The latest of Carnegie Leisure's Babylon nightclubs, in Ayr, has been installed with Geni lighting. Glasgow-based Starstruck Professional Sound & Light undertook the installation, and contacted Lamba, exclusive UK distributors of Geni products, for the lighting effects they needed. The equipment includes eight Geni Shiva HSD-200 scanners, four Geni FL2000D DMX strobes, 44 ignitor tubes and four DMX-1s. Other equipment supplied by Lamba includes a KAM KCD960 for CD mixing and Stanton 680AL cartridges.

The SuperStructure from the Pure Group is a new mobile venue, designed to the highest construction standards and developed by the Group to provide another link in the chain of the Total Production Solution offered by the Company. The SuperStructure measures 65 metres long by 14 metres wide and features 14 styled arches, each with a uniformly distributed weight loading of two tonnes - more equivalent to a permanent venue specification. There is 8.5 metres of headroom at the top of the arches which have 4.8 metre centres - again far more than you'd normally expect in a tented structure. The Group turned to the engineering and design skills of James Thomas Engineering to construct the arched roof framework for the new venue. The result is the first such arched outdoor roofing system that Thomas has built.

Laser Grafix recently spiced up the official opening of the 400-seater Shere Khan restaurant at the Trafford Centre in Manchester with their Monumental Slide Projection service. The ceiling of the Orient complex of the Trafford Centre had the new Shere Khan corporate image projected on it, along with images of poppadoms and curries.

Paul Kinsey, deputy director of operations at First Leisure has led a management buy-out of the Group's nightclub and bars division. The £210.5million asking price was reached with a little help from investment company Candover, also recently involved in the acquisition of Earls Court Exhibition Centre. The division includes just over 60 clubs and themed venues.

Stagetec has just completed the supply and installation of a complete new sound and lighting system for Sir Thomas Picton School, Haverfordwest. The sound system is to be used for everything from school assemblies to rock concerts and consists of two pairs of Martin Audio EM186 speakers for the main seating area and a pair of Martin Audio EM76 speakers for the balcony. Foldback was provided by a pair of Renkus-Heinz Qube 12s whilst the sound system is processed utilising a BSS Soundweb enabling the system to be fully commissioned and then left to run with no user controls. A complete new lighting installation was carried out including new lighting bars, socket outlet boxes and a cord patch unit incorporating six Light Processor Paradime dimmer packs controlled from a Compulite Photon lighting desk with riggers control. The existing luminaire stock was refurbished and additional units were supplied consisting of Selecon Pacific profile spots, CCT Freedom fresnels and ADB floods.

FX rentals recently helped producer Tristin Norwell (producer of Talvin Singh's Mercury Award-winning album 'OK') when he wanted to convert a Gloucestershire manor house into an impromptu recording facility. The company provided a rental package based around a Studer A827 analogue two-inch 24-track tape machine running with Dolby A, 32-channel and 24-channel Mackie mixing desks, Munro MA1 monitors and an extensive range of mixing equipment. The facility was used for the recording of Embrace's new album.

Busch Creative Services designed and produced the main exhibit displays at the 50,000sq.ft Spirit of Ford Tour Center, which opened in Dearborn, Missouri, earlier this year. One of the requirements was to create a large-scale animated display for the centre atrium of the building, which would be effective in high ambient light. The company opted for a 53ft by 8ft Electrosonic videowall, fed by DVD players, and consisting of 80 40-inch projection cubes. The Electrosonic videowall was chosen for its bright output and flexible programming options.

The rapidly-expanding Fiddlers Pub Company has recently installed Xtra Music satellite systems into six of its premises in North London. Fiddlers' John Tann said: "We are a very cosmopolitan chain, and the music we play in our venues needs to match that feel. Having 80 channels of uninterrupted digital music allows us to change the mood of our outlets quickly and seamlessly, and offers incredible value for money when compared to alternative systems."Xtra Music's system provides 80 channels of continuous CD quality stereo music, with the benefits of no commercials, no DJs, no interruptions, no moving parts and no playback media.

C Audio amplification has been installed at Fantasy Island, Europe's biggest indoor amusement park, situated in Ingoldmells near Skegness. The units are used to power the loudspeaker system within the live entertainment area from late afternoon and throughout the evening. The need for powerful sound reinforcement is clear, as the stage itself is housed within the huge glass pyramid structure of the park, together with the background noise associated with a myriad of fairground rides.Fantasy Island's Tufty Gordon turned to Rob Walker of Blacklight International, whose experience of this type of installation was already known to him. He specified four JBL 300W full-range cabinets with two 600W sub-bass units, to be powered by two C Audio GB 602 amplifiers, all purchased through Arbiter Group plc.

The drama department of Queen Margaret University College recently moved into the refurbished Gateway Theatre at Scotland's International Drama Centre. Edinburgh-based GB Audio were asked to design a radio production facility which could also operate as a basic recording studio. GB Audio's Chief Designer, Graham Bodenham, and QMUC's subject leader in lighting and sound, George Tarbuck, came up with a system based around a Yamaha EMX2000 mixing desk. This provides a comprehensive control surface for microphones, instruments, stereo line inputs and talkback, plus a host of outputs to run control room monitors, studio playback monitors, two headphone circuits, tape routing and master output logging.Wall-mounted Denon SCM5K mini monitors are used in the control room with Tascam MD801 minidisc machines, Revox B77s, microphones and headphones by Audio-Technica. ATM multicores connect the studio and control room via simple patch panels.

London-based Lighting Technology Projects were the specialist lighting supplier and installer for the Olympic Spirit Sports Museum, a recently-opened themed attraction in Munich, Germany. The attraction has a dedicated area for each of 33 Olympic sports. A distributed DMX control network was installed, with the dimmers for each area located within the sport experience zone. The majority of the zones also included complex audio-visual displays that interfaced with the lighting.A GrandMaster Flash PC-based system from Artistic Licence was selected for control, as it enables each zone to be treated as an individual light show, while also allowing overall control when required, such as special events, for example. Specially-manufactured three-circuit lighting track recessed into 48mm diameter tubes were used around all of the zones to allow flexibility in the positioning of the luminaires for the lighting consultant, as well as for ease of installation. The venue designer was Event Design Services, and the lighting consultant was Malcolm Innes of Jonathan Spiers & Associates.

ETC's Australian distributor, Jands Electronics, has announced that the Queensland Art Gallery has replaced its total architectural lighting control system with ETC's new Unison system, controlling 26 racks of HP6 wall-mount dimmers. The system was sold through the Production Shop, and installed by O'Donnell Griffin. Lighting levels are critical in the gallery, especially where photographs and works on paper are concerned, as levels above 50 lux can be damaging. The new Unison system ensures that lighting levels meet the correct conservation standards in all the Gallery's exhibition spaces. The control rack houses a central processor with battery back-up memory for storage, and a floppy disk drive. The rack provides network connection to wall stations, PCs for on-line control, and other Unison racks with output via a single DMX512 data system. A DMX512 input is also provided with powerful supporting programming options.

LMC Audio has supplied a multiple Soundweb package to Home, Big Beat's new seven-storey nightclub in London's Leicester Square. The programmable DSP system is at the heart of the multi-zone sound system, and includes 12 Soundweb 9088 boxes, three 9000 Mk II hubs and three 9010 'Jellyfish' remote controllers. The system was designed by BSS Audio's Matthew Bate, with LMC Audio's London sales manager, Ian Woodall, in conjunction with Home's technical manager, Andy Kayll. Of the seven floors at Home, the only level not directly under Soundweb control is the third floor. This features the Steve Dash Phazon system, where, as at Cream in Liverpool, all the processing is managed and stored in a BSS Omnidrive, which is fed by Soundweb.

Installation of some 250 Selecon luminaires has begun at the Tallinn City Theatre in Estonia bringing to life the performance venues in this complex of fifteenth-century buildings which house eight different stages. The Hell Stage, opened in November 1997 and acknowledged as the most unusual stage in the Tallinn City Theatre, was the first performance site to benefit from the choice of Selecon fittings. Originally planned as an understage, this vast irregular-shaped hall lies six metres underground, hence the name. Aboveground, is the Heaven Stage which is due to open in December.

London's latest high profile venue, The Loop in the capital's West End, features an all-JBL sound system, with the equipment line-up reading like a wish-list from the company's extensive range. Project manager Ed Manwaring of Music Marketing Services Ltd who installed the system specified the JBL system. Coverage for the Dance Floor is provided by two VS3115 3-way loudspeaker systems and VS125HS low frequency speaker systems from JBL's Venue Series, together with six Sound Power SP212-9 2-way full range loudspeakers. A pair of EON 15P powered loudspeakers are used for monitoring. JBL Control 25s provide background music for the restaurant, with eight Marquis MS28s used in the Basement Bar. The Upper Bar is served by six Control 28s and this area is also the location for the amp-racks comprising six MPX600 and seven MPX1200 amplifiers, again from JBL.

The papers have been full of the trials and tribulations of Sheffield's National Centre for Popular Music. The £15 million pound project has run up debts of over £1million since it first opened in March this year (see L&SI March 99). Things didn't look too good for the Centre recently, but following a creditors meeting this week, its future has been safeguarded by the 200 creditors agreeing to a package offering just a tenth of what they are owed. The Centre has failed to attract the visitors levels anticipated and has also suffered staff cutbacks.

A new night club has recently been added to the London club scene which boasts a highly sophisticated lighting and sound system. Supplied and installed by Audio Tek of Dublin, the audio system is based around JBL Venue Series speakers MPX amplifiers. The largest dance floor has the most impressive system with almost 30,000W of amplification and a calculated maximum SPL in excess of 148dB. A major crowd-pleaser, and a first for the UK, is the installation of a 'body-sonic' dance floor where bass drivers mounted in a cavity below the dance floor make it vibrate with low frequency sound.

The three original venues of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) in Brisbane, have undergone an extensive lighting overhaul. The 2,000-seat Lyric Theatre, the 2000-seat Concert Hall and the 320-seat Cremorne Theatre opened in 1985 and, together with the 850-seat Optus Playhouse, now form the largest installation of ETC lighting and control systems in Australia. The Cremorne uses one of two Express 250 consoles purchased for QPAC's two new rehearsal studios, but will inherit an Obsession II from the Lyric when it is replaced by an Obsession II 1500. The Concert Hall uses two Express 72/144 desks, while the 850-seat Optus Playhouse boasts an Obsession II 1500 channel desk with full tracking back-up, as well as the largest installation of ETC Source Fours in Australia, with 457 Source Fours and 20 Source Four Pars.

Miss Saigon closes at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane on October 30th following a record-breaking run of more than 10 years. White Light have been with the show from the very beginning, supplying David Hersey's complex and ambitious rig and then supporting and updating it through the years. The original rig included one of the earliest uses of the now-ubiquitous Rainbow scrollers along with 110 CCT Silhouettes, 80 Par cans, 12 R&V beamlights and over 110 Coda floods of various types, as well as classic lanterns such as Patt 264s and Patt 23s used to dress the club scenes. Control for the rig was from the theatre's Galaxy 2 console for the length of the run. Miss Saigon also saw the first use of a colour-changing version of the motorised light curtain earlier used on Les Misérables - an effect achieved using a then-newly developed Rainbow light curtain scroller.

Los Angeles-based UV/FX has produced a new scenic design for Rick's Place nightclub in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with the help of their new Day to Night and 3D scenic painting technique. The painting was completed by UV/FX's creative director Kent Mathieu and lead scenic artist Rhett Butler (yes, really) in two weeks on-site. The effect produced is of a rain forest with a 'day' appearance under normal light and a 'night' appearance under ultra violet light. This is coupled with a 3D effect, and 3D glasses are distributed to customers to provide the full experience.

Cardiff-based Theatre Vision are busy supplying equipment to a number of key projects surrounding the Rugby World Cup in October and November. The largest of these has been the World Cup supporters Village in Bute Park, a 2,500 capacity venue with a large Megascreen LED screen, a music stage and a 100ft bar. Theatre Vision supplied all mains distribution to the massive site for catering, show, site LX, heating and many other elements. The main stage lighting, designed by Tim Routledge, is suspended on a Slick ground support tower system comprising three large goal posts wrapped in drapes, with the screen providing the focus on the event. The rig consists mainly of Martin's Mac 600 and 500 luminaires, with some generics. As a special feature, a number of Mac 'chandeliers' were constructed, with Mac 250 and 300 moving lights mounted on Trilite truss shapes.

St. George's, Brandon Hill, is a well-established Chamber Concert hall, created in the shell of a disused church. In recent months it has undergone substantial renovation in a phased programme, of which Phase I is now complete, and has involved primarily the securing of the external fabric. Stagetec were awarded the sub-contract to design, supply and install new stage lighting, sound and communications systems in association with theatre consultants Carr & Angier. The luminaires utilised to fulfil the specification were the Selecon Pacific cool beam profile spots (Acclaim PCs and Profiles) and the ETC Source Four MCM PAR. The Pacifics and Acclaims provided the front light and the Source Fours the down light over the stage area. The Source Fours were controlled from individual CCT Freedom dimmers and the remaining luminaires from Light Processor Paradime hardwired dimmer packs. A Compulite Photon lighting desk provides the main control system complete with riggers control and DMX splitter. The existing Lightolier houselight control system was refurbished and integrated into the new installation. The contract also included a PA system which had to be discrete and not interfere with the architecture of the building - to this end RCF column speakers were distributed around the building.

The Athlone Stadium in South Africa's Western Cape province has been chosen to be the regional home of soccer, and will receive a 49m Rand (£4.85m) upgrade. The first phase of the project (12m Rand - £1.18m) will see the replacement of the stadium's floodlighting system. The second phase will involve the upgrading of the existing west stand and the construction of an open east stand. The new west stand will have 14 private boxes, VIP seating, adjoining recreational space and players' facilities to meet FIFA standards. Construction of the first phase is due to be completed by April or May 2000.

Contact: Mr Saleem Mowzer, Cape Town City Council, Exco Committee Chairperson, PO Box 298, Cape Town, South Africa 8000. T: +27 21 400 1111 F: +27 21 418 6036

Nashville's new Outer Limit club is something of a hybrid venue. Within the complex, situated on the outskirts of Music City, are four different club venues: Coconuts has a South Pacific feel complete with Adirondack chairs, palm trees, tiki huts and a waterfall on stage, Hysteria has a Kiss-style multi-level stage with a large lighting rig, outfitted in diamond plating with a neon dance floor, Lava Lair has a gothic feel to it, including cast iron gates and a 30-foot long plaster dragon and erupting volcano, whilst Neptunes, as one might expect, comes complete with pirate ship and open seas. The one thing these venues have in common is that each of their unique sounds are heard thanks to Electro-Voice speaker systems. Dan (Tracey) Castonguay, the Outer Limit's sound designer spec'd the system which includes 22 Electro-Voice Sx80 compact fill speakers. Coconuts has two T55 top boxes, two Sb180 subs, one PSX2000 mixer and one R Series wireless system. Hysteria includes four MTL-1 Dual 18-inch subs, four MTH-1 top boxes, four Sx500 dance fill speakers, and one R Series wireless system. Lava Lair" hosts six MTL-1 Dual 18-inch subs, six Sx500 top boxes and one R Series wireless system. Neptunes has four MTL-1 Dual 18-inch subs, four Sx500 top boxes, and one R Series wireless system.