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UK - In the space of just seven days, White Light exhibited at the ABTT Show in London, held a moving light shootout allowing lighting designers to make a real-world comparison of some of the latest automated fixtures, and then rounded things off by holding a Graduates Open Day at its Wimbledon headquarters.

Spread across two stands at ABTT this year, White Light showed items from its extensive hire and sales stocks, including theatre lanterns from Arri and trussing from Prolyte for which White Light has recently been made a distributor; these join products from Robert Juliat, Rainbow, Look Solutions and ELC which White Light already distributes in the UK. The company's award-winning Digital Festoon System was also on show.

The day after ABTT, White Light held a Moving Light Sho

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UK - Stagecraft, one of the UK's leading staging and live events companies, is celebrating a milestone of 25 years in business. The Salisbury-based company, which has achieved massive growth since completing its first year of trading in 1980, has been presented with numerous awards during its 25 years for commitment and dedication to the industry.

Stagecraft produces conferences and exhibitions, as well as providing equipment and technical support for corporate events, festivals, parties and meetings in the UK and abroad. Stagecraft Theatre Services supplies and installs equipment from all leading lighting and sound manufacturers to the educational, amateur and professional entertainment sectors.Managing director, David Goodrich commented: "It is incredible to think that 25 years has passed and I am proud to be part of an exciting and innovative industry . . . the trend has

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USA - ETA Systems, a manufacturer of high quality power protection, distribution, and lighting control products for the audio/video industry, has announced that it has been acquired by Powervar Inc for an undisclosed amount. The company's products are sold to broadcasters, recording and production studios, theatres, auditoriums, churches, schools and live performing artists, through distributors, contractors and retail cutlets throughout the US, Europe, and Asia.

Powervar Inc is a privately held corporation based in Waukegan, Illinois, manufacturng high-end power quality solutions for mission critical applications in healthcare, manufacturing, and other industries. Its customers are manufacturers and resellers of high technology systems used in healthcare, digital printing, semiconductor manufacturing, retail POS, and other commercial applications. The company received a 2004 Fr

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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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Singapore - The CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia trade shows have ended on a vibrant and positive note, say the show organizers, having attracted 60,552 attendees from the IT, communication and broadcasting industries. An estimated 1,600 delegates and speakers were at CommunicAsia and BroadcastAsia conferences. The exhibitions at the Singapore Expo accommodated 2,238 exhibiting companies from 55 countries covering 62,000sq.m of exhibition space.

For the first time the CommunicAsia Summit conference featured a three-day CEO Perspective panel session, where senior executives of telcos and vendors exchanged industry views and insights with the audience. "I find this conference very good for sharing and bouncing ideas," says Tom Goodwin, regional CTO of Lucent Technologies, and one of the panel speakers.

Another attendee at the CEO dialogue session was Siemens Communicatio

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UK - Avolites once again proved to be the most popular festival console of choice at Glastonbury, with numerous desks used to run lighting in a huge variety of areas across the site. On the Acoustic stage, two Diamond 4 Elites were used by LD Rob Sangwell and programmed by Gary Churchill, running Martin MAC 2K Profiles, 2K Performances, 2K Washes, 550s and 250 Entours. The Acoustic stage used Avolites dimming plus Avo DMX buffer boxes and Fineline supplied all lighting.

Gary Churchill said: "The D4 is great. I have used it before a couple of times but here I've really had a chance to put the desk through its paces. I like the wide choice of faders and the fact that you can put any playback anywhere you like and have direct access to all the fixtures onstage." He added that the Elite was also a handy size, and could easily be moved by one person and lifted by two.

In

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Denmark - Martin Professional's line of popular, award-winning MAC moving heads is expanding with the launch of the new MAC 700 Profile which squeezes as much into the fixture as possible, while maintaining the same fixture size as the MAC 550. In fact it is designed to fill the gap between Martin's 575W MAC 550 and the 1200W MAC 2000 Profile, although this 700W profile spot is packed with more features than either.

The combination of efficient 700W double-ended lamp and new glass reflector technology produces a remarkable light output. A full CMY color mixing system and eight-position colour wheel are included. All colors on the wheel are replaceable and the CMY color mixing system, animation wheel and a 'Quiet Mode' option make the MAC 700 ideally suited to the theatre market.

A gobo animation system is included, that which was pioneered by Martin in the MAC 2000 Performance

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New Zealand - Six years ago in New Zealand a six-piece cover band was formed and called themselves the Pink Floyd Experience. Their success was such that they grew into their home countries biggest touring production with a three hour plus show that features performances of the original Floyd's albums Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, as well as Shine On You Crazy Diamond from the Wish You Were Here album.

Having successfully toured New Zealand, they moved on to Australia and South Africa with a sound system that has encompassed just about every loudspeaker brand there is. But the consistent element throughout is XTA loudspeaker processing.

Front of house engineer Andy Craig explains the ethos behind the Experience's sound: "On a show like this I work on two levels and XTA products help me throughout the day. My first task is to ensure that t

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Poland / Germany - The Polish premiere of the X-Line Very Compact line-array system from Electro-Voice took place in the Stodola - one of the most historic, and still among the most popular, clubs in Warsaw. In this relatively small venue, much loved by the large student population of the Polish capital, the X-Line Very Compact was able to demonstrate its adaptability, its outstanding sound quality and its extremely modest requirements in terms of space.

In mid-May, the Audio Plus team, EVI Audio's Polish partners, demonstrated the system at an open air cinema in the historic centre of Warsaw (the square dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising). This time, the system was flown, and the results were just as convincing. "The X-Line Very Compact filled the representatives of the rental companies with enthusiasm," Sebastian Pawlak, Audio Plus's MD, told us. "The sound was tr

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UK - Leading PA rental company, Crayford-based ML Executives, has just purchased 60 Lab.gruppen fP 6400 amps from UK distributor Sennheiser, to drive its recently-acquired V-DOSC and dV-DOSC rig.

Commenting on the purchase, ML's managing director, Gary Marks, says, "We're already one of the UK's larger rental-users of Lab.gruppen, which powers our EAW KF760 rig that's currently out on Iron Maiden's 2005 world tour. When we purchased 24 boxes of V-DOSC and six of dV-DOSC, choosing Lab to power it was a natural. Not only was it our first choice but it's also the amp L'Acoustics recommend for V-DOSC, so it keeps our system consistent with all of the others in the market."

Marks continues, "Our first priority has always been sound quality but another big advantage with the Lab.gruppen switch mode power amps is their class AB performance with superb control and power

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UK - James Thomas Pixel Fixtures were utilized in a number of non conventional ways at Glastonbury 2005, including the architectural illumination of the Festival's Pyramid Stage, seen - literally - in a completely new light for the first time!

These various lateral applications of Pixel fixtures illustrated their energy-saving properties, adaptability and low heat emissions. The latter specifically enabled them to be encased in plastic and other impromptu weatherproofing materials to protect them from the swamp like conditions, in abundance at this year's Festival!

Pixel's Chris Ewington and Pyramid Stage LD Andy Porter (AKA Fraggle) had been speaking about architecturally lighting the Pyramid for the last couple of years. In 2004, Fraggle used PixelPAR 90s to illuminate the internal structural detail of the lighting rig. This year, with the new 110ec PixelLine wash fixture co

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UK - Lighting designer Peter Barnes wanted to create plenty of visual eye candy for both cameras and the live audience - with what was primarily a daylight show in London.He wanted the brightest and highest impact LED fixtures with which to do this, and chose 120 PixelLine 1044s and 14 of the new PixelLine 110ecs. Barnes created zigzagged LED borders to the onstage trusses and used the 110's at the bottom of the PA scrims firing out into the audience.

Barnes also used PixelDrive for controlling the content running through the Pixel fixtures. The ability to drag, drop, rotate and resize video sources via PixelDrive proved invaluable for his design, as none of the battens were rigged straight. The batten's own onboard effects made it possible to have fast strobe sequences, as seen with The Who and Paul McCartney.Show lighting director for the BBC was Bernie Davies with all lightin

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UK - A new licence which permits the use of movies to be shown in public to either private groups or the general public is now available. Videos and DVDs purchased or rented from retail outlets are for personal use only and unless specifically authorized, movies cannot be shown to the public or private group audiences, as this would be a breach of copyright.

With the launch of PVSL, Filmbank say it has made screening films in public easier and more cost effective for all businesses within this industry. For one annual fee, the PVS Licence will enable users to purchase VHS tapes and DVDs from retail outlets to screen within their outlet all year around. A separate PVSL is required for each location where movies are to be played. All VHS tapes and DVDs will need to be purchased or rented from legitimate UK retailers. This licence precludes any charging or promotion. Full Terms and

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Europe - Europe's music festival season is in full swing, with the continent's leading sound hire companies working overtime to keep up with an increasing demand for Meyer Sound systems at festival sites from the Baltic to the Mediterranean.

In Scandinavia, Sweden's annual Hultsfred Festival has attracted increasing hordes of hard-rock fans with each successive event. In recent years, audio provider Starlight AB has responded with larger complements of Meyer Sound loudspeakers to provide both crowd-pleasing power and the precise directional control needed to comply with Sweden's tough noise ordinances. This year Meyer Sound is powering four main stages: M3D line arrays anchor the systems for the Hawaii and Pampas stages, while MILO high-power curvilinear arrays cover at the Atlantis stage and M2D compact curvilinear arrays pump up a crowd of 2,000 in the indoor theatre.

"

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UK - Broadcast sound specialists, Plus 4 Rentals has recently acquired Trantec's internationally award-winning S6000 and S6002 radio microphone systems. Complementing the company's existing portfolio of cutting edge equipment, Plus 4 Rentals has added 32 channels to its fleet; divided equally between the S6000 multi-channel 2U receiver and the S6002 - its compact dual channel counterpart. Both Trantec systems' augment the company's potential to provide advanced solutions for a host of broadcast applications, particularly Light Entertainment and Reality shows.

Ideal for work on location, the S6002 was recently deployed by Plus 4's MD, Stewart Chaney on ITV 1's - Hells Kitchen. Sixteen transmitter channels were combined with the S6002 dual receiver to provide a robust and reliable solution. As the dual receiver version of the S6000 rack based receiver, the S6002, which is housed i

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New Zealand - Historically, theatre lighting designers have been unable to produce crisp shutter cuts or pattern projection in very long-throw situations. The problem being, the only luminaires available to date either utilize plastic lenses which cannot maintain the desired light output and beam quality or they have beam angles which are just too wide. This issue has been addressed by Selecon, the company claims, by a new lighting tool. The Pacific 5° High Efficiency Fixed Beam has been designed as a no-compromise long-throw lens tube for the Selecon Pacific range.

Featuring a dual glass lens design using a 300mm front lens, this luminaire delivers more light than the Pacific 5.5°-13° Very Narrow Zoomspot (200mm front lens) with an unmatched beam quality. Shutter cuts are knife-edged (or with a well controlled soft cut - adjustable using the rear lens); high contrast pattern

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UK - Denon Professional's best-selling DN-V300 DVD players have advanced with new features and control functionality following a collaborative venture between D&M Europe and software specialists Designer Systems. Based in Cornwall, Designer Systems has created a range of controllers and interfaces, implemented on the DN-V300, which expand the unit's control capabilities in media presentation and EPOS applications.

Designer Systems' new range of control interfaces connect to the DN-V300 via the unit's serial RS232 port. Initially four products have been announced: DVD-DSPRX proximity detector. Typically used in a kiosk environment, where a DVD player system is used to provide POS and EPOS advertising, the DSPRX will detect the motion of a passer-by via infrared sensor, and control the playback of media accordingly.

DVD-D9 interface box. Typically used in a kiosk e

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UK - Le Maitre were called upon by United International Pictures/Nibbs Events to turn Leicester Square into an alien attack zone for the premiere of the new War of the Worlds movie on 19 June. A six-man crew of pyrotechnicians worked over two 12-hour days and used a range of different special effects on the set in the centre of Leicester Square. The park was turned into a dramatic bomb site for the stars and guests to walk through before entering the Odeon cinema though a tunnel.

The set was designed to look like the fall out from an alien attack, with piles of rubble, overturned cars, a demolished archway, broken lampposts, park benches and a phone box. Le Maitre used CO2 Jets in the craters on the ground, which fired throughout the show. The craters also held the Dragon gas flame effects, which spewed flames in random bursts. The Pyrotek Dragons were also used on the balconies

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UK - Spectators high up on the stadium steps of the Crystal Palace Athletics Stadium were able to see the performance of Coldplay - thanks to the high-resolution LED display produced from a pair of 6m x 4m Unitek V9 screens, positioned at the PA wings.

The 17.5mm pixel pitch media displays were provided by rental company Laser Grafix, whose project manager Arran Hopkins confirmed that the displays had been specifically chosen by the band's video director, Alan Yates, following their performance at the Brit Awards. The screens took their feeds from a camera/hothead PPU, with further live video and visual effects generated later during the show from a pair of RADlites.

But while the Unitek display had to operate 80% of the show in high brightness conditions (reinforcing the images of two support bands during daylight hours), its other attribute, suggests Hopkins, is its lightwei

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UK - Adlib Audio sent 22 crew and engineers to Glastonbury 2005 to run eight entertainment areas. Although it was turned into a mudfest on the first day thanks to four hours of violent thunderstorms and torrential downpours, none of the famous Glasto spirit was dampened!

Continuing its association with the Festival, Adlib supplied sound systems for the Theatre, Circus and Cabaret tents, the Outside Circus and Outside Theatre areas, plus a transit van mobile system that was on call for various outdoor areas as required. Engineer Carl Billington battled bravely with the elements to ensure that he didn't become the 'immobile' system!

The Cabaret tent featured a Nexo Alpha system with a Soundcraft Series 4 console at FOH and an SM20 onstage, complete with a full ADLIB active/passive wedge monitor compliment. This tent was run by Dave Jones on monitors and Ben Booker at FOH plus te

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Belgium - Barco has launched a mobile, self-contained outdoor LED solution, which incorporates a rotatable 9sq.m LED display mounted on a trailer. The new B-10 is a cost-effective mobile LED solution incorporating Barco's SLite 10 outdoor LED screen modules. As a fully self-contained unit with display, image processor and internal power supply, the B-10 can be set up by one person and can be ready to operate in less than 15 minutes, say the company. With its 360° rotatable screen, the B-10 can also easily be positioned or repositioned throughout an event to face the audience, regardless the setting. In addition, the B-10 has an adjustable tow-bar, which allows it to be used with any car or truck with a towing capacity of 3,5 ton and above.

As a cost efficient, self-contained mobile LED display solution, Barco's B-10 offers all companies - large or small - the opportunity to own

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The Netherlands - Luxeon LEDs from Lumileds Lighting claim to have conquered one of the major challenges to the use of LEDs in general lighting - the wide variation in the colour of white light emitted from a given LED - with a proprietary conformal coating process that delivers the market's only uniformly white solid state light source.

The Luxeon-exclusive coating process ensures that a uniform layer of phosphor is applied to every facet of the Luxeon LED die, eliminating the varying phosphor thicknesses that cause colour inconsistencies within the beam pattern of white LEDs from other vendors, say the company.

"We wanted to use high-power LEDs in some of our flashlight products to give our customers the maximum light output along with the ruggedness and longevity of solid state lighting, but we rejected most white LEDs because of their poor colour quality," said R

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