Newquay-based PSD Electronics has completed a sound and lighting installation as part of a £500,000 makeover at the Twilight Zone nightclub in Redruth. The new lighting rig features four of Sagitter's compact Infinity MSZ1200 (Multi Step Zoom) units, which project down onto the minimalist ground floor dance area, as well as onto the sailcloth surrounding the eight moving arms of the flown mechanism. Sagitter Digiflash Pro strobes also feature in the rig. All of the Sagitter lighting was supplied by Multifom Technology. PSD's Dave Charman said that the fittings were "incredibly bright and powerful - they look amazing in this installation."

A new consultancy company has been formed to oversee sound system installations in all areas of professional audio. Sound Savers founder Brian Levine is using the services of Stephen Court to look at sound system quotations and proposals. He told PLASA Publishing: "Over the last few years, we have been asked to look at several quotations for new sound systems in every area from clubs and theatres to stadiums, and were frequently surprised by, not only the choice of equipment, but the prices where we discovered cost reductions could be made without sacrificing sound quality. We were asked to vet some of these quotes, and in many cases, saved the clients several thousand pounds on the final costs." Sound Saver's latest project is a stadium in France where the overall sound distribution was increased by 4dB and the budget for sound reduced by 15%. The company is also working on a new club installation in London to reduce problems with sound leakage.

Rio de Janeiro-based TV Globo, the largest TV corporation in South America and among the top five in the world, has just taken delivery of a Midas Heritage 2000 console for its brand new live TV broadcast studio. Henry Spong, president of Libor, Midas's distributor in Brazil, was responsible for the sale. "The studio had been using a Heritage 3000 on rental from Gabisom, a local PA company, and was delighted with it," explained Spong. "TV Globo's audio engineer and specifier, Carlos Ronconi, was determined to have a Heritage desk in his studio, so he approached Libor. We lent him our demo Heritage 2000 by way of comparison, and they decided that in fact it was more than adequate for their needs, so they opted for the 2000 which they have ordered with 12 mono and 12 stereo channels."

Batmink Ltd, distributor for a wide range of product lines including those from American DJ, Genius, Lite Puter and MBN, has purchased further offices and warehouse facilities covering some 1500sq.m. Managing director David Churches commented: "In line with our continual expansion, the new premises will allow a greater stockholding, especially on our sole imported lines." To coincide with the move to new premises, Batmink will be holding a massive auction of sound and lighting equipment on Sunday July 16th.Further details and an auction catalogue are available by calling

Following on from the announcement last month of CIE-Audio's UK distributorship for Communications Technology, the company has now announced its UK representation for Radio Design Labs. With a product range totalling nearly 200 units, RDL manufactures a portfolio of application specific modules for audio, video and control.

Boath Audio Visual are offering a substantial reward for equipment that was stolen from the company in early May. A Mr F Belhadj, who gave a false address in Worthing, hired a range of equipment, including JBL speakers (serial no: 18017), a Crest amplifier (serial no: CA12 9404392), Citronic mixer (serial no: A611B903A0288), Yamaha multi-effects unit (serial no: 65238), two MAD Madscans (serial nos: 27006, 27006B) and a Le Maitre G150 smoke machine (serial no: 0563). The list also included a Shure radio mic system, Numark twin CD player, Opti White Lightning strobe and an Apollo Equinox lighting effect.The equipment has never been returned and BAV believe that Belhadj is now in Tunisia, though the equipment may still be in the Sussex area. If you have been offered any of this equipment or can help, please contact Brighton Police Station on 0845 6070999 - quote crime reference no: C1/8661/00 or John Boath at BAV on Tel: +44 (0) 1273 600678.

Martin Professional A/S has acquired the remaining 49% of shares in Martin Professional Italy making the Italian company fully owned by Martin Professional A/S. Managing director Mario Radice is leaving the company and will be replaced by Pio Nahum who will also continue in his role as Group sales and marketing director.

Palma in Italy is the first stop for PCM's Tony Dickson and John Jones on the company's expanded training programme, an initiative that will see them visiting Europe-wide locations to hold Motor Schools. The Italian Motor School has been jointly co-ordinated by PCM and their Italian agents Audio Link, headed by the charismatic Stefano Cantadore. The Italian School will see 30 owners, users and specifiers of Lodestar Motors trained. The course is designed to offer attendees a comprehensive, hands-on overview of everything there is to know about a CM Lodestar motor. Attendees engage in the complete process of dismantling and reassembling the hoist. Also included is a basic Lodestar troubleshooting session, using faulty motors. PCM are taking all the kit needed for the school with them from the UK.

Total Audio Solutions reports a record number of bookings for its location and mobile recording facilities. Music channel VH1's 'Storytellers' required full carry-in production talkback and timecode distribution facilities. Another project involved the digital recording of a show featuring Pete Townsend of The Who. The six-camera shoot involved a 50-user PMR system, plus Total Audio's Ambient Lockit system, which was needed to synchronise master and multitrack recorders with the digital slates and Beta reference tapes. Rick Wakeman's forthcoming double CD/DVD was tracked at Marlborough College using Total Audio Solutions' 24-track mobile, while Hugh Cornwell (ex of the Stranglers) hired the company to record his band's new live album at The Robin II R&B Club in Dudley, West Midlands. The booking followed Cornwell's 1998 live album, which was also tracked by the TAS team.

A new company has been formed in Italy to offer marketing services to the entertainment industry. Located in Gradara, Italy, and headed by Stefano Bossoli, Made in Italy will act as marketing and business consultants, and will offer overseas contractors, installers and distributors with a consultancy service covering the cinema, theatre, live event, pubs and clubs markets.

Production Resource Group has restructured, combining the PRG Lighting Group and Audio Group into a single operating unit, the Lighting/Audio Group. The two divisions will continue to be branded separately in their individual markets, but will be managed by a single group of senior PRG management. Some of the key elements of the new organisational structure include the appointment of Don Knezovic as the chief operating officer of the Lighting/Audio Group, whilst Steve Terry becomes President of Lighting Systems. Nick Jackson continues as president of Light & Sound Design (LSD) with Jeff Senkovich promoted to the new position of vice-president of Lighting/Audio. Don Stern, chairman of the Lighting/Audio Group, is assuming responsibility for Production Arts' rental sales and operations.

A package of film production initiatives backed by a total fund of £22 million has been launched by the Film Council, the new strategic organisation set up by the Government to create a coherent structure for the UK film industry and to develop film culture in the UK. The package includes a Film Development Fund of £5 million a year to support the development of a stream of high quality, innovative and commercially attractive screenplays; a Premiere Production Fund of £10 million a year for the production of popular mainstream films, and a New Cinema Fund of £5 million a year to back radical and experimental film-makers, especially new talent, and to explore new electronic production technologies.

Martin Professional's Florida-based US subsidiary, Martin Professional Inc, has announced plans to move into a new facility early in the year 2001. The new office will be built in the Sawgrass International Corporate Park in Sunrise, Florida, just a short drive from the existing building. It will give Martin US personnel twice as much working space with a 3,106sq.m warehouse, 200sq.m showroom, and nearly 900sq.m of office space and other facilities. Completion date for the new building is expected to be just after the start of the new year.

WWG's Peter Wynne Willson is providing some stunning liquid lighting effects for the second leg of Roger Waters' 'In the Flesh' US tour, which opens at the Ice Palace in Tampa, Florida. Wynne Willson's relationship with Waters goes back to the early days of Pink Floyd, and has now gone full circle between the 250 Watt QI projected effects of the Floyd Shows of the Sixties, with the 6kW HMI TeleProjector, from French company Chameleon that will be used for effects projection on this millennium year tour. Wynne Willson has created a 'Fried Slide' system with small bubbles and immiscible liquids to make coloured liquids 'boil' across a giant screen behind Waters during his performance. To ensure some consistency of appearance, WWG has provided a semi-automated system to enable a competent operator to manage the delivery of the images at showtime. Lighting designer for the tour is Simon Sidi and set design is provided by Jonathan Park.

Pro sound amplifier specialist Chameleon Audio Limited of Cinderford, Gloucestershire won the contract to supply the amplifier/speaker combination for the world-famous Vienna Festival which is running from 12 May - 18 June. Chameleon competed with five other world class pro sound equipment manufacturers for the project, with live tests being carried out in a local theatre and in the open air outside the Vienna City Hall. Both classical and rock music were included in the test, attended by the Austrian Broadcasting Commission (ORF) and the Vienna Festival organisers.10 Chameleon 3500 DP2 amplifiers with Adamson Y-Axis speakers carried 25,000W of high quality sound from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir to an audience of 40,000 outside the Vienna City Hall on the opening night. Alex Schlosser GmbH of Cologne supplied the equipment for front-of-house. The 10 Chameleon amplifiers were fed from two BSS Omnidrive 355 Compact Units and all programming and measurement was by Alex Schlosser.

The BBC's FutureWorld exhibition is touring nine major UK cities throughout this year. Designed in-house by BBC Resources, it aims to promote new digital technology, at the same time as revealing the making of its recent successful 'Gormenghast' and 'Walking with Dinosaurs' programmes. The exhibition is divided into 11 zones, many of them hands on with computer equipment provided by LG Electronics, each defined with OPTI Trilite trussing. International exhibition contractor Networks of Sheffield are responsible for both installation and moving of the exhibition from venue to venue and are using seven 45ft trucks for this at present. The Newcastle venue, The Lightfoot Centre, sees the first use of an auditorium built by Networks with feature work using OPTI Trilite. There are in fact two sets of exhibition material being leapfrogged around the country. The exhibition is free and details of the remaining venues and dates can be found at www.bbc.co.uk/futureworld.

It is anticipated that Bob Ayling, the chairman of the New Millennium Experience Company, the operation behind the Millennium Dome, will resign today as part of a deal to secure funding. Britain's Millennium Commission offered a cash injection of £29 million yesterday on condition that Ayling goes. The Dome's chief executive, Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, had approached the Millennium Commission for the extra money in the hope of saving 5,000 jobs and preventing bankruptcy. Despite being the UK's most popular tourist attraction it has fallen way short of its stated visitor target and speculation that it may be sold before the end of the year is gaining momentum.

A large TOA paging and sound reinforcement system has been specified to provide the public address throughout the new Weald Sports Centre in Cranbrook, Kent. TOA's commission came from engineering company, Consulting engineers MVM M&E have designed the system around TOA's V-Series equipment, working with E-1231 graphic equalisers and AC-120 loudspeaker controllers. The feature clusters of TOA CS speakers are suspended over the swimming pool and the sports hall, while a pool aerobics system utilises the F-500 Series speakers. In the creche and aerobics room, a portable flight-cased rack system houses TOA WT870 diversity radio mics, a mixer, CD and tape player, which are all on jacks linked back to the amplifiers.

Star Hire has started the new Millennium by committing to work towards the Investors In People National Standard. This step has involved detailed inward examination of the company's policies and working practices, with subsequent formalising and tightening up of existing procedures. The company has developed its own training programme and have recently implemented its largest ever training programme.

Celebrating the renaissance of Vietnamese art and culture in recent times, the Hue Festival recently took place in Vietnam's Hue city during April. Live sound was engineered exclusively by Allen & Heath mixers which comprised one 32 channel, and two 16 channel GL2200s, supplemented by four MixWizard WZ16s and two WZ20s. Allen & Heath distributor, Nguyen Hoang Company of Ho Chi Minh City, supplied all the equipment.

One of the longest-established names in specialist tour and corporate event freighting has a new identity this month with Phil McDonnell's launch of Horizon McDonnell Entertainment Cargo. McDonnell's 30-year career in the music production business has embraced production management for such luminaries as Van Morrison, Fleetwood Mac, The Cranberries, Clannad and many more. The company will focus specifically on the music touring, corporate event and exhibition markets.

An all-new website for the Low Power Radio Association (LPRA) has just been launched. Features of the site include a database will full details of all member companies, a section devoted to the LPRA's Radio Solutions exhibitions and conferences and useful links to regulatory bodies and organisations across Europe.

The UK's first ever media industry census takes place today. Backed by major employers, trades unions and the government, Britain's first broadcasting census is the culmination of a major consultation exercise by the cross-industry group examining future training needs in the media industries. The initiative is part of a programme of work developed by the Audio-Visual Industries Training Group (a joint venture between the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and Skillset) and is chaired by Roger Laughton. Our industry has long been hindered by the lack of accurate available information and the Census should provide reliable estimates of how many people work in the industry, and a picture of what they do and who they are. If you are a company working in any sector of the industry you can complete the census form online.

The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) has awarded seven lighting projects with Lighting Design Awards of Merit. These went to The Albert Memorial in London designed by Graham Phoenix and Michael Sampson of London-based Lighting Design Partnership; New York's Radio City Music Hall Restoration designed by Paul Marantz and Scott Hershman of New York-based Fisher Marantz Stone Inc; New York Public Library's Rose Main Reading Room, designed by Barry Citrin and Richard Renfro while based at Fisher Marantz Renfro Stone Inc. Samsung's Rodin Museum in Seoul, South Korea, by Thomas Thompson, Christine Sciulli, Jonathan Plumpton and Russ Burns of New York-based Thompson & Sears Inc; Northeastern University Multi-Faith Spiritual Centre in Boston, designed by Paul Zaferiou and Glenn Heinmiller of US-based Lam Partners Inc; Zollverein Kokerei in Essen, Germany, designed by the Lighting Architects Group of London and Edinburgh; Downtown Helsinki Master Plan, Finland, designed by Ross de Alessi Lighting Design, Eero Metso of Helsinki Energy and Erkki Rousko of Cadvance, Helsinki. The IALD also offered two special citations to Plantation Place Marketing Suite Beacon, designed by David Hymas and Haico Scheppers of London-based Arup Acoustics and the UBS AG headquarters in Stamford, US, designed by Stephen Margulies and Stephen Szynal of New York-based Cosentini Lighting Design.