Andrew Bruce, who started the Autograph group of companies from a stable in Camden 27 years ago, has announced his decision to step aside as managing director and take on the role of chairman. This will allow him to focus on his career as international sound designer and consultant. Terry Jardine, who joined the company 11 years ago, will take his place as managing director of the group. Accompanying Jardine in his new role is Duncan Bell, who has been appointed group financial director. Duncan has worked in numerous technical areas of the company over the past 15 years before becoming involved in the commercial side of the business.

Sarner International has designed and produced 'Our Finest Hour' - a 13-minute multi-sensory film depicting events of the Battle of Britain, at the RAF Museum in London. The show has been designed to incorporate the now static, but original WWII aircraft in the museum's Battle of Britain Hall. Sarner's creative director Mike Bennett said: "Our brief from the museum was to create a visitor experience that would engage visitors of all ages and backgrounds in the Battle of Britain story. Using a combination of static exhibits, digital video and 3D transition techniques, Sarner has created a multi-level interactive show that generates a more theatrical effect than simple video projection."

Mackie Designs has announced the promotion of Jay Schlabs to the position of national sales manager for all Mackie product lines, including Mackie, Mackie Digital Systems, and Mackie Industrial Contractor Products. Schlabs joined Mackie in 1994 as a technical sales trainer and in 1996 was promoted to western regional sales manager. Jay comes to the national sales manager position with an extensive background in music retail, live performance production and recording technology knowledge.

ETC Europe held a series of technical training seminars for ETC dealers in early May, covering Unison and Sensor dimmers, and Light Manager and Unison Control products. This was the second in a series of ETC Focus 2000 certification courses allowig dealers to update product and installation knowledge, enabling them to work alongside ETC as the company's services and product range continue to grow. 22 dealers from the UK, denmark, South Africa, Turkey, Iceland, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Ireland attended the three-day course at Heathrow, which was coordinated by ETC's Liz Cecil.

The Production Services Association (PSA) has announced that Her Majesty's Commission for Charity for England and Wales confirmed full charitable status for the PSA Welfare & Benevolent Fund on May 8th. The Fund is the only one in the UK live event production industry set up specifically for people working in the industry and their families, and this news means the Association's efforts to establish the Fund have been officially recognised by the Commissioners.Another excellent piece of news for the Fund is the confirmation of two new Patrons - legendary bassist Herbie Flowers and the equally legendary broadcaster John Peel. They join Founding Patron Sir Cliff Richard and his fellow Patrons Sir Sydney Samuelson CBE, Willie Robertson and Neil Warnock.

Australian company LSC Lighting Systems has just announced the release of the iPRO dimmer , following on from the launches of their ePAK, ePRO, and e24 dimmers in recent months. The iPRO features 12 amps per channel, 100% duty cycle rated operation, hard-firing of the dimmer channel and temperature-dependent fan speed. With the same core structure as the ePRO, the iPRO incorporates a unique mounting system which allows the iPRO to be bolted to a solid wall or a 19" rack frame or resting on flat surfaces such as benches, floors or table tops. Utilising the same user interface as other LSC dimmers, the iPRO dimmer provides quick set up of the DMX512 address, individual drive control over any channel, scene storage and a choice of a six fade curves per dimmer channel. Five models are available offering a choice between 12 channels of 12 Amps, 6 channels of 25 Amps and a choice of output connectors. The iPRO is due to commence shipping at the end of June 2000.

Lee Frankcom has joined the Coe-Tech sales team. Frankcom, one of the rock and roll industry's most colourful characters, originally launched his lighting career at the immortal Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. Since then he's made his way made through a plethora of top lighting rental and production companies before becoming concert touring guru at Vari-Lite Europe/VLPS. Recent Coe-Tech projects have included the supply of Coemar lighting fixtures, via Lumenation to NMEC Lighting for the Millennium Dome and to top UK rental house Neg Earth Lights for the acclaimed Ben Harper European Tour. Soon to be available in the UK are the much talked about Coemar CF7 HE and WZ spot and wash zoom lighting fixtures.

At the TiLE (Trends in Leisure and Entertainment) show in London this week, advanced graphics specialist SGI claimed it has made a significant development in image realism for the interactive entertainment market, with the launch of the InfiniteReality3 (IR3) graphics engine for the Silicon Graphics Onyx2 visualisation workstation. Onyx2 InfiniteReality3 provides a powerful image generation system for immersive, real-time 3D graphic experiences. The solution will be used for planetariums, heritage visualisation and science centres to create multi-channel virtual environments where groups of users can interact directly with seemingly realistic surroundings. Onxy2 InfiniteReality3 handles high-resolution images using 256MB texture memory and improved texture mapping techniques. This, says SGI, will yield a four-fold increase in image quality over the previous-generation InfiniteReality2 (IR2).

Imagination provided a remarkable lighting display to launch Tate Modern. From dusk on the evening of May 11th, state of the art lamp and laser technology began to pick out architectural features on the north facade. A gradual building of light and lasers culminated in a light show at 10.30pm. Full report June L&SI.

Sound and lighting company CAV has supplied the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency, (DERA), with a Crown-powered Nexo Alpha speaker system which was used to run a series of acoustic propagation tests for the Ministry of Defence. CAV supplied four Alpha S2 subs, eight M3 mid-high packs and eight B1 bass bins which were arrayed eight wide and three deep around a specially-constructed drum, which was laid on its back to fire up into the air. The system was powered by two digitally-controlled racks, each with a Nexo NX241 digital controller, two Crown Ma-3600 VZ and two MA-5000 VZ amplifiers. A number of sensitive B&K 4188 microphones were suspended over the array to record and plot the results for analysis. DERA project scientist Tim Williams explained in more detail. "We set the system up on the runway at Pershore airfield in the Malverns, which is now an official DERA test site, to use the PA as a sound source in order to find out how far sound propagates down the runway. We then put that information into a computer model for propagation, so that when we come to perform tests on the real thing (which I can't discuss for obvious reasons) we¹ll have an accurate model as to how far the sound will travel."

John Eeles has joined Chameleon Audio Ltd of Cinderford, Gloucestershire, in a market development role to promote sales of the full Chameleon product lineup, and especially the new ultra compact, lightweight D777 pro audio amplifier. His experience covers all aspects of live and studio sound facilities. He started in the music business as a pro musician, moving into sound production to support many leading artists. He is still involved, through his own company Spadger, in all aspects of production for music festivals from the Shetlands to Jersey.

Commercial amplifier manufacturer Inter-M and its UK distributor, CIE Audio, are sponsoring a charity bid by Sandra Lee to trek across Alaska. The seven-day trek aims to raise money for SENSE - the national deafblind charity. CIE's Chris Edwards said: "The aim of Sandra's challenge is to benefit some of the UK's 23,000 deafblind people and their families and carers.

Martin Professional's Exterior 600 luminaires are being used to provide colourful illumination on one of England's finest windmills - the Cranbrook Union Windmill in Kent. Built in 1814, the windmill is now owned by Kent County Council. Following the award of a National Lottery grant for refurbishment of the windmill, the Council chose the Exterior 600s after a successful trial in April.

After many months of merger talks, the Boards of Luminar and Northern Leisure have made a recommended offer of one new Luminar share for every four Northern Leisure shares, it was announced yesterday. The acquisition of Northern Leisure will make Luminar the leading operator in the theme bar, restaurant and discotheque markets, with 237 venues serving around 600,000 customers each week. Luminar is the owner of the world-famous Camden Palace and London Hippodrome nightclubs, as well as the Chicago Rock Cafe, Rhythm Room, Liquid and Jumpin' Jaks brands. The group will be valued at £585m.Five Northern Leisure executive directors will be appointed to the Luminar Board. Luminar chairman Michael Arnold commented: "There is an excellent strategic fit between the two businesses, and I am convinced that the Luminar management team, strengthened by our new colleagues, will ensure the success of this exciting opportunity to enhance shareholder value."

JBL Professional/Harman Professional's projects group has appointed Rod Falconer as marketing manager, with responsibility for developing communication between the JBL/Harman projects group and end-users. Prior to this appointment, Falconer worked for AMX Corporation in Dallas, and before that for Lone Wolf Corporation in Seattle. At the same time, the company has announced the appointment of Brad Ricks as systems integration specialist. In this role, Ricks will provide large project coordination and design assistance for systems contractors.

Tele Denmark Satellite & Broadcast (owned by Ameritec) has purchased 30 ADDA 2402 audio converters from Digital Audio Denmark. The Digital Audio Denmark ADDA 2402, 24-bit 96kHz A/D, D/A, D/D converter, has been selected by Tele Denmark in a project for getting the second national Danish TV channel DR2 distributed via the Terrestrial TV network. A total of 30 ADDA 2402s are used on different transmitter sites to convert the digital audio signal from the satellite receiver, and for feeding the analogue audio signal to the UHF transmitter system.

Des Fallon has joined the fast-moving and rapidly-expanding team at Nocturne Europe as sales manager. From June 1st, he will be working alongside his old colleagues Chris Mounsor, Lee Spencer and Richard Burford. Fallon worked for the last six years supplying video systems to the music industry. His technical knowledge and communication skills have been instrumental in helping to establish touring video as a live music production genre in its own right - along with sound and lighting. He has handled accounts for artists such as Blur, Pulp and Robbie Williams.

As part of its family of IR transmitters for conference and associated communications applications, Auditel has introduced a new range of compact 4- and 8-channel models. Aimed at situations requiring simultaneous interpretation facilities, the new models - the TVR-4X and TVR-8X - can be rack-mounted or free-standing as required. Features include a test emitter diode enabling the operator to test or monitor language transmissions during simultaneous interpretation broadcasts, tape recorder output, headphone monitoring and individual channel switches.

Vertigo Rigging was called in to rig three cars to set the scene for a recent Formula One gala dinner at the Dorchester Hotel in London. The event celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Formula One World Drivers Championship. The idea was to create a roller coaster effect with the vehicles at varying angles. With rigging time very tight, Vertigo used as much stock equipment as possible. The framework was made from Vertigo's stock of truss, with the addition of some specially-made header plates to create the pitch of the cars, which were then lifted onto Vertigo's adjustable car cradle, placed in position and anchored to the truss. The operation was overseen by Vertigo's Tim Roberts. The three cars were a red 1950s Maserati Formula One car (worth over £1m) from the private collection of Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, last year's World Championship McLaren, driven to victory by Mika Hakkinen, and a new Jaguar XKR production model, auctioned during the dinner for upwards of £75,000. The event organiser was Fisher Productions and the display designer was Terry Brown.

South Korea's LG Corporation recently built a state-of-the-art performing arts centre to enhance its corporate headquarters in Seoul, based around ETC lighting, dimming and control equipment. The Centre is run by the non-profit arm of the $73b LG Business Group, which makes and sells almost everything, from electronics to fashions and financial services. Inside the high rise glass walls of the Centre is a 1,100-seat auditorium, a large rehearsal space and three exhibition halls, as well as dressing rooms and office space. LG Arts installed an Obsession II 1500 Double Processor console, 10 Sensor dimmer racks with a total of 831 dimmers, a custom Unison architectural lighting system and over 400 Source Four and Source Four Zoom spotlights.

The 2000 PLASA Show (10-13 September, Earls Court, London) will include a number of new features this year. As a direct result of the Exhibitor's Forum working group which was set up following PLASA 99, the show hours are this year being extended to run from 10am - 6pm on the Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, and 10am - 5pm on the Wednesday. Another new feature for 2000 is the Technology Gallery, in which visitors will be able to view the latest new product developments prior to the PLASA Awards on the Wednesday morning. The TILE Zone seminar will offer specifiers in the amusements and attractions market a platform for up to the minute discussion and debate.PLASA's MD Matthew Griffiths commented: "With 13,254 ABC-audited visitors at the show last year - 3,224 of which came from overseas - our prime objective for 2000 is to continue the show's development and growth. One of our key aims for 2000 is to build the show's appeal to new markets - the architectural and building services, corporate presentations and the amusements and attractions markets - while continuing to develop the show's strength in core markets."

Strand Lighting and Futurist are holding an exclusive VIP product showcase on Tuesday 13 June at the Bradford Alhambra Studio Theatre, intended to bring stage, studio and architectural lighting personnel up to date with the latest Strand products. The main feature of the show will be the new Strand 300 series of consoles. Invitations can be obtained by contacting Futurist on +44 1924 468183 or sales@futurist.co.uk

Midnight Design has recently opened a new design and sales office next to Euston Station in London. The office, now home to 15 members of the Midnight team, the permanent lighting design and Logistics crew, plus the entire sales and senior management contingent, features a substantial presentation suite and state-of-the-art CAD facilities. It will also meet the needs of Midnight's ever-increasing number of projects, both in the UK and internationally. "Every office desk is permanently linked via high-speed Intranet to our warehouse in Croydon," explains business development manager Damian Dowling. "From there we can access the wider resources and international equipment inventory of our parent company PRG."

The International Association of lighting Designers (IALD) will tomorrow award six aspiring architectural lighting design students from around the world with a total of $10,000 in scholarships and cash at the 17th annual Lighting Design Awards, held in New York. The lucky six are Tuuli Somma from Helsinki, Finland; Emily Emerson from Easton, Kansas; Swapna Sundaram from New Delhi, India; Brad Koerner from Boston, Massachusetts; Sandra Loren Park from Glendale, California and Paul Wraa of Pleasant Hill, California. The money is raised by the IALD Education Trust Fund Grant and Scholarship Committee.