Nominations are open through November 2 for USITT's 2009 Rising Star Award, sponsored and created by LDI2009/Live Design. Online nominations may be made here.

The Rising Star Award recognizes young professionals in the first four years of their careers for artistic excellence in the areas of lighting, sound, scenic, and projection design or the convergence of design disciplines. A recipient must be in the first four years of professional (non-academic) work following the completion of his or her highest degree.

USITT members should nominate young professionals for this award. Nominees will be contacted by USITT and asked to electronically supply a professional resume, one or two letters of support, an application, and no more than eight representative examples of their work.

The 2009 Rising Star Award winner will receive $1,000, a one-year individual membership to USITT, and a complimentary registration for the 2010 Annual Conference & Stage Expo. Contact the USITT Office at 800-938-7488 ext. 101 or info@office.usitt.org for assistance.

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Applications are due December 8 for USITT’s 2010 Individual/Professional International Travel Award. The application process opens October 1. The International Committee sponsors two awards for international travel with support from the Samuel H. Scripps International Fund and, in 2010, Individual/Professional members are invited to apply.

The Institute supports and encourages enhanced global interactions through participation in OISTAT programs, the Prague Quadrennial, and invites international presenters to share their perspectives in conference programming. This award facilitates international connections and understanding through theatre-related research or activities for members.

The Travel Award, with support up to $2,500, will be announced in January. Travel needs to be completed within one year of receiving the award. For additional details and application form, click here. For questions, contact Sandy Bonds at abonds@darkwing.uoregon.edu.

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CITT/ICTS has launched a redesigned website including new communication tools for members. CITT/ICTS, the Canadian Institute for Theatre Technology, can be found at www.citt.org where the first page allows visitors to choose between English and French on the bilingual site.

Over the past few months CITT's Communication committee has worked hard to bring the CITT website up to date and improve its functionality to provide more value.

New Features include:

• Enhanced Member profile with ability to update contact info and add photo
• Privacy setting where Members can choose how much information is available to other members
• Searchable Directory
• Membership status updates with expiration notification and automated renewal
• Online registration and payment for events including CITT Annual Conference and Trade Show
• Addition Profiles for Corporate Members
• Private Discussion Forum

CallBoard is now closed, so addresses with the .citt.org suffix are no longer working. Contact with CITT/ICTS members can be made through the portal on the group’s new website.

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At its July 18 meeting, ESTA's Rigging Working Group approved the initiation of two new projects. A revision of a remote device management standard is also available for review.

BSR E1.38 - 20xx, Temporary Ground-Supported Structures Used to Support Equipment in the Production of Outdoor Entertainment Events, Excluding Stage Roofs would establish basic requirements for the structural design, manufacture, use, and maintenance of temporary ground-supported structures used to support equipment -- such as video walls, followspot towers, and audio mixing platforms -- in the production of outdoor entertainment events. General public access structures, such as food vendor tents and seating bleachers, and temporary stage roofs that are within the scope of ANSI E1.21, are outside the scope of this standard.

BSR E1.39 - 20xx, Entertainment Technology - Recommendations for the Use of Fall Protection on Temporary Suspended and Ground-Supported Structures would establish minimum requirements for the selection and use of personal fall arrest systems on temporary structures in the entertainment industry. It also establishes minimum requirements for manufacturers and owners of these structures being used as work platforms. The purpose of the document is to provide employers and workers methods for protecting workers in the entertainment industry that meet or exceed current standards for industrial fall protection.

Anyone interested in personally working on the development of the standards is invited to join the Rigging Working Group. Additional voting members who might be in the User or Dealer/Rental Company interest categories would balance the economic interests represented. Information about joining working groups and an application form are available on the ESTA website. Send comments about these projects by November 8 to Karl G. Ruling, ESTA's Technical Standards Manager, at standards@esta.org.

BSR E1.20 - 200x, Entertainment Technology--Remote Device Management over USITT DMX512, is a project to revise the existing RDM standard, ANSI E1.20 - 2006. There are some errors in the published document that need to be corrected, and some issues about proxy devices that need to be clarified. The review materials include the revised standard, a listing of the errors being addressed, and, as background information, the resolutions to the comments received during the previous public review of the draft standard. The intention of the revision project is to correct errors, not to change the existing functionality of RDM.

The revision is available for public review on the ESTA website through October 19 in the documents area.

For more information, contact Mr. Ruling at ESTA, 875 Sixth Avenue, Suite 1005, New York, NY 10001; 212-244-1505; or standards@esta.org.

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ESTA (Entertainment Services and Technology Association) announced the finalists in the second annual Rock Our World Awards to be presented at the ESTA Annual Dinner & Awards Ceremony at LDI 2009.

The awards were created to honor groundbreaking achievement by ESTA members and to acknowledge the genius of both the creator of the technology and the designer or integrator who applies it in a real world environment. The finalists for the second annual Rock Our World Awards are:

• Cobra Display - Element Labs, Inc.
• DMXIS - ENTTEC
• P3-100 System Controller - Martin Professional
• OPTI Trilite V-Truss - Optikinetics, Ltd.
• Bad Boy Luminaire - Production Resource Group
• SRI ProPlus Fall Protection Systems - Sapsis Rigging, Inc.
• Helix P1 in Marco Borsato’s Wit Licht (White Light) Concert Tour - Element Labs, Inc.
• The Grand Mosque, Abu Dhabi - Electronic Theatre Controls and Martin Professional
• Democratic National Convention and Barack Obama’s Acceptance Speech, Denver, Colorado, August 2008 - Production Resource Group and Tribe, Inc.
• Anthropodino, the Ernesto Neto art installation at the New York Park Avenue Armory - Sapsis Rigging, Inc.

The winners are selected by a panel of industry judges and will be announced at the ESTA Annual Dinner & Awards Ceremony November 19 at the Rosen Plaza Hotel during LDI 2009. Reservation forms will be available at www.esta.org under "Upcoming Events."

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