USA - ANSI E1.19 - 2015, Recommended Practice for the Use of Class A Ground-Fault Circuit Interrupters (GFCIs) Intended for Personnel Protection in the Entertainment Industry, and ANSI E1.23 - 2010 (R2015), Entertainment Technology - Design and Execution of Theatrical Fog Effects, were approved by the ANSI Board of Standards Review on 10 and 13 February respectively. They are now published and are available for free at http://tsp.plasa.org/freestandards. The free download is made possible by the sponsorship of Prosight Specialty Insurance. They also may be purchased from ANSI's eStandar

UK - Le Maitre Ltd is sponsoring fireman Scott Butler on his intrepid Journey To Elbrus challenge in what will hopefully gain him a place in the Guinness Book Of World Records.

In June this year Scott will be cycling 1800 miles across Europe then rowing solo 750 miles across the Black Sea. If that wasn't enough of a challenge he will then climb Mount Elbrus in Russia, the highest peak in Europe. Scott will be raising money for three charities - Firefighters Charity, The MS Society and Facing Africa.

Scott, a firefighter with the Royal Berkshire Fire & Rescue Service has a history of

Italy - The show Illusion, with several Salamanders from Le Maitre entertained visitors at the Rainbow MagicLand in Valmontone close to Rome throughout the summer 2014.

The attraction combines music, fantasy and projection. With hundreds of lights installed on the fountains and special effects enhancing the show, Illusion had nine dancers interacting with the fountains and the projections.

One of the world's leading companies for aquatic shows and an internationally renowned video designer participated in the realisation of this show.

Mr. Bonsanti, technical representative at Magi

UK - Martin Manufacturing UK has been crowned champion of skills investment at the Semta Skills Awards 2015. Martin Manufacturing UK, which employs 48 people in Louth and makes a range of smoke boxes for the entertainments' industry, won the SME Investment in Skills category, sponsored by Pera Training.

They were presented with the award at a gala dinner in London's Park Plaza, Riverbank at an event hosted by TV presenter Michael Underwood and where Minister of State for Business, Enterprise and Energy, Matthew Hancock, gave the keynote address.

Jason Andrews, general manager of Mar

UK - Another year has flown by, and it's time to start nominations for the Technical Theatre Awards 2015.

The nomination period is now open on the new website - head to www.technicaltheatreawards.com now to put your colleagues forward.

Says the organisation, "We have a great year planned ahead, including streamlining the voting process and bringing together a committee of industry leaders to finalise our shortlists.

"We are also heading to Europe for Stage|Set|Scenery, as well as our annual visits to PLASA Focus and the ABTT Trade Show.

"Our awards ceremony will b

UK - The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) has confirmed the quality and standards of provision at Rose Bruford College of Theatre and Performance following its review in November 2014.

A team of QAA reviewers visited Rose Bruford College and judged that its academic standards, the quality and enhancement of its student learning opportunities, and the quality of information about its learning opportunities all meet UK expectations.

The review identified a number of examples of good practice. These include the excellent arrangements for students to engage in profess

World Music - De La Soul will be the headline act at this year's Womad, the festival's organisers have announced. Other highlights at the world music festival will include Tinariwen and folk music band Bellowhead. Festival director, Chris Smith said: "I'm really excited about De La Soul, hip hop is a big thing for Womad." Last year the event sold out for the first time since it relocated from Reading in 2007 to Charlton Park near Malmesbury, Wiltshire.

Hearing Health - People should listen to music for no more than one hour a day to protect their hearing, the World He

UK - PLASA's Technical Resources Office would like to remind LSiOnline readers that the European RDM and sACN Developers Conference and Plugfest for 2015 will take place from 22-24 April, in the UK, at Gatwick Manor, London Road at Lowfield Heath, just south of Gatwick Airport.

The Developers Conference provides a European forum for manufacturers, designers, consultants and prospective users; and aims to ensure that the adoption of these new standards achieves desired levels of interoperability and reliability.

Conference sessions will cover the understanding, implementation and use

The Netherlands - At ISE 2015, software providers Stardraw.com logged a record number of visits to the stand, extremely healthy sales and to cap it all, Stardraw Design 7.1 was voted a winner in the InAVation Awards in the category of Most InAVative Integration Tool. The Stardraw Design 7 suite of design and documentation tools has already been bestowed with a Commercial Integrator BEST award in the Project Management & Design/Web software category and a Highly Commended from InAVate.

Commenting on this latest award, CEO Rob Robinson said, "It's always extremely gratifying to rec

Germany - In the installation and event technology sectors, one often has to cover long distances. Thanks to the Cardinal DVM-HDBT extender systems from Sommer Cable, customers don't need to accept any compromises regarding image and audio quality.

"With our flexible signal management and extender systems of the Cardinal DVM series customers will benefit from a stable HDMI signal transmission over max. distances of 100m. Uncompressed content can therefore be distributed using only a single cable. And this with just a regular network cable," says Peter Rieck, key account & di

UK - ABTT training co-ordinator Geoffrey Joyce, who through his creation of the ABTT Bronze Award has been instrumental in forging the career paths of many of today's working theatre technicians, was honoured at the Creative & Cultural Skills Awards 2015.

By winning The Theatre Skills Award from amongst a very strong short list, Geoff was honoured in recognition of the debt the technical theatre sector owes to him as a theatre practitioner and trainer. Through his personal conviction and resolve Geoff has established a relevant, accessible and vocational training provision for young p

UK - PSCo is holding a 'personal preview event' from 16-27 March for rental partners, system integrators and consultants to visit the PSCo Assessment Centre, to experience the latest in display screen technology.

A new development is the installation of a new DigitalMedia control system from Crestron, to deliver seamless support for all demonstrations. Catering for all trade needs, the space features five individual zones, displaying an impressive selection of solutions - and is currently the only place in the UK for the industry to compare such technologies in an independent environm

UK - The nominees for the Olivier Awards 2015 were announced this week by James McAvoy and Lesley Manville at Rosewood London. Technical nominations include:

White Light Award for Best Lighting Design - Jon Clark for King Charles III at Almeida theatre and Wyndham's theatre; Paule Constable and David Plater for Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies at Aldwych theatre; Howard Harrison for City of Angels at Donmar Warehouse; Jan Versweyveld for A View from the Bridge at Young Vic and Wyndham's theatre.

Best Sound Design - Tom Gibbons for

Eurovision Electro-Swing - Britain's entrant at this year's Eurovision Song Contest will be Electro Velvet, the BBC has announced. Consisting of Alex Larke and Bianca Nicholas, the newly formed pop duo will perform Still in Love With You in Vienna on 23 May to an estimated global audience of more than 180m viewers, in what will be the 60th Eurovision.

Larke is currently lead singer of tribute act The Rollin' Clones. Nicholas appeared in the 1999 Johnny Depp adventure Sleepy Hollow before, at 15, deciding upon a career in music. She has since duetted with Will Young, performed

South Africa - Second year students from the Department of Performing Arts Technology at The Tshwane University of Technology (TUT) visited DWR Distribution for an introduction to product training on 14 February 2015.

With a revamped syllabus, developed by Hardus Koekemoer (lighting lecturer at Department of Entertainment) and Wandile Mogodo (technical manager at the Breytenbach Theatre, the TUT training venue) this was the first time the 36 students were taken on a field trip, particularly to a lighting supplier to see the latest technology available.

"It's a matter of getting

South Africa - DWR Distribution has been appointed as the exclusive South Africa distributor for Quartzcolor and IFF.

"These products are truly standard setters within the television and film industry," said Dave Whitehouse of DWR Distribution. "The brands are synonymous with quality and will be a fantastic addition to our stable."

Quartzcolor was founded in 1954 and has since been a leading lighting brand with a strong reputation based on pioneering fproduct innovations that have now become common names and standards in the lighting industry such as Redhead, Blo

UK - A final few tickets are available for Rob Halliday's Computers in Entertainment talk tonight at the National Museum of Computing, Bletchley.

In his talk, Halliday will look at how computers moved into entertainment lighting, from pioneering systems such as Strand's IDM up to the remarkable Lightboard created for the National Theatre, which still has some tricks that the current generation of PC-based control systems in use today can't replicate. The common link across all of these systems: lighting's critical need for things to happen right now, right on the beat of the mu

UK - Star Events took a depth of infrastructure and technical expertise to Southampton for the Queen to officially name P&O Cruises' new £473m flagship, Britannia - at 143,000 tons, the biggest ship built for the British cruise market.

Subject to strict accreditation and security checks in step with the event's Royal profile, Star Events supplied a 20-20 roofed grandstand, seating 1,325 invitees, a performance stage, ground support for an LED screen and PA, as well as a tiered press platform.

The company also devised a solution for the quayside fix of the zip wire behind the b

UK - To coincide with National Apprenticeship week, Skills Minister Nick Boles has announced that hundreds more top employers have joined the government's successful Trailblazers programme to design high quality apprenticeships in everything from renewable energy to video games. Within that group are 13 PSA member employers, led by PRG UK, who have been approved to develop an apprenticeship for Live Event Technicians - a role that, according to many employers, has not been successfully catered for by current apprenticeship models.

The Trailblazer scheme will help employers decide trai

The Day the Music Died - The Music Producers Guild is backing a campaign to ensure that songwriters get a larger share of royalty income generated by digital music sales. Spearheaded by the British Association of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and entitled The Day the Music Died, this initiative will focus on the role and importance of songwriters and composers in the digital music industry. It will press for three key actions - a 50/50 split of gross digital royalty income, the removal of auto-predictive search functionality in search engines, which point people to i

UK - Entertainment Workshops (EW), the Rye-based education facility providing essential alternative education in creative media and production arts for students of school-age - has been highly commended in the Micro Business Award category of the Apprenticeships 4 England 2015 Training Provider & Apprentice Employer Awards.

Operations Manager, Paul Byrne, received the award on behalf of the Sussex charity, which was one of seven small businesses shortlisted as finalists for the category.

Also in attendance was EW employee/apprentice, Phil Smith, who recently completed his level thre

UK - On 17 March, GMG Network and Pickevent hosted a number of end clients and production managers from across the industry for a panel discussion with leading H&S advisors within the industry (Simon Garrett of X-Venture and Lee Holloway of Freeman) - covering how the impending CDM2015 legislation will affect the events.

It was agreed that this revised part of criminal law will be implemented, whether the industry likes it or not, although the PSA have put up a bold fight for the HSE to present a business case. It doesn't replace existing workplace regulations and purely seeks to deal

UK - J&C Joel, one of the world's leading manufacturers of flame retardant fabrics and flooring for the entertainment and event industries, is celebrating after being recognised as Yorkshire's best Small/Medium Exporter.

As well as picking up the award at this year's Yorkshire Business Masters awards, J&C Joel has also been 'Made in Britain' accredited, further showing its dedication to providing UK manufactured goods worldwide.

Celebrating the success and achievements of businesses operating across the region, the Yorkshire Business Masters award, organised by TheBusinessDesk.com a

Fame Academy - Sir Paul McCartney is to induct former Beatles bandmate Ringo Starr into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Starr is the last of The Beatles receive the musical honour. Sir Paul will usher in the 74-year-old at the 30th annual ceremony at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum next month. The Beatles are already in the hall as a group, as are John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison as solo artists. Other inductees will include Green Day, Lou Reed and Bill Withers.

Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, Starr said it meant "recognition" of his work.

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