South Africa - Once again Wayne Sproule from Pendragon Dezign was in charge of the technical facets of the PSL Awards, a live broadcast, hosted at the Lyric Theatre, Gold Reef City on 27 May 2012. The event incorporated over 50 Robe fixtures.

"I still get excited about working on events," commented Sproule. "If I didn't, it would be time to pack up. It is estimated that viewership for this live production was 14m million, and apparently it was the number one tweeted subject between 8pm to 10pm that evening."

A rare occurrence was that for once there was more than enough time for the set up, but what really made it a success were the people involved. "I just love working with this team," said Sproule. "There is no drama, everyone gets on with it. I call them 'The Wrinkle Rockers Road Show,' and while there is fun and laughter, nothing is a pro

Ireland - Westlife played two highly emotional farewell concerts over two nights at Croke Park stadium in Dublin in their very last live performances, capping a 14 year chart-topping, multi-million record selling career.

Lighting for this - and the six week tour preceding the two 85,000 capacity sold out shows at Croke Park - was supplied by UK lighting and visuals rental company HSL. It included nearly 200 moving lights.

The lighting design was created by Dave 'Biccie' Lee and operated on the tour at Croke Park by Simon Horn. Mike Oates project managed for HSL, who were working for the tour's technical production co-ordinators Production North, under the auspices of production manager Karen Ringland.

Says Mike Oates, "We were immensely proud to work on this tour and the two landmark Croke Park shows. The show was absolutely stunning and a real tribute to all involved i

Canada - Kid Koala has adopted a compact iLive system to mix his new Space Cadet live project. Touring venues such as planetariums, biospheres and space museums, Kid Koala performs a live rendition of his latest album, Space Cadet, and each member of the audience is equipped with their own set of headphones installed in individual inflatable 'space pods'. The show uses an iDR-16 MixRack and an xDR-16 expander unit to cater for the large number of mixes required.

"The show format requires a 32-channel mixer, which ordinarily would take close to 4 hours to set up venue to venue. However, with this Allen & Heath iLive system, we are essentially bringing our own console everywhere we go and it fits into two 3 rack space bags. We can even take them as carry-on luggage when we fly," comments tour manager, Ryhna Thompson.

iLive enables Kid Koala to store all o

UK - When the eyes of the world are upon you, you need to be shown in your best light! And what higher profile could you have than the Queen's Diamond Jubilee Concert, held on 4 June 2012 outside the gates of Buckingham Palace before an audience of over 10,000 people and broadcast to millions of viewers worldwide?

On a stage designed by Mark Fisher with a backdrop of the palace itself, lighting designer, Durham Marenghi, worked his magic to create a spectacular lighting show worthy of the occasion, balancing the light from 240 moving lights, 36 20K projectors, and a wrap-around LED backdrop.

Marenghi specified five Robert Juliat Lancelot 4000W HTI followspots as the main stage key lights to pick out the performers and presenters on stage. These included a variety of artists from the past 60 years, from relative newcomers, Ed Sheeran and Jesse J, to veterans such as Cliff Richa

USA - Two days of packed seminars, a host of new product launches, and buzzing booths established PLASA Focus: Nashville as a triumphant landmark event for Tennessee - 668 attendees and over 50 of the biggest brands were boosted by an additional 20% of sign ups on site.

New products making their regional debut at Focus Nashville included: Martin Professional's new MAC III AirFX; MAC Viper Profile; M2GO, M2PC VC; d&b audiotechnik's E4 and E5 loudspeakers; Elation Professional's IP65-rated RGBW wash; Clay Paky's A.LEDA LED moving head range; Chauvet's new PVP S7 high-res video panel, new moving yokes Q-Spot 360-LED and Q-Spot 460-LED, Legend 412 pixel-mapping moving yoke lights and MVP 12 modular video panel - and many more.

The free to attend Professional Development Programme attracted over 1000 registrations for sessions that ranged from The Green Scene: Recycling Sets

UK- XL Events supplied audio and video equipment for two of the Škoda display areas at the recent 2012 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Chichester, West Sussex.

One was in the Moving Motor Show where approximately 40% of visitors entered the event, and the other was at Škoda's Pavilion stand in the main exhibition area. Commissioned by A1 (Events & Exhibitions), based in Milton Keynes, XL Events was asked to provide video screens for both the inside and outside walls of the main Pavilion.

The main challenge when specifying the LED for the outer wall was to identify a product that was both light enough to hang on the exterior of a temporary structure, and that offered high resolution at short viewing distances.

Pixled's FX-11 was chosen as it is lightweight and suitable for outdoor use.

For the interior of the Pavilion, XL Events supplied two LCD seamless di

Australia - The Event Safety Alliance Australia (ESAA) has been established in response to the increasing need for a universal code of best practice in the live events industry.

Recognising "that the events industry is diverse encompassing not just the performing arts, but everything from public and corporate events to exhibitions and broadcast, wherever the same equipment and techniques are in use", The ESAA intends "to bring together all the players in the market to develop a truly representational voice for the Australian industry".

In the context of public event safety and emergency management, the ESAA aims are:

To develop and promote the Australian Event Safety Guide, across all States and Territories incorporating national and international standards of best practice.

To promote co-operation and mutual assistance between people and organizations.

UK - PLASA has announced the shortlist of nominees for this year's prestigious Gottelier Award.

Named in honour of Tony Gottelier, the designer, innovator and industry commentator who died in 2006, this prestigious annual presentation aims to recognise "the product designers and developers who have made a significant and sustained contribution to the development of the equipment and tools that enable our entertainment technology practitioners to continually push the boundaries of event production, presentation and installation".

This year, a panel of 20 people, all with links to the PLASA organisation or its Media divisions, was invited to put forward their suggestions for the most deserving individuals or teams according to this criteria. From there, the final shortlist of six nominees was reached.

The nominees for the 2012 Gottelier Award are:

Nick Archdale<

UK - Altman Lighting will introduce the Spectra Cyc 200 to its family of LED Wash

Luminaires at PLASA 2012. The new fixture uses two arrays of Philips Luxeon Rebel LEDs for maximum brightness and colour rendering, along with its patented LED blending lens and asymmetrical reflector.

"This unique combination gives you fantastic light output and colour with the smoothest,

most even field available on the market," says the company. "Using this combination of technologies we are able to space our fixtures at an industry leading 2.5m - 3m apart, at 1.2m off the cyc or wall."

Standard features on the fixtures include DMX in and pass through, with RDM compatibility, and

Power in and pass through using powerCON connections enabling up to 10 fixtures to be 'daisy chained' together. Usable height of the output light for a single row of luminaires has also been

UK - PLASA 2012 is now accepting entries from all exhibiting manufacturers and their representatives for the 2012 PLASA Awards for Innovation and the PLASA Sustainability Award. Do you have a new product that you think deserves special recognition?

With a total of eight Awards for Innovation to judge, and with the option of bestowing a 'Gold' Award on one or more really outstanding entries, PLASA's panel of experts from across the industry are looking for products which "advance the industry by demonstrating a new style of thinking, improving technical practice or taking a key step forward in terms of safety." Entries will be judged on new and original thinking; novel ways of harnessing new technologies, materials or techniques; showing fresh perspectives and improvements in technical practices; original concepts that qualify for new patents or unique intellectual prop

UK - Due to be highlighted at PLASA 2012 (9-12 September, Earls Court, London), the F-10i/o from Pixled is a truly 'all-round' 10.4 mm pitch screen surface populated with 3 in 1 SMD chips that can be used indoors, outdoors or be rigged horizontally - and covered - to become a dynamic dance-floor and under-floor or stage effect.

The standard F-10 i/o tile is fully indoor use ready. It is a mesh surface and therefore transparent, ideal for creative indoor work including scenic elements - and also for IMAG displays. The tile dimensions are 50 x 50 cm each of which is lightweight at only 7 Kg. (28 Kg/sqm)

For outdoor use, Pixled offers optional "clickable in/outdoor shaders" which are quickly fitted onto the mesh tiles and include blank panels to 'close' the modules and increase the contrast. The tiles are IP65 rated and have a brightness of 5000 Nits.

F-10 i/o can als

USA - PLASA Events has confirmed details of its third regional event in North America, PLASA Focus: Stamford 2012, to be held 12-13 November, 2012 at the Stamford Marriott in Stamford, CT.

Stamford will be a landmark first event for the entertainment technology communities in New York and the Tri-State area and the first show to cover pro-audio, lighting, AV and stage technologies under one roof. The show follows in the wake of the popular PLASA Focus: Austin, held February, and the highly successful PLASA Focus: Nashville, held earlier this month.

Interest in PLASA Focus: Stamford has already attracted several prominent companies to sign up for exhibition space at the show; they include: Rosco, Drape Kings, Lyntec, Navigator Systems, Production Advantage, and Robert Juliat, with many other applications currently being processed.

Alongside an exhibition of the latest innovat

UK - coolux Pandoras Box 5.1 software release is now available and will be highlighted by its UK distributor TMB at the PLASA Show (9-12 September, Earls Court).

Building on the success of Pandoras Box Version 5.0 launched at PLASA last fall, over 50 distinct improvements and upgrades have been added, including Media Encryption, 3D Warping, and a new Matrix Patcher.

"The new user-friendly Version 5.1 software package makes Pandoras Box a yet more powerful creative tool, uniting state-of-the-art rendering technology with intuitive live media and show control," says the company.

Features and improvements include:

New Matrix Patcher: Relocate individual pixels for creative setups when working with conventional LED processors, e.g. Barco, Daktronics, Galaxia/Winvision etc. A time-saver for repositioning pixels, even with unconventional LED fixture shapes.

Timeline

UK - UBM Built Environment has announced development plans for the ARC Show. The 2013 edition will see the show re-locate to London's ExCeL as an integral part of UBM's May Design Series to take place from 19-21 May.

For the first time, say the organisers, four separate, focused events (The ARC Show, Interiors LDN, kbb LDN and DX) will combine to serve the broad sourcing needs of these key specifiers.

Brand director Andrew Vaughan commented, "Each year we work closely with the lighting design community and take on board their insights to ensure we deliver the right event for the industry, therefore our commitment to strengthen our relationship with mondo*arc will only serve to make the 2013 event its best ever. By developing our content we were able to deliver a fantastic 2012 event which saw an increase in audience groups such as architects and lighting designers

UK - Due to be displayed at PLASA 2012 (Earls Court, 9-12 September) the Ghost is the latest stylish lectern from The Lectern Company which designs and manufactures upmarket lecterns. The company has widened its portfolio with the introduction of an acrylic lectern to complement its successful alloy range.

The Ghost has been designed so that the built-in features which have made Lectern Company lecterns so popular have not been compromised, says the company. It has a 7" HD monitor, shock mounted microphone sockets, cable management system and an LED uplighter. These have all been carefully incorporated into the slim and elegant design.

The Ghost will be on stand 1-H11 at PLASA 2012 together with The Lectern Company's other designs.

(Claire Beeson)

UK - At PLASA2012 in London a new breed of moving head and much more will be on display at Martin Professional's Stand 1-F44. Martin invites lighting professionals to get an up close look at the new MAC Viper series of 1000 W moving heads along with a host of other innovative products like the new AirFX version in the MAC III family, an all-new VC series of creative LED video solutions, new portable lighting controllers in the M-Series, and a new compact hazer in Martin's Jem family.

MAC Viper Profile features a highly efficient optical system that outperforms market-leading profiles in the 1200-watt range. With over 26000 lumens of power from a 1000-watt HID source, it is convincingly brighter than 1200-watt fixtures and also outperforms them in terms of speed and compactness.

The MAC Viper AirFX a highly versatile beam, effects and wash luminaire in one and a whole new categ

UK - RCF will provide a platform for its new Media Series at this year's PLASA 2012, following its successful launch last year. When the Media series was announced, it plugged the last remaining gap in the Italian company's portfolio, which now enables systems engineers to treat RCF as a single source for all their loudspeaker requirements.

The Media Series features five models, from the smallest 5" to the larger 2 x 6" - all purpose designed for small to medium sized projects requiring distributed systems.

The Series is designed to offer RCF's signature sound quality, with the customary controlled bass response, incredible vocal clarity and high frequency definition.

The design and look of the Media Series is consistent with the higher power Compact and H Series models, while various installation options - from an elegant swivel bracket to easy-to-install wall mou

UK - A new sound processor from Bose, designed to make audio processing setup quicker and easier, is being launched at PLASA 2012.

The new Bose ControlSpace SP-24 simplifies audio DSP for 2x4 installed and portable applications by offering two methods of configuration based on user preference and loudspeaker type.

Fast system setup is achieved using front-panel LCD menus and controls, which offer a basic method of configuration for systems using Bose loudspeakers. Factory-installed Bose loudspeaker equalisation curves are selectable, together with common routing configurations. Additional settings, such as gain and delay, are also available from the front panel for basic system tuning.

Using the SP-24 Editor software, additional signal processing parameters are available for system equalisation and optimisation. For unique signal routing and processing configurations, or whe

UK - At PLASA 2012, Harting is featuring its rugged connectivity solutions for a wide range of AV multimedia installation applications.

A key element of the Harting product family is the Han-Modular building-block concept, which allows connector inserts for audio, video, data and power signals to be combined in three different housing variants - Han B, Han-Eco and Han-Yellock - offering a choice of characteristics in terms of weight, resistance to damage, potential for cable trunking drag-through and cost.

New additions to the award-winning Han-Yellock series of rugged rectangular connectors include Han-Yellock10: a smaller form-factor device that can accommodate a wide range of inserts, allowing signal types including RJ45 Ethernet data, fibre optics, 10-40 A power and hybrid mixed power and data.

The larger Han-Yellock 30 and 60 housings can now accommodate 25- and 48-way

UK - Chauvet is set to launch new moving heads- Chauvet Professional Q-Spot 460-LED and Q-Spot 360-LED and video panels Chauvet Professional PVP S5 and PVP S7-to the European market at this year's PLASA show on booth I-F53. Additionally, Chauvet Professional will highlight its new Ovation line of the theatrical fixtures, as well as introducing the luminarc line of architainment interior and exterior lighting solutions.

Two new compact moving spots, Chauvet Professional Q-Spot 460-LED and Professional Q-Spot 360-LED, are eco-friendly, cost-effective fixtures for smaller entertainment and hospitality venues or any space that demands a steadfast, stress-free performance.

Both fixtures include a highly efficient patented optical system, a 16-degree beam angle, an easy-access gobo door, and shutter and strobe functions. Lightweight and easy-to-hang, the fixtures operate quietly, ha

Spain - Space Club in Ibiza recently held its summer season opening night, installing three of Allen & Heath's Xone:92 mixers in the main room to fulfil the rider request of a majority of the performing DJs.

Unofficially regarded as the kick-off to Ibiza's summer season, around 20,000 punters attended the event, enjoying 20 hours of non-stop music from a line-up which included Wally Lopez, Juanjo Martín, Carl Cox, Dubfire, plus legendary live bands Orbital, and Rumanos Premiesky who performed a world premiere of their live show.

"Most DJs and producers performing at Space demand an Allen & Heath mixer, as they appreciate the Xone sound quality that Allen & Heath is renowned for," comments Eva Thullen from Spanish distributor, Lexon.

Recently at Space, other Xone products have been spotted, including John Digweed and the Xone:DB4 FX mixer at Carl Cox's Revolution p

UK - Sparks flew when the London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay came to Chelmsford recently.

In the finale of a day-long series of events (collectively known as Sparks Will Fly: Essex) the action moved to Hyland Park where local sound company Event Sound & Light (ESL) fielded the largest combined RCF TT+ PA system yet seen in the UK. The company was working alongside Chelmsford City Council, who were responsible for staging the event, and their production company, Walk The Plank, who devised the concept for the pageant, closing event and street theatre style performance.

ESL director Paul Galley confirms that to equip a main stage measuring 50m wide, 2m deep and 2m high they supplied a pair of 7.5m high V-mast towers to hang six active TTL55-A line array elements per side, with three RCF TTS56-A double 21in subwoofers. In addition the company featured centre fill ground stack

UK - A packed programme of sessions is now confirmed for the third annual PLASA Rigging Conference at the Earls Court Conference Centre in London on Monday 10 and Tuesday 11 September 2012.

The PLASA Rigging Conference is delighted to confirm that the conference will close with 'Question Time' hosted by Alan Jacobi LVO, MD of Unusual Rigging.

An iconic figure in the world of rigging, Alan's involvement with the Rigging Conference dates back to its inception, as conference consultant Chris Higgs explains, "Alan Jacobi (AJ) opened the inaugural PLASA Rigging Conference in 2010 in his inimitable style but sadly wasn't able to join us last year. I was therefore delighted that he agreed immediately to host the closing Q&A session this year. Alan is an inspirational character to many of us and someone who I have no doubt will again ask insightful questions, act as question mast

UK - At PLASA 2012 (Hall 1, Stand F38), DPA Microphones and its UK distributor Sound Network will showcase its range of high quality microphones that are suited to the rigours and demands of the live sound and touring industries.

Christian Poulsen, DPA's CEO, says, "We are excited to be exhibiting at the PLASA show this year with the UK being one of our key markets. With the new d:fine headset, d:facto vocal and d:vote instrument microphones, we are raising the bar for good sound in challenging environments, where DPA microphones have already set the standard for headset and miniature mics for many years. DPA's long list of fantastic references within theatre, broadcast, lives and installation environments proves the unique combination of high sound quality and reliability."

DPA will show its expanded d:fine series of headset microphones that recently won Live Des

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