanish sales office, based in Barcelona. The company has been targeting the Spanish market for the past two years in preparation for this event and says it is confident, even in the current economic climate, that this is the right way forward. The Spanish sales office contact is Gabriel Medrano Bultel, known as 'G' to his friends and colleagues. Bultel has been with Adam Hall for two years and has become and important member of the team in this time.

Adam Hall can be reached in Spain on tel: +34 93 213 3644.

SigNET AC Ltd, an electronics manufacturer in Tyne and Wear has been named North East regional winner in the Trade Partners UK National Languages for Export Awards 2001, in the category for small business, sponsored by NCM credit Insurance. The company won the award for noticeably changing its attitude and ways of doing business in a number of export markets.

The company which specializes in the design and manufacture of voice alarm, paging and background music systems, believed that early exporting initiatives were conducted tentatively. Richard Sice, marketing manager said: "In order to be more competitive in international markets we have taken a strategic approach to the use of our human resources and polices. We have taken steps to hire people with native language skills and also to employ UK graduates who have studied a foreign language. In addition, we are taking a fresh look at our marketing documents and have translated key brochures and leaflets."

The Training Initiative, White Light's popular training and education scheme, has enjoyed a successful autumn, with a further 25 different training courses scheduled in the run-up to Christmas. Many of these courses will take advantage of extra room and facilities offered by the White Light Group's new building in Wimbledon; others will see the Training Initiative visiting other venues around the UK. "We feel that training is essential, but currently undervalued in the industry. At White Light we believe we should be offering a complete service, and our Training Initiative - whether providing a course on a control desk or a seminar by one of our industry's leading lighting designers - is a vital part of that service," says Jason Larcombe, White Light's training co-ordinator.

Recent courses have included the regular Strand 500-Series training courses, covering different levels of use from basic plotting through to moving light programming, run by Rob Halliday; a new Wholehog 2 training course run by John Harris and ETC console training run in conjunction with ETC. A new course, 'Re-lighting for Stage Managers' has also been run in conjunction with the Stage Management Association; led by lighting designer Natasha Chivers and Matt Prentice, lighting design tutor at Mountview College, it offered hands-on experience of equipment and explained the process of re-lighting shows on tour.

The ever-popular White Light Wednesday Workshops, now in their fourth year, have also expanded: recent courses have included Pyrotechnics, led by Lincoln Parkhouse from JustFX, Riggin

A cast of hundreds, with armies, horses, camels and even an eagle: this was the ‘mega-opera’ spectacular ‘Aida’ staged for a sell-out crowd of 78,000 at the Stade de France in Paris. The huge circular football stadium, home to the last World Cup, is an unusual setting for Verdi’s monumental opera, but Dutch production company Companions Opera took full advantage of the 75m x 120m pitch, presenting a 130-piece choir, the 90-piece Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, and more than 550 extras.

Louis Buskens was responsible for the choir (from the Sofia Opera House in Bulgaria), who would be moving around as well as singing during the performance. The job of choreography was critical because of the microphone technique: a DPA 4061 miniature mic was mounted on the shoulder of every fourth choir member, for his or her own voice and that of three other singers. So they had to stay in formation in groups of 4 throughout the performance.

A total of 36 DPA 4061s were allocated to the choir, with a further 16 for the eight soloists, who each wore a spare transmitter. All the electronics were from Sennheiser, and the soloists were also equipped with in-ear monitoring systems. "It’s the only possible solution in the open air," explained Buskens. "When all the staging is outdoor, with the public all around, the wireless miniatures give us more opportunities in terms of presentation and stage direction. The DPA mics are very good indeed, and I am very satisfied with the results we get."

The DPA miniature microphones were suppli

On September 15, 2001, exactly a year since the start of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Sydney’s Olympic Cauldron was re-kindled in its new, permanent home at Homebush Bay.

The cauldron was re-lit to beating drums and resounding cheers in The Overflow Park on Olympic Boulevard. The stainless steel bowl will stand as a permanent reminder of the success of the Games. The project was conceived and designed by Barry Webb, Iain Clark and Fiona McVicar of Barry Webb & Associates, with Show Technology’s architectural products manager Jonathan Ciddor assisting with the configuration, control and integration. Installer Beyond AV was responsible for the co-ordination, installation and programming of the lighting system.

The cauldron sits upon a concrete slab at ground level and beneath it is a large chamber, 5 metres deep, housing the lighting equipment, pumping and gas controls, and a large water tank. On the ceiling of the pit are 22 Clay Paky Golden Scan 3s arranged in two rings - 16 on the outer and six on the inner. The scans project light up through 220mm round glass portholes. As well as their excellent positional capabilities, the Golden Scans were chosen for the HMI 1200W lamp, which can effectively cover the distance to the cauldron and its support structure, and the water flowing down from above. The beams remain static and usually white in colour, with the colour-changing option reserved for special occasions. "Because the beam angle is quite wide and the porthole quite narrow in diameter, it was very difficult to get the beams to line up properly,&q

Wybron has announced that its colour scrollers have been specified for Kiss Me Kate, which recently opened at Victoria Palace Theatre. Cole Porter’s famous masterpiece is a play within a play, featuring a theatrical company rehearsing and producing Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew. Transferring from Broadway, where it swept away the best part of the Tony Awards as well as several Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle Awards, Kiss Me Kate has received glittering reviews. Lighting designer Peter Kaczorowski was also shortlisted for this year’s Tony Awards for Kiss Me Kate - but beat himself to win for his remarkable design for the Broadway hit The Producers.

Lighting rental company White Light was chosen to supply a large rig based around ETC Source Fours, fitted with 80 Wybron Coloram IIs which created the varying atmospheres in the musical. General manager of White Light, Bryan Raven, said: "Wybron's colour scrollers have again proved the popular choice to change colour on a West End show."

The inventor of the original colour scrollers, Wybron sees its sought-after products currently in use on a number of shows in London’s West End, including the acclaimed The Graduate and The King and I, as well as the forthcoming Beauty and the Beast tour.

O-Town, one of the music industry's biggest success stories this year, recently filmed one of their live shows at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City for an upcoming, MTV-produced DVD. The band signed with J records last September as the grand finale to their first season as stars of ABC's 'Making the Band'. The original touring show, which was lit by Ted Downing and programmed by Joe Allegro, used 18 Martin 918s, 28 MAC 500s and 14 MAC 600s, supplied through Premier Global Productions. For the recording of the New York concert, MTV producers Jackie French & Chris Williams brought in John Broderick to flesh out the design for television with gaffer Michael Callahan looking after the additional rig brought in for the filming.

Broderick's main concern was to keep the lighting in check for the seven isolated cameras: "All the cameras were simultaneously recording, to give the director maximum flexibility in the editing room, we had to constantly grab fixtures and perform edits to keep the best possible looks across all seven cameras at the same time," said John after the show.

Programming the additional 22 Vari*Lite VL6Bs and VL5 Arcs, which John specified for the filming, was Patrick Dierson on a grandMA console with another grandMA running as a tracking backup via Ethernet. "The grandMA has great graphics capabilities," said Broderick. "It allows me to have instant access to fixtures, which is invaluable in a show such as this where we were constantly updating and altering looks live. This was my first time using the grandMA console but it

Autograph Sound Recording, the Londonbased theatre sound design and equipment rental specialists, have recently built a substantial portfolio of work with the Royal Shakespeare Company, including the forthcoming musical premier of Alice in Wonderland, which opens at the Barbican Theatre on 13 November.

Andrew Bruce, Autograph's founder and Chairman has co-designed Alice in Wonderland with Autograph's Matt McKenzie. This beautiful family production will transfer to Stratford just in time for Christmas. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, another RSC musical production, is being revived this winter at London's Sadlers Wells and is designed by Terry Jardine, Autograph's managing director.

While these two musical productions benefit from Autograph's design and equipment rental supply, four other RSC plays are currently on tour with an Autograph sound and communications system. These include - King John, Hamlet, Twelfth Night and Julius Caesar. British theatre touring shows are keeping Autograph personnel travelling the length and breadth of the country of late, with three additional productions now on the road - Sunset Boulevard for the Really Useful Group, Beauty and The Beast for Disney Theatrical and Miss Saigon for Cameron Mackintosh. Miss Saigon opens at the Palace Theatre Manchester, on 22 November and will remain there for six months before embarking on a nationwide tour. With the original sound design by Andrew Bruce, the touring production now has Andrew's associate designer, Nick Lidster, at the helm. Lidster has

As part of an on-going strategic review of the services offered to clients, Earls Court & Olympia Limited (EC&O) has announced new arrangements for the provision of rigging services in its venues. Following a competitive tendering process, EC&O has appointed Unusual Rigging as exclusive supplier of rigging services for Earls Court, whilst at the same time awarding the Olympia contract to Outback Rigging. The contracts will be three-year rolling appointments, which will be reviewed annually. "We are determined to provide our customers with the very best levels of service and delivery. By appointing different companies we believe that we will be able to get real focus in each venue. Unusual and Outback are perfectly placed to provide the levels of service we’re looking for," commented Jon Sellins, group halls director for EC&O.

As a new supplier to EC&O, Mark Surtees, managing director of Outback, was pleased with the appointment: "Olympia is an impressive venue and this contract is one we’re proud to have won. We’ll be working hard with EC&O to ensure that we deliver on the ground with their clients as well as in the air with their rigging."

Alan Jacobi, Managing Director of Unusual Rigging, commented: "Earls Court is London’s premier exhibition space and we’re delighted to be reappointed, enabling us to focus on providing the very best service and support throughout the year to EC&O and its clients."

TSC Music has announced a new partnership with Smith and Western Restaurants. TSC recently fitted out Smith and Western’s restaurant at Boxhill, Surrey with a state-of-the-art Hard Disc music management system to select and play the finest in country music to enhance the restaurant’s ambience. TSC will also be providing similar music systems to restaurants at Chichester and Horsham in the near future.

Douglas Scheller, TSC account manager for Smith and Western said: "When Smith & Western met TSC at a recent exhibition they were looking for a music system that was not only more reliable than their existing CD players but one that could virtually run itself. They also required very specialist country and western music to create the correct atmosphere in their authentic American themed restaurants. The perfect solution was our soundserver hard disc player, which is designed to run as a virtual DJ without the need for any staff interaction. Our music department then created a high quality music profile especially for Smith & Western to complement the themed environment."

TSC offers a complete design and installation service covering the whole of the UK with an extensive portfolio of products including Hard Disc and 8-hour CD-I music systems, CCTV, public address and telephone music-on-hold.

Peter Boizot MBE, the man who made his fortune from Pizza Express, has unveiled his opulent new leisure extravaganza - a £15 million restoration of Peterborough’s Odeon cinema, as part of a larger, fully-featured leisure complex.

Architect Tim Foster set about fulfilling Boizot’s dream of recapturing the splendour of traditional cinema in a state-of-the-art modern facility.

Strand luminaires, control and networking components form the lighting backbone in the 1,200-capacity art deco auditorium - specified by Northern Light, who won a competitive tender issued by Theatre Projects Consultants. Northern Light also undertook all the house electrical contracting, working with builder Marriot Construction, while for the specialist lighting they reported directly to Peter Boizot’s company, Mistvalley Ltd over the duration of the 10-month contract. The lighting designer on the project was Jim Morse, of Light & Design Associates. This was no small project for the overall budget for electrics (including alarms and security), production lighting, sound and projection equipment ran to £1.3million with Strand equipment alone accounting for up to £75,000 of this.

Northern Light project manager Nigel Love explained that the imperative had been to upgrade the venue to multi-purpose usage. He decided to base the lighting closely on his experience at the Lowry in Salford - particularly the Quays Theatre - and thus specified the Strand 530i with LCD monitors, keyboard and rigger’s remote. Running Tracker moving light software, the desk outputs on the ShowNet e

Out Board Electronics, the manufacturer of sound and power control products, is to go into creditors voluntary liquidation. The Cambridge-based company, founded in 1987, has designed and developed a number of audio control systems, most notably the award-winning TiMax matrix system, together with the SS2 fader automation system, the Octopus automated sound effects console and the QP4 manual quad panner. A shareholders’ meeting will be held on 30 November ar 10.30am when a resolution to wind up the company voluntarily will be proposed and a liquidator appointed.

Directors of the company include managing director Robin Whittaker, operations director John Drake and commercial director David Haydon, who joined the company from BSS Audio in July 2000.

Further information can be obtained from chartered accountants Martin Sklan & Co, telephone +44 (0)20 8455 8248

Not content with dragging most of the aristocracy of rock all over the world, EST, probably the best known logistics experts in the industry, can still find time to get involved with other interesting and unusual projects. Currently, EST is touring with Walt Disney around most of the UK's major shopping Malls. Aficionados of Friday night's 'Later . . . with Jools Holland' might, if they were there, spot one of the well known purple and yellow trucks outside the BBC delivering and retrieving all of Jools equipment every Friday night with tireless regularity.

EST were also in the thick of things on 4 November when the World Premiere of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone took place at the Odeon Cinema, Leicester Square. EST trucked in screen support and barricades (by ESS and Mojo), presumably to keep thousands of screaming wannabe wizards back.

Forthcoming attractions for EST include eight trucks servicing the Scottish Motor Show at the SEC in Glasgow, and six trucks heading out to Lisbon for the launch of the new Toyota. Still jigging about Europe, mostly in Germany, the Riverdance tour is keeping EST busy. Also in Europe, EST are touring with Bryan Adams, mostly in Germany but with the odd foray into Holland and Belgium.

Beginning on 14 November, EST will accompany veteran rockers Jethro Tull in a rare UK and Eire tour beginning in Tunbridge Wells and ending in Cork on 3rd December, calling at such diverse places as York, Derby and Plymouth to name a few of the 16 venues. As if that wasn't enough, Orbital will spend a week on the road starting 10 November

CT-NEC recently provided an array of AV equipment to the official opening of the newly-built Arup Campus, attended by 500 guests, including the Lady Mayor of Solihull. Arup Group is a multi-disciplinary firm of consulting engineers offering independent advice and innovative designs globally. The new premises based in Solihull accommodate specialist divisions in rail engineering, bridges, geotechnics, advanced technology manufacturing and most recently communications and IT. Despite hosting its own 150-seater auditorium with in house AV facilities, Arup’s AV consultant David Lakin required the assistance CT-NEC to provide Sharp LCD projectors and associated sound systems to relay the events in the auditorium to the remaining guests throughout the building.

Further satellite projectors showed off presentations from each of the specialist divisions within the company. The package was completed by dual gobo projection of the Arup Campus logo on the outside of the building. CT-NEC provided a total of 11 Sharp LCD projectors, two 8x6 screens plus four Bose 802 speakers and control system. David Lakin commented: "As technical manager for the event, I was keen to keep the intrusion of the AV to a minimum in order to achieve a slick and polished performance, and thanks to the professional rigging and operational assistance of Creative Technology, the evening was a huge success." CT's project manager for the event was Alan Plant.

French PA System manufacturer L-Acoustics has announced the appointment of several new distributors. Representing the company in the territories of Belgium and Luxembourg is ASC, one of the leading multi-brand pro audio distributors in the region, involved in the sale of high quality products as well as complete audio systems since 1978. ASC also designs and services turnkey systems for the pro-audio industry as well as leisure facilities such as theatres, entertainment centres and multi-purpose venues, interior and exterior paging systems for public areas, broadcast radio and TV studios and music recording and AV studios.

On the other side of the world, Random Audio has been appointed as the Australia and New Zealand distributor for L-Acoustics. Random Audio was established in the late 1980s to service a growing demand for consultative services to the Australian professional audio industry. Founder Peter Ratcliffe had 20 years' experience in every aspects of sound reinforcement and saw an opportunity to utilize this knowledge. Consultation quickly developed into supply, and for the past 10 years Random Audio has supplied a wide range of professional audio equipment to customers around Australia including theatres, entertainment venues, installations and professional users.

Yates Group is striving to give a more contemporary feel to its traditional Wine Lodges, using the latest technology to add a younger, metropolitan concept to its brand portfolio. The new-look venues will give higher priority to dynamic music and lighting, as demonstrated by the most recent conversion - in Peterborough’s trendy leisure strip, The Broadway.

The Yates Group has a long association with Martin Audio loudspeakers, and the company’s technical manager Les Farmer, had no hesitation in returning to their catalogue to create even coverage across the new 525-capacity, 3000sq.ft bar. The requirement from the designers, Mason Wood Architects, was for discrete lighting and sound reinforcement. Thus four recessed white C516 ceiling speakers, with their own volume control, have been concealed in the far corner chill-out area of the four-zone venue, to complement the eight white EM26s distributed throughout the venue, and a pair of strategically concealed EM150 subs (one on the dancefloor and one at the back of the venue). The system is driven by Inkel amplification and mixed through a Cloud CXM modular mixer.

The venue's technology was installed by TTL, who also provided the lighting and their Music Manager hard disk delivery system - which hands over to a DJ several nights a week. The stridency of the lighting effects - predominantly recessed Abstract VR8 scanners and AVR miniature DMX colour changers - are dictated by the style of the music, the compatibility ensured by a Pulsar Replay unit (with memory card). Vision is also a vital part of the Yates&rsqu