Details
The big news from Tomcat UK was the announcement of a strategic partnership with Pfaff-silberblau, including the acquisition of the latter's PCM brand and UK distributorship of Columbus McKinnon hoists. The agreement has been lauded by both companies: Tomcat UK's Tony Dickson emphasised that existing PCM motor hoist customers will now be able to access a much wider range of services. In turn, Pfaff-silberblau's Paul Kelly said that the company will continue to develop and market its extensive range of backstage lifting systems.

Details
Getting on to this appropriately-named company's stand was difficult at times, the dazzling wall and floor-mounted Ayrton Dreampanel display acting as a particularly eye-catching beacon - even in a show where a vast range of LED panels and fixtures were literally blitzing visitors' attention. The big news was that Gatecrasher is opening its new £3m Leeds venue with a DreamPanel wall, part of a lighting package being installed by HFM Lighting & Sound (more on Gatecrasher in L&SI Jan 2006).

LED lighting fixtures were a mainstay of the stand, but there was also a UK debut for the Antari Z series of smoke machines, plus a wide range of moving heads and scanners on show.

Details
The ever-packed TMB stand featured a number of new product lines. From the ex-Flying Pigs, who are now known as Carallon, was the new Pharos LPC (see Award Winners, p58-59).

With the purchase of DHA by Rosco and the obvious impact on DHA's Scenechange division (now merged with Hippotizer creator, Green Hippo), distribution of the Hippotizer media server for Asia and the Middle East has been awarded to TMB in addition to its existing territory of North America.

A virtual Rolls-Royce of crowd control barriers, manufactured by All Access Staging and Production - The Versacade II, is also being distributed by TMB. Finally, the Falcon range of high power xenon, metal halide and LED fixtures by German manufacturer A&O Technology was also a key feature of the TMB stand.

featured content

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

Details
The architectural lighting control manufacturer, Dynalite Europe, displayed its new 'Revolution' series control panels. The buttons and controls on each panel can be raised or lowered to allow for almost any thickness of material to be used as a custom fascia.

Details
A combined DHA and Rosco stand for the newly combined companies featured Rosco's X-Effects projector, which now comes with DMX512 control, a dowser and colorizer gobos. Also from Rosco was a new animation wheel/effects wheel module with built-in power supply.

Details
The well-known UniPoint range from A-T has been updated by four new features; UniGuard brings immunity from RF interference (especially useful for those mobile phone interruptions that plague so many conferences); UniSteep - an 80Hz low cut filter, good for reducing ambient noise; UniLine - a cardioid capsule with a tight 90° pickup pattern; and finally, Pivot Point - a rotating connection point for boundary mics in the range, allowing easy changing of plug-in angle, depending on microphone placement.

The AT9892 is another tiny, flexible head-worn mic; lightweight and omni-directional, and with an easily re-shaped ear curve, this mic is ideal for the TV studio environment.

Details
With a trade show dominated by LED products, it can be difficult to get noticed. On the Lightfactor stand, Xilver certainly managed to do so with the uniquely designed Xolar LT batten. The 16-segmented batten can be used on its own or in conjunction with other battens to form a grid, a longer batten or any combination. Xilver's homogenous colouring technology is clearly in evidence with the Xolar LT, which also features a reflector for each light source and produces a beam angle of two degrees. The Xolar LT is controlled by DMX or Xilver's own serial interface and can be customized using a number of effect filters, lenses and diffusers.

Details
Specialists in designing and producing power supplies for lighting, Power Gems was showing an electronic PSU for moving lights - 'Clear Arc' ballast technology - itself a former PLASA Awards winner, and already in use by Robe Show Lighting. Its PSUs run at a very high 300kHz (150Hz is more usual), which allows it to run cool with consequently less fan noise. Other benefits from this PSU is an extension to lamp usability, as the burn envelope stays clearer for longer than is usual with more conventional PSUs.

Details
"World Class Products - Right here in your own backyard," was the slogan and with a stand designed to look like a backyard, LSC launched its new products upon PLASA - where it also celebrated its 25th birthday.A subtle redesign to the chassis of the Maxim console, along with the doubling of controllable moving lights and a 15% increase in operating speed - plus a number of other software improvements - justified the "V2" suffix to the successful four-year-old console. Another new product from LSC was the ePlate remote wall station for its EKO and e24v2 dimming systems. Also for the e24v2 dimming system was LSCnet - a remote monitoring and control interface that utilizes an LCD touch screen and full diagnostics error log with data backup.

Details
Ben-Ri Electronica from Madrid, Spain, is a manufacturer of lighting control equipment and dimmers. The company was showcasing its new top end 'Hydra' range of lighting consoles, from 512 - 2048 channels, for combining moving and conventional lighting shows. SANDnet DMX-to-Ethernet hardware and software products were also featured on the stand.

Details
A wealth of new products are utilizing EtherSound's audio networking standard. At PLASA alone, the new iLive from Allen & Heath, DigiSnake from Pinanson and InnovaSon's Dio Core were some of the more high profile launches. EtherSound has seen massive momentum behind the standard of late, with the total number of licensees doubling in 2005.

Details
dB emphasized the progress and recognition it has made in wireless technology and modern amplification at this year's show. The company was demonstrating its new digitally controlled 901 Series wireless mic systems, its live series high power active lightweight speakers, the newest generation of the Opera family, plus numerous other existing popular products.

Details
If there were a prize for most unusual product at the show, Vestax would probably be in with a chance of winning. The company has developed the QFO LE, which looks remarkably like a turntable and, in fact, is a turntable, but also a musical instrument. The deck can pitch shift up to 60% and is ideal for making the most of single note records that are becoming a popular addition to the DJ arsenal. Using the QFO LE with a single note record essentially allows the DJ to create melodies with the pitch shift control and mix them into the rest of his set. Crazy?In addition the the QFO, Vestax also presented the new CDR-07 CD Recorder, which incorporates a professional DJ interface, the VMC-004XL mixer that features four stereo input channels and two stereo outputs and highly reliable ALPS faders. Finally, Vestax unveiled the PMC-08Pro, a digital mixer incorporating a 24 bit 96K DSP, which also

Details
London-based sound and lighting distributor Fametrack was promoting its latest trade catalogue.

Details
Metalwork specialist Milos Structural Systems showed several new products, including the MRT1 and MRT2 rigging towers for speaker arrays at small and medium-sized events respectively. The MRT1 has a height of up to 8m and a loading capacity of 560kg, while the MRT2 stands up to 9.5m high and can bear a load of 1100kg. So new was the M950 quick truss system that no information is available on it, but Jeff Broitman, president of Milos America, was able to demonstrate its advanced construction which allows for a 35m span and high loading capacity. The Xstage S4 system was also on show, which can be constructed up to a height of 2.5m and has a loading capacity of 750kg/sq.m.

Details
Cadac introduced another digital product which integrates with its existing range. The F16 DC Master Interface Unit is a 19" rack-mounted unit designed to interface directly with the D16 Digital Mix Matrix. The F16 allows virtual faders within the D16 to be operated via any current Cadac Live Production console. Every virtual fader inside the D16 can be assigned to any DC master on the console. Additionally, the F16 allows integration of any third party console into the D16 as long as it provides access to its VCA control lines. A new product, the X16 MADI Merger, will be available soon.

Details
HM Electronics, joined on stand by UK distributor Orbital Sound, launched its new HMEDX 200 wireless digital comms system which allows up to 15 belt packs per base and avoids all interference issues or licensing requirements due to its digitality. Through Orbital, it's already in action on shows like Chicago, Thoroughly Modern Millie and Beauty and The Beast on tour.

Details
PLASA 'stars of the show' are often found on the smaller, less attention-grabbing stands. One of these was the Windows-based rental management tool, Easyjob 3.0 from Protonic, demonstrations of which were in constant demand. From the initial inquiry, through a nine-stage process to the invoice/export stage, the software gives users a wide variety of customisable features which will ensure that jobs from the very simple to the very complex can be handled extremely efficiently. It's an application which appears to have every conceivable base covered for the equipment rental market.

Details
Ensconced on the White Light stand, ELC Lighting promoted its new Sidekick Fader 10 - a multi-function fader board that has numerous interface options including, MIDI, DMX512 and serial.

Details
Le Maitre previewed the prototype of its new MVS (Multi Venue System). Features include variable high output haze, twin variable high output projection fans, 90° electronically variable haze output direction, 4-channel DMX 512, and an LED display control panel. Also new was a flame effect using Le Maitre's patented haze technology: FakeFlame, made by Back Stage Technologies Europe (BSTE), creates the illusion of real gas flames. Upstairs, Le Maitre held live pyro demos, showing effects from the Pyroflash and Prostage ranges.

Details
UK - Event freight specialist EFM, has appointed David Simmill as its new operations manager. Simmill, who has been involved with logistics operation for twelve years, is being brought in to support all four divisions of the company, working across the music, promotions, sports and exhibition logistics divisions to streamline current operations and develop new logistics channels.

Simmill's background includes overseeing a European network between 10 different offices, with complete responsibility for two UK offices. His experience spans air, ocean and road freight in the high profile automotive and aerospace industries.

"My move to EFM, as a company looking to develop, means an exciting time ahead," says Simmill. The diverse clients we work with, with a variety of challenges they each face put the company in a unique position to have the very best logistical faciliti

Page 1834 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .