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Italy - Leading Italian television lighting designer Alessandro Porcaru is using over 250 moving lights from Robe Show Lighting to light the current series of Italy's top-rated L'Isola del Famosi (Island of the Famous) reality TV show.

The studio elements of the show are recorded at Studio 2000 in Milan, directed by Egino Romio. The show is broadcast live on RAI 2 every Wednesday, pulling an incredible average of 42% of the viewing figures.At times, the rating has hit 55%, and it's arguably the most popular entertainment show in Italy.

The lights are being supplied by Romanengo-based Mixer Sound & Light, one of North Italy's top rental companies, who are also supplying additional studio sound to the show. Porcaru first used Robe fixtures on the original series of "L'Isola&q

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UK - Lee Evans' XL tour is the hottest show on the circuit, and it's certainly the biggest. Since launching in the early autumn the hilarious, perpetually sweating Evans has played in practically every big arena in the country, and his management, Off the Kerb Productions, has added numerous extra dates along the way.

On Saturday 19 November the show's triumph was further established when Evans played to world record audiences for a single stand-up comedian of 10,108 at the Manchester Evening News Arena (MEN). Stand-up comedy is inherently intimate, which is at odds with the arena environment, so consolidating the performer/audience relationship in these huge spaces threw up its own unique set of challenges for Evans' technical design team. As production manager Mark Harris points out: "Lee's comedy style relies wholly on his audience's ability to see his every facial expre

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UK - PLASA and the PLASA Show are the joint sponsors of a new Entertainment Lighting Award, designed to give lighting designers across the industry recognition for their creative work. The new Award is the most recent category to be added to the 2006 Lighting Design Awards, organized by Lighting magazine and the Institution of Lighting Engineers, and supported by the Lighting Industry Federation.

The UK has long been acknowledged as a creative hub, leading the world in the design of entertainment and events. The new award will be one of the few that actively champions the work of designers in this field, creating much needed wider recognition for the art and practice of lighting design.

For the last few months, PLASA has been working with the Lighting Design Awards team to develop the new category to ensure it reflects the innovation to be seen across the country. The judging

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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 - Attracting WOMEX world music expo to Newcastle/Gateshead was an important achievement for The Sage Gateshead. The event is the largest and most prestigious international conference and trade fair to visit the venue to date, and with that came some pretty huge challenges for the incumbent technical department.

Over 40 world music acts performed in three spaces over four days. Opening act in Hall One, The Sage Gateshead's variable acoustic main house, was Robert Plant and his band Strange Sensation.

For the venue's head of sound, Dan Adams, the event has been particularly exigent. He temporarily gave up his usual role and became production manager, handing the audio reigns over to Paul Astbury who can ordinarily be found at the South Bank Centre, where he is himself head of sound. With these changes in mind, you might be forgiven for thinking that to then road-test the late

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USA - The recent ETS-LDI exhibition in Orlando featured its annual Awards ceremony. This year's winners included Richard Pilbrow - Lighting Designer of the Year; Michael Clark - Projection Designer of the Year; Buford Jones - Sound Designer of the Year; and Brad Schiller - Technician of the Year.

In the product awards, Strand Lighting's C21 Dimmer range won Lighting Product of the Year. C21 and EC21 dimmer racks are designed for global operation and provide a number of advances in technology, say Strand. In addition to providing support for conventional SCR dimmers including Quad, Dual and single modules with ratings up to 12kW, sophisticated Sinewave dimmers are also available. Dual Sinewave modules can be mixed and matched with standard dimmers in the same rack for full flexibility.

Altman Lighting collected the Lighting/ Architecture Product of the Year Award for its Smart

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UK - For six weeks every year, Walsall Council stages its famous Illuminations in the town's Arboretum. This year the Council decided to up the ante and used one of their two Christie S+16K 3-chip DLP Roadsters to create a series of animations. The Council purchased the projectors on the recommendation of freelance projectionist and AV consultant, Bruno Edwards.

The theme this year was Animal Magic, which required video sequences of the animals - created by Birmingham video artist Jonathan Lee - to be projected 50-60m high over a 30m distance, across a small lake and onto the trees. This was one of a number of spectaculars staged during the year by the Council, which led it to believe that projector ownership now represented a more cost-effective option than rental.

Bruno Edwards comments: "Aside from the performance, the main advantage of the Roadster was that, thanks to

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UK / USA - Stage Technologies, the award-winning UK stage automation system specialist, recently hosted a reception at its new facility in Neasden, north London.

After a number of years at its Highbury base, the company recently completed the move to the Neasden site, which offers more flexibility in terms of equipment warehousing and office space. Director John Hastie described the company's current workload in the UK as "manic": engineers are involved in a variety of projects including the refurbishment of London's Royal Festival Hall, due for completion in 2007. The company can now be contacted at 9 Falcon Park, Neasden Lane, London NW10 1RZ.

Meanwhile, the company has also announced the opening of a permanent US office in Las Vegas, Nevada, to be headed up by company director Kevin Taylor, with support from two full-time staff. The move follows Stage Technologies

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UK - Midas is pleased to announce that it has appointed Milan-based Texim srl as its Italian distributor. Texim has been Klark Teknik's Italian distributor for 15 years, and the decision to expand the company's remit to include the Midas range of consoles is a logical progression given the increasing interoperability between the brands. This is exemplified in the November launch of Klark Teknik's Show Command integrated system of hardware and software which can interface with Midas consoles.

"The move comes at a time when the synergy between the two brands is stronger than ever, and it makes sense to have one distributor handling both," says Midas and Klark Teknik sales and marketing director David Cooper. "Texim is consistently one of our best European Klark Teknik distributors and we are confident that they can repeat this success with the Midas range. Their tec

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Italy - An architectural multi-projection onto the Motorola Pirelli building proved a challenge in terms of creativity, technology and innovation - a challenge taken on by visual designer Paolo Buroni and lighting manufacturer Stark. The project, based on an idea by Tcommunication and Motorola, is the biggest multi-projection ever attempted on a skyscraper with large, windowed surfaces, say Stark.

The technical difficulties included combating the high ambient light levels created by the thousands of public lights of night-time Milan. Buroni says that apart from this problem, he was also faced with the only available site to project from being located 200m from the building. Buroni explains: "The image to be projected was divided into 15 sections using an extremely precise graphic process and a complicated series of calculations and tests in order to obtain the perfectly rec

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UK - Lynnsport & Leisure Park, situated in 72 acres of parkland near King's Lynn in Norfolk, is one of the largest sports and leisure facilities in the country. The Sound Division Group recently won the contract to supply and install a sophisticated Tryka LED colour change lighting system with Pulsar control, a 24-station eight-channel Audeon wireless cardio entertainment system and numerous plasma and LED screens, plus an Abstract VRX Gladiator lighting system in the facility's spinning studio.

The brief was to provide a thoroughly modern yet sympathetic environment for exercisers using the latest technology. However, it had to be a system that would be easy for untrained personnel to use and operate. Sound Division installed 24 Audeon 28 RX6 wireless personal receivers on the CV machines and the same number of Audeon 28 CS wireless Csafe docking chargers. The AV distribution s

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UK - Blackout Ltd designed and supplied all production rigging infrastructure for the 12th MTV Europe Music Awardsheld in the Pavilhao Atlantico in Lisbon, Portugal, on 3 November 2005. A variety of Blackout truss and track systems were supplied for individual artists. For Madonna's new hit single 'Hung Up', Blackout arranged for a rigged 2m mirror ball to be smoothly flown on to stage using a Liftket motor and Kinesys control system.

Framing the stage for the Gorillaz performance, Blackout supplied 4 track systems fitted with red velour to represent a secondary proscenium arch. Two 12m x 9m white filled cloth and red velour Kabukis drops added a projection surface. A "Peppers Ghost" effect was created using two translucent panels and a projector truss and projector beams bounced images back on screen where they were combined with life size silhouettes of band m

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UK - Bandit Lites UK supplied the full lighting production and crew to cult heavy rockers Dream Theater for their UK and European tour. The band's worldwide lighting requirements have been looked after in the US and Europe by Bandit for several years, offering a fully integrated intercontinental Bandit solution. The European leg of the tour was project managed for Bandit Lites UK by Mark Powell, who said: "It's was great to work with the Dream Theater team again on another innovative and interesting design."

The band's long term LD Benoit Richards and their video designer Bert Baldwin worked together on developing the 2005 show's 'visuality', which united both lighting and video in an integrated stage 'look', matching the band's huge energy. Both Richards and Baldwin have been involved with the band for some time. "It's very much been a collaborative effort this t

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UK - GLP UK has launched as a new e-commerce portal (www.glplighting.com) to streamline its sales and supply line of the full-range of German Lighting Products direct to the customer.

GLP UK is a division of Chepstow based i-Vision, specialists in architectural, LED and feature lighting. Complementing i-Vision's bespoke and standard ranges of architectural fixtures, GLP UK offers a massive choice of entertainment lighting fixtures from fully-specced professional level moving heads for studio and touring applications, to a vast range of conventional lightsources, to a myriad of club and disco effects. This includes lighting control systems - dimmers and desks, stands and rigging, and all imaginable accessories.

GLP UK is the exclusive UK distributor for German Lighting Products. The new user-friendly and easily navigable website is geared to clients with all levels of knowledge

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Worldwide - Critics enthuse that Dave Gahan of veteran British electro-pop band Depeche Mode has never sounded or looked better. Touring for the first time in four years, the band are showcasing their new acclaimed album 'Playing The Angel' mixed together with classic hits from their vast back catalogue.

Artistic director Anton Corbijn, visual director Blue Leech and lighting designer Paul Normandale created the visual concept to reflect an 80s space feel and the lighting was carefully selected to complement the tradition of a band with a history of visual spectacular as well as musical presentation.

One of the key elements to both the set and lighting design is the custom-built futuristic looking stage facia and synthesiser stations. Perforated with small holes they house a total of 59 James Thomas Engineering's PixelPup LED fixtures. Paul Normandale explains: "I wanted

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UK - Live brand experience specialist MMM has won the coveted 2005 Corporate Event Award (CEA) for Event Management Team of the Year.

MMM nominated its in-house Jaguar event management team for the award and won because of its innovative approach to live branding exercises, the huge success of the experiential events that it produces for Jaguar and the way the company works with the client on a strategic level. This involves a truly comprehensive understanding of Jaguar's business on all levels, says the company.

MMM has handled Jaguar's account for over 15 years and is made up of a core team of five people - a director, two event managers, an administrator and a warehouse manager. The judges were impressed with the longevity of the relationship, which has needed a lively and constant creative evolution to develop the brand identity and keep pace with the times.

The Team del

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Italy - Italian manufacturer Outline has once again contributed to the sound reinforcement on one of the country's biggest TV shows Rockpolitik. In the colossal television studio in Brugherio - one of the largest in the world, fitted out with millions of euros' worth of scenery and equipment - the studio audience heard the host's and guests' speech exclusively via 120 of Outline's Micra II cabinets.

The reputation of these compact loudspeaker systems, say Outline, is based on their ability to reproduce the human voice in a focussed manner, with natural timbre and high intelligibility - even at high volume, and without feedback, say Outline.

For the area of the studio hosting VIPs, eight Outline H.A.R.D. 212 stage monitors with the company's unique (patent pending) "acoustic architecture" were used: these continue to make a name for themselves in high profile e

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UK - Skan PA Hire has purchased a 60-channel Klark Teknik DN1248 Plus mic splitter system. The units have been built into a custom stagebox, designed by Skan's Chris Fitch, with custom wiring and panel work by VDC. The stage box has been designed to fit into Skan's existing multipin systems while providing the flexibility and demands that some touring acts need.

The splitter system went straight out on David Gray's UK tour, making its debut on Gray's Parkinson appearance, then moving onto another TV slot with Jools Holland before heading out across the UK for the December dates. The DN1248s Pluses have been used to their full capacity, with the need for FOH, monitor, multitrack and broadcast splits on several occasions, say Skan.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - 5 Star Cases is supplying Unusual Rigging with 100 new flight cases for one tonne Liftket motors, the first of which are rolling off the production line at the company's Wisbech-based manufacturing plant. Unusual have had to increase their hoist stock to facilitate an incredibly busy touring season, bringing their total motor count to over 1000! Once again, they came to 5 Star to build rugged road cases for the new hoists, which have been specially customised both inside and out. The light blue exteriors feature the Unusual Rigging logo and full contact details. On the inside, the Tour Grade cases are fitted out with a specially designed framework to accommodate the hoist.

The trunks are a brand new design based on a familiar 5 Star hoist case shell, with further enhancements including a refined CNC machined cradle support. This cradle system comprises 24mm birch ply which

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Germany / Europe - The organizers of Photokinaannounced that the fair looks set to be a success. Oliver P. Kuhrt, executive vice president of Koelnmesse GmbH, says: "The imaging market is booming and therefore provides ideal conditions for a successful photokina 2006. The World of imaging is benefiting from the increasing convergence of markets and technologies. It's the only event in the world that represents this market in its full complexity."

Koelnmesse is expecting to attract around 1,600 suppliers from 50 countries to the event which opens on 26 September 2006, with more than 60% of the exhibitors coming from outside Germany. Also on hand will be major names from the IT and telecommunications segment. Many of these, including Epson, HP, Casio, Samsung and Panasonic, will be enlarging their stands - as will companies such as Nokia and Microsoft. Kuhr

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France - L-Acoustics recently took advantage of the 119th AES Convention in New York City to announce the worldwide launch of two self-powered two-way coaxial loudspeakers, the 108P and 112P. Both combine the significant advantages of L-Acoustics' proven coaxial point source technology, with the convenience of self-powered performance and on board digital signal processing, says the company.

Christian Heil, L-Acoustics president comments: "The introduction of a self-powered line of products does not indicate a change in our strategy, but an emphasis of L-Acoustics position towards multi-purpose, easy-to-use portable applications . . . It is not in our intention to extend the concept of self-powered speakers to the entire L-Acoustics range, however this approach seems relevant to us for small-to medium-sized multi-purpose systems."

According to L-Acoustics: "Both

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Australia / Belgium - Show Technology, Australia's leading importer and distributor of intelligent lighting solutions, has been appointed exclusive Australian distributor of Arkaos DMX Media Server software VJ 3.5.

Belgium-based Arkaos is a world-leading provider of technology for live visual performances. Since 1996, Arkaos has developed visual synthesizers that trigger and manipulate graphic content that can be displayed on large screens at events, concerts, clubs or wherever visual information is required. When it comes to media manipulation software, Arkaos is one of Europe's leading names in clubs and rental companies.

"Video is becoming integrated with lighting and lighting control at a rapid rate and it is important that we provide appropriate solutions for our customers' needs" says Show Technology managing director, Emmanuel Ziino. "Our team is dedicate

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