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There were 11 new products from High End and Flying Pig: whilst many were developments of existing products, two - both prototypes - were very definitely on show for the first time. The ColorCommand colour mixing Par is a versatile, but simple, compact incandescent washlight which will give the end user considerable freedom in colour mixing and beam size. Anywhere you'd currently use a Par can, Fresnel or PC, you can use ColorCommand. It uses an innovative (and patented) dichroic colour mixing system that colours the whole beam simultaneously, ensuring a smooth, even field. The end result is a huge range of colours - from subtle pastels to deep saturates and everything inbetween. The colour media used is dichroic borosilicate glass, so it won't fade or change colour, nor will there be gel

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If the latest show is anything to go by, the future of the ABTT show is secure. In a year when exhibitions as a breed are facing numerous challenges, the ABTT Show confirmed its position as the UK theatre industry's annual showcase and its main networking opportunity.

The show has grown from a small niche event at The Donmar Warehouse, to one which now fills London's Royal Horticultural Halls to capacity and is attended by over 2,300 visitors from around Europe. Appropriately enough for its 25th anniversary, this year's event was a sell-out show, with a record number of exhibitors - over 100 - showcasing both products and services for the theatre and live performance industries.

Numerous new product launches took place across the show floor, including the relaunch of ADB's impressive Axis luminaire, first seen at PLASA last year, but rebranded for ABTT to avoid confusion with another

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Harlequin showed its new range of Liberty floor panels, with the stand featuring 'touring' panel versions of the Liberty sprung dance floors.

As readers of L&SI may recall, Harlequin's Liberty floors have recently been installed at Laban, London's new purpose-built (and Europe's largest) contemporary dance facility.

There was also a new version of Harlequin's Activity Floor, now available with a choice of oak, beech and maple finishes.

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Indochine X PixMob Fan Immersion

It's a bird! It's a plane! It's - 40 thousand LED pixels on a ceiling!!! Indochine's whirlwind tour transports fans to another level of the live experience - immersing them from floor to ceiling with PixMob's X4 wristbands, and an LED ceiling made entirely of its NOVA Minis! With the vision of Indochine's creative team, PixMob used its LED fan-technology to turn attendees and venues into an ocean of effects, and a starry sky of LED magic. Très très cool!

Read more about the Indochine tour in the latest issue of LSi

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UK - The quantity and breadth of products available from Yamaha at this year's PLASA promises to be the biggest yet, according to the company.

Yamaha will be showing over 100 products at the show, including many new models, and will also be announcing a series of major software upgrades for some current products. The company will have on stand the full range of digital mixing consoles, ranging from the PM1D desk and the award-winning DM and 0 series consoles, through to new series power amplifiers and speakers. A new range of interfaces and plug-ins are also expected to be announced, plus significant software updates are anticipated for the DM2000 and 02R96 products.

This year also sees Yamaha marking a remarkable double - 30 years of analogue mixer production and 15 years of digital console innovation and manufacture. The company is currently finalizing plans to celebrate thi

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ETC is supplying a free Headlock with every Source Four sold in the UK until the end of August. Designed by Nigel Hollowell Howard of HH Solutions, the Headlock slips over the yoke of the Source Four preventing the securing bolt rotating independently from the lantern. It's a partial Health and Safety measure in that the operator/focuser requires only one wrench or spanner, as opposed to two to tighten the hook clamp.

The Headlock can save as many as 30 seconds for each lantern you lock off by requiring only one spanner for all - or one hour for 120 lanterns. By reducing the number of tools required it becomes easier to work with them on lanyards and makes focusing safer for anyone below. The Headlock won the ABTT Product of the Year Award in 2001 and has sold more than 4,500 to date.

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Not strictly a new product development, but since it happened at ABTT we've included it in this report. The winners of a competition held jointly by the Association of Lighting Designers (ALD) and ETC each collected a copy of the student version of WYSIWYG Report. The competition (in the ALD's Focus magazine) asked 'What channel counts is Emphasis available in'' Andy Purves from Derby University and Tom Dexter Scott from the Ardent School in Manchester came up with the correct answer and were presented with their prize on the ALD stand.

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Zero88 reports that its regional roadshows (launched in March this year to give teachers and students access to the latest control technology, as well as free training on the company's most popular educational products) have been positively received. If you're interested in attending, the next event will be held on the 29th July at Mill Hill School, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London. Keeping with the educational theme, earlier this year the company established a Financial Award Scheme aimed at schools, colleges and amateur dramatic clubs in the UK. Twice a year these organizations can claim 50% of the cost of any new equipment they purchase from Zero88.

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The new Star Liftket will be available from Unusual in early August. The first model in this range is the 500kg hoist with a 1250kg version available at the end of the year. Both hoists can be double reeved, which will increase the capacity - a process which can be carried out in less than five minutes. The 500kg Star Liftket runs at 8m/min and, at 1000kg capacity, will run at 4m/min. It features external limit switches with an option of up to four internal adjustable limits. The brakes are 'set for life' - and thus require no adjustment.

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PCM launched its new Unibar system at the show. This a winch designed in collaboration with Slingco, which allows for the quick and easy raising or lowering of lighting or suspension bars for scenery, with a motor driven unit. It can be installed onto any style of fixing or structure, including universal beams, trussing, channels and barrels.

It will prove a cost-effective alternative to the more sophisticated power-assisted winch sets. It is initially available in 250 or 500kg models with single or two speed options. The entire Unibar unit is self-contained, with the motor unit positioned on the end of the track. Single- or three-phase power options are offered, and it has simple, logical'plug-and-play' operation. Dual brakes are also available as an option. The system supports any number of suspension cables and any length of suspension bar with the ultimate top and bottom limits con

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The good news for all stage technicians and production staff everywhere is that the days of tatty old timber cyc stretchers are over. No longer will you have to shred your knuckles on rusty wing nuts or get splinters from beaten up bits of old timber. Hall Stage has developed the HoldOn clip - an alternative to eyelets -which grip any thin flexible material. Two versions are available - Mini and Maxi - with the latter capable of handling 100kg.

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ABTT saw the first appearance of DHA's new lower-priced, highly-featured Gobo Rotator mk 2 range. The new range is available in three models: the Junior Rotator offers stand-alone operation using M-size gobos in ETC's Source Four Jr range whilst the Twin Rotator takes one or two B-size gobos, fits in ETC Source Fours, Strand SLs, Altman Shakespeares and Selecon Pacifics and again offers stand-alone operation at any speed from 0.4 to 25rpm or using a variety of built-in 'effects' modes.

Attracting most attention, though, was the Twin DMX Rotator. This adds DMX control of rotation speed and indexing (the ability to accurately and repeatably return a gobo to a known orientation) to the features of the Twin Rotator. The Twin DMX Rotator is also easy to integrate into existing lighting rigs with its ability to run from the 24V power supplies used for Rainbow or Chroma-Q scrollers, as well a

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UK - A.C. Lighting's Projects Division has recently completed the technical design, supply and installation of a TV studio lighting system for a new digital auction channel, project managed by Peter Keiderling. The channel, Price-drop.tv, will launch this summer into almost 10 million homes and is the second auction channel to be launched by interactive TV retailer Sit-up, following the success of their Bid-up.tv channel.

In addition to specifying and installing the full overhead production lighting rig, the most challenging aspect of the brief from lighting designer David Atkinson was to provide a two-colour, cross-fading system that was small enough to fit behind the set, but powerful enough to provide a strong colour wash for the set's main branded light wall backdrop.

The light wall was constructed using 22 Anytronics Anycolour lightboxes controlled via a DMX distribution

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Eyecolor is the latest addition to Stage Electrics' hire and sales inventory. Among the first LED moving-head fixtures available, its 18 high-power 1W LEDs offer a huge palette of rich saturated RGB colours. The microprocessor-driven, high-resolution stepper motors provide a fast, smooth and virtually silent 16-bit resolution with 650° pan by 280° tilt. The compact unit also has a forced ventilation cooling system and self-adjusting variable speed fan.

With no lamps or motor-driven colour mixing systems, maintenance is easy: the units have very low IR emission and no UV radiation, enabling them to be used close to the objects they illuminate without risk of damage. They also come with downloadable software, boast automatic head repositioning, a digital LCD display for addressing and special function settings, making them ideal for use in architectural lighting, theatre, TV studios a

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The latest generation of Matrix and distributed dimming from IES can now be controlled directly via Ethernet. The current protocols offered are those in the public domain (Artnet, ETCnet and AVAB/Transtechnik) and others will be added when manufacturers agree a common standard or to transfer proprietary protocols for public use.

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Making their debut performance and taking the star turn on d&b audiotechnik's stand at this year's show, were the identically-sized Ci60 and Ci90 cabinets. Graduating from d&b's Ci Series installation range, they are not only equipped with rotatable horns and an extensive wardrobe of flying accessories, but can be made up to colourco-ordinate. Repeat appearances were made by the versatile Ci80 and the E0 loudspeakers, both having gained critical reviews for their noise to size ratio and ease of use.

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Pulsar lined up a number of new products, as well as the latest image projector from Italian manufacturer, Clay Paky. Pulsar's WinLite is a PC software-based 2 preset memory desk, aimed at small theatre, school and amateur dramatics applications, but which will also serve as a useful educational tool, even without being connected to a lighting system. The 18-channel system is available free of charge and drives all Pulsar and Clay Paky digital input products with a simple cable connection. Coming soon, an optional interface will be able to generate 72 channels of DMX output.

As well as the new Masterpiece 96 (see last month's issue), Pulsar also showed its new 8 into 1 data splitter. In a neat touch, this 1U rackmount unit is reversible, exposing or hiding the connection panel, making it suitable for both touring and installation use. It will distribute digital signals from DC to 500KH

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Robe UK highlighted the just-launched ColorSpot 1200 moving head. This is the latest addition to Robe's AT (Advanced Technology) family of moving head and colour changing fixtures. Using a powerful Phillips 1200 short arc discharge lamp light source, its brightness is further boosted by a high quality optical system. Other key features include a versatile CMY colour mixing system, variable CTO plus an additional colour wheel, 12 rotating indexable, replaceable dichroic glass gobos on two wheels, iris, four rotating prisms and effects, variable frost, a flexible 13-42 degree linear zoom, remote focus, dimmer and shutter. The fixture also has a progressive colour temperature correction system - from 5600K to 3200K - designed for use in television and film applications. Also new was the ColorMix 240 AT - a static colour changer with a 150mm fresnel lens. The 240 is a compact version of Robe

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UK - Founded in 1976, Rugby-based electronics solutions provider Zirkon, is one of the rare success stories since the downturn in the UK electronics and manufacturing industry. In the last year, the company has researched and assessed the industry, re-positioned itself accordingly, donned its all-weather gear and gone out fighting for every piece of business available.

Zirkon's approach to market is epitomized in the relationship it has with Garwood Monitor Systems, where it has worked jointly with them on the APM series of in-ear monitoring. The APM Series comprises three products - APM 200/400 main stations, APM 12 dual stereo headphone amplifier and the APM 31 3-channel headphone amplifier. Using headphones, in-ear monitors or a mixture of both, the APM Series gives the user the benefits of greatly simplified wiring, high audio quality and individual mix balancing by the musi

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UK - Point Source Productions has appointed Steve Davis as hire co-ordinator. Davis has worked in the lighting and sound industry for over 10 years, having started out in fringe theatre. His experience has included work for Wimbledon Theatre, Dobsons, Delta and RG Jones, as well as freelance lighting and sound for numerous bands, conferences and theatre events. Most recently he has had the travelling bug, and has enjoyed working the cruise ships for Cunard and Seabourne as senior stage manager. He told us: "I have decided to settle down and want to get my teeth into something. Point Source Productions is expanding at a rate of knots so I have a great opportunity to use my expertise within an ever-growing hire company."

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Yet more developments in the contentious Alcohol and Entertainment Licensing Bill, which is currently being bounced between the Commons and Lords, whilst those bodies with a vested interest, continue the fight to get their voices heard.

It all stems from the UK Government's desire to do away with the existing two-in-a-bar rule, which allows up to two performers to appear in a venue or pub without a licence. If the Licensing Bill as it stands becomes law, this will no longer be possible. The concern expressed by those most directly affected - the musicians and the venue owner/operators - is that the replacement Bill will mean a lot more paperwork, will prove costly, and could do some serious damage to the UK live music industry.

The pro lobby believe that the Bill is well intentioned and will update archaic licensing laws, clamp down on some of the UK's more worrying crimi

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USA - The award-winning Dixie Chicks kicked off their 'Top of the World' Tour 2003 in Greenville, South Carolina in May, before taking their unique sound across the country and ending on 4 August in Nashville, Tennessee. Upstaging and Tomcat USA came together to provide top notch equipment for the tour: besides the 12 sections of medium duty, 24 sections of heavy duty, and various corner blocks and pick-up bars, Tomcat provided a custom 16ft truss circle and 16 sections of the EDDY Award-winning Swing Wing Truss. The Dixie Chicks will also be extending their tour into Europe with 10 show dates recently announced.

(Lee Baldock)

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