UK - The Roland V-1600HD Multi Format Live Video Switcher was recently chosen by Digital Insanity as graphics switcher for the main stage at T4 On The Beach, a one day music festival which is held every July on the beach at Weston Super Mare.

T4 On The Beach is hosted by and televised for Channel 4 and consists of a number of contemporary pop and rock acts performing live in front of an audience of 50,000 people.

Digital Insanity, a video solutions provider specialising in content creation and show operation has been providing the video graphics for the event since 2005 - the first

South Africa - Green Hippo's Tom Etra is making his way southbound and will be joining distributor Tadco at the Mediatech tradeshow in Johannesburg's Coca Cola Dome.

Mediatech is the continent's largest media and entertainment technology tradeshow and will see exhibitors and visitors from a wide variety of sectors including pro AV, Staging, Rigging and Lighting as well as Broadcast, Film and Production.

"This is a great opportunity to show South Africa what Green Hippo products have to offer. Tadco are making huge strides into the video market and it is exciting to be part of t

World - After debuting with Celine Dion (Taking Chances World Tour 2009), Britney Spears (The Circus World Tour 2009), Kylie Minogue (US tour 2010), Microsoft (Kinect CDS launch 2010) and Victoria's Secret (2010), the MDG theONE atmospheric generator has completed another international assignment with Kylie Minogue's Aphrodite - Les Folies World Tour 2011, which draws to a conclusion in South Africa this week.

Four of the TheONE generators have accompanied Miss Minogue across 28 countries, augmented by four MDG Ice Fog QTM Low Lying Fog Generators, to produce the

International - There are just 10 days remaining to make your nomination for the 2011 Gottelier Award.

When the Nomination phase closes on Friday 29 July, the shortlist will be announced and voting - open to PLASA Members, as well as PLASA Show Exhibitors and Pre-Registered Visitors - will begin on Monday 1 August.

This prestigious award is presented each year during the PLASA Show to someone who has made "a significant and sustained contributions to the advancement of entertainment, presentation or installation technology - whether in audio, lighting, rigging, staging, or any

Theatres at Risk - The Theatres Trust has called on local communities to fight to save theatre buildings which are at risk. Some 58 UK buildings are on the trust's 2011 'at risk' register, with the Brighton Astoria and London's Cochrane Theatre among those facing demolition. It said it hoped legislation, including the new Localism Bill, would empower groups and individuals to "take on the guardianship of theatres at risk".

Theatres in Wallsend, Alsager, Ayr and Glasgow were all recently demolished. The at risk register also features theatres threatened by neglect, local deve

Europe - Producers and re-mixers Jas Shaw and James Ford have been making a name for themselves as Simian Mobile Disco for the past six years. The DJ duo from London produce mostly analogue, techno, dance, and electro house music and have released various albums since 2005 with their own music and a range of remixes.

This summer sees them touring Europe and the UK to perform at numerous festivals including Rockness, Scotland and Pohoda, Slovakia.

Working on their production, lighting designer David Cohen of Sauce Design created an inspired structure using 181 Barco 340mm MiStrip LED

Retop will show the latest in its range of cutting-edge LED displays in the shape of its new 12.5mm mesh product. Specially developed for the indoor and outdoor rental and staging markets, the IP65-rated product measures 400mm X 400mm and weighs in at just 3.5kg.

The company says it has invested in a fully automated encapsulation robot to manufacture the mesh, which is designed to be transparent, light in weight, and easy to build up and break down.

Off-axis viewing is cited as 140? (horizontal and vertical). The company adds: "With its hanging brackets and plug and play connectors fo

USA / China - Strengthening the representation of its Elan, Niles, Xantech, and Aton brands throughout China and Taiwan, The AVC Group has announced the appointment of CAS Group, formerly Xantech China, to serve as its exclusive distributor in the region. The announcement was made by Mark Terry, president of The AVC Group, who said that CAS Group will now work closely with Claude Sabourin, international sales manager, Asia at The AVC Group.

"Cliff Wong and his team of proven professionals at the CAS Group have what it takes to bring our brands to the next level of success in Chin

UK - Lighting&Sound International magazine is now available in app form - Get access to the latest digital edition as well as our huge archive with LSi-View!

Readers can download the free app from Apple's App Store and browse the magazine on their iPhone or iPad, wherever they are.

LSi-View not only allows you to flick through the latest digital edition of the magazine (as well as our archive of back issues), you are also able to download useful or favourite issues or articles for future r

UK - Production AV fielded the largest temporary Christie MicroTiles display ever at the recent Goodwood Festival of Speed - configured in a highly original design.

Working for Twofour Digital, the Gloucester-based AV specialists commandeered no fewer than 270 tiles, configured in a giant concave 30 x 9 display to help car manufacturer Audi showcase its entire range.

Production AV were brought in by Central Presentations, to whom they had earlier demonstrated MicroTiles. The latter, in turn, introduced Twofour Digital and Audi to the technology when they were looking for a jaw-dropp

Europe - XL Video Group Holdings has secured major new investment for the XL Group representing 19m Euros.

Gimv-XL, an independent European investment company with over 30 years experience in private equity and venture capital projects is listed on Euronext Brussels. It has taken up this opportunity of becoming a new shareholder in the XL Video Group, which includes XL's global video rental enterprises and also its LED and product design and manufacturing arm, XL Technologies.

Says XL's CEO and co-founder René De Keijzer, "We are all very enthusiastic about the new partn

DYMO will show the latest in its Rhino industrial range of handheld labelling machines at PLASA 2011. Designed specifically for every application in datacom, IT, pro AV and other industrial environments, the labelling tools' features include hot key technology to make the job both fast and easy.

The company cites benefits including performing labelling jobs with 77% fewer keystrokes than the competition, hot keys to eliminate guesswork, quick formatting of common labels, a pre-programmed library of terms and symbols, memory storage for up to 1,000 custom labels, quality craftsmanship and int

UK - West London-based lighting rental company Colour Sound Experiment supplied site wide lighting, projection and AV for the Secret Garden Party festival - one of the UK's original 'boutique' style events, a celebration of music, arts, creativity and expressive fun. A cast of thousands is encouraged to engage with ideas and dreams for four days of imaginative freedom in a secret garden location in East Anglia near Huntingdon.

It was the first time that Colour Sound has worked for the event, and it was also the first outing for Colour Sound's new BT12 12 mm pitch LED screen, a new lig

UK - Systems integrator IVC Media, has announced that it has completed the installation of a video conference and IPTV system to help improve services for the charity Help for Heroes (H4H). As part of the deal, IVC worked to supply discounted equipment and arranged advantageous terms from suppliers and manufactures for the installation at the personal recovery and assessment centre for wounded servicemen and women at Tedworth House in Wiltshire.

H4H leases Tedworth House and is currently carrying out a £17m renovation project that will see the first group of personnel using it t

UK - Pixled will launch its new F-9 LED surface at the 2011 PLASA Light & Sound show at London's Earls Court Exhibition Centre in September.

This capitalises on the "phenomenal success" of the fully flexible - bends both ways - Pixled F-6 surface that was launched at last year's PLASA.

The design and architecture for the 9mm pitch F-9 features all the same dynamic characteristics that have proved so popular with the F-6 - high resolution, light weight, very easy to build and set up, curvable in both directions - both concave and convex.

F-6 and F-9 modules can be mixed a

USA - The Styx/Yes 2011 summer tour features a wall of creative content displayed on a new high resolution LED video screen supplied by Pete's Big TVs.

"It is a nice lighting rig, but the LED screen is visually the whole show," said Pete's Big TVs President Peter Daniel.

The 22-city Progressive U.S. Tour features a 12.5ft high by 48ft wide LED screen made up of 230 Elation EPV15 flex LED panels. Daniel was instrumental in the manufacturing of the 15mm flex panels. Seeking higher resolution, Daniel approached Elation about cutting the size of the 19mm flex panels to

UK - The regional office of property management company CB Richard Ellis has recently purchased a PlasmaRiser 42, manufactured by Birmingham based Audio Visual company DARE Professional Audio.

PlasmaRiser is a portable audio visual presentation system, that fully encloses the screen until a simple button is pressed and the screen rises from the housing.

The PlasmaRiser is to be utilised within a newly refurbished suite of offices at the regional HQ of CBRE. It will be used for meetings, customer and project presentations and video conferencing. PlasmaRiser is a simple plug and play

UK - Saville Audio Visual provided a spectacular Ganges backdrop for an Indian wedding in Whites Hotel at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton. The projected skyline image - over 105ft wide - was delivered by a single 18,000 lumen Christie Roadster projector. A second projector flown from the lighting truss produced an interactive fish pool effect on the dance floor.

The event was designed by Dianne Lynn from The Event Co in Mobberley, Cheshire with Saville providing the stage sets, lighting design and audio technology, including a full d&b line array. The backdrop image was created in-house

UK - The team behind the UK's National Student Drama Festival are seeking entries and support for the first ever International Student Drama Festival, which will take place next year from the 22-30 June in the UK.

The NSDF12 - ISDF - being presented in conjunction with Sheffield Theatres, RSC, LIFT, The Old Vic Tunnels and Menier Chocolate Factory - will feature a nine-day celebration of young people's theatre featuring the best of British work alongside exceptional student productions from across the world.

The Festival is an opportunity for young people to come together and presen

UK - InfoComm International will continue its programme of support for the UK's AV rental and staging community when it hosts a range of education sessions at this year's PLASA show next month.

The sessions will take place at London's Earl's Court on Monday 12 and Tuesday 13 September. They will be led by Andre LeJeune, CTS, InfoComm's rental & staging staff instructor, who has more than 30 years' experience of staging and presentation and has been responsible for many large-scale productions for corporate clients around the world.

Topics covered will include 'Lighting for Video in

USA - PLASA Events has announced its first ever PLASA Focus: Tech, a three-day audio/video/lighting workshop and live concert to be held 20-22 February 2012 alongside the recently announced PLASA Focus: Austin 2012 event.

PLASA Focus: Tech will bring together industry experts Richard Cadena (Automated Lighting: The Art and Science of Moving Light), Brad Schiller (The Automated Lighting Programmer's Handbook), Chad Yeary of Portal Designs, Damon Lang of Nomad Sound, and Coolux USA for a hands-on learning programme.

The workshop will include a lighting track with design,

UK - Jodrell Bank, home of the famous Lovell radio telescope, has given visitors another reason to visit following the recent upgrade and expansion of its Discovery Centre. Electrosonic installed the audio-visual and interactive elements of the exhibits under subcontract to fit-out contractors, The Moule Partnership.

Part of the University of Manchester, the Discovery Centre works alongside the Observatory to educate visitors about the research and the live science that is carried out by the Jodrell Bank team. The new £3m project includes a new entrance building, the Planet Pavi

UK - "Once again Hippotizer played its role beautifully. It never fails to deliver what we need across a wide range of applications we throw at it," remarked Digital Insanity's Richard Bagshaw after completing the first ever Transmission 001 event at Jodrell Bank.

The festival took place on Saturday 2 July at the new Jodrell Bank Discovery centre in Cheshire and saw a crowd of 5000 turn up to enjoy the music, headlined by the Flaming Lips, and a three-minute projection piece on the Lovell Telescope, especially created for this pilot festival, which was to be highlight

Rose Bruford College will be featuring its two innovative new programmes in Performance Sound and Creative Lighting Control. These three-year BA programmes are unique in Higher Education, and with two year's of graduates working in the industry, says the college, they are already making their mark.

BA (Hons) Performance Sound reflects the growing importance of sound in every field of performance - from theatre to music concerts, from sports events to dance, and from site-specific installation to radio drama. The programme combines sound design, technology and operation, with a strong emphasi

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