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Strong Entertainment Lighting's Jack Schmidt is now officially retired, but he's still very much in evidence in his consultancy role. The company showed a new followspot featuring an 850W DC (and thereforeflicker-free) metal halide Ushio lamp source, which Schmidt says produces an output equivalent to a 1600W Xenon. Latest developments to the Super Trouper include a new ammeter on the back of the unit which is compatible with either 220V/50Hz or 110V/60Hz operation, allowing the units to be toured between regions without switching meters.

Schmidt's successor, Jack Gallagher, was keen to reinforce the company's reputation as a leading innovator: on display was a list of the company's innovations in followspot technology dating back to the first carbon arc Super Trouper in 1948, and the fi

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Products at the Coemar booth included the Mini-Cyc, the Parlite LED, the iWash Halo, and the iSpot S.

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UK - The much-vaunted new Wembley Stadium has been in the press several times of late, and for all the wrong reasons. First, the main contractor Multiplex announced that they would break even on the project (apparently having already sold their share of the new shopping complex they're building in Shepherds Bush because that too is going pear-shaped) before admitting the project is behind schedule. Now they've admitted they're going to lose tens of millions and the project is running about four months behind: it's said that the FA has booked Cardiff's Millennium Stadium as a backup for this year's FA Cup Final, although one should probably treat that as a done deal rather than a contingency.

Word on the ground is not much better. For a venue due to be open this month, there's still an awful lot of mud on the ground and water leaking from all over the place, so don't hold your br

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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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As we reported in the news last month, Stage Technologies' main announcement at LDI was the opening of a permanent US office in Las Vegas, to be headed by Kevin Taylor. Having contributed extensive stage automation expertise to the major Cirque du Soleil show KA at the MGM Grand (see L&SI May 2005), and with other major projects ongoing, the US office is a timely move for the company. John Hastie commented that the US office is also involved in some film work (the UK office has too - the latest Harry Potter movie being an example). As to LDI, 'pretty quiet' was the verdict.

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City Theatrical continued its line of power supplies for Color Kinetics LED fixtures. The PDS-750-TR provides power and DMX-control capability for the ColorBlast. Also, the AutoYoke is now available with WDS wireless DMX technology, say the company.

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Martin Professional's international stage, studio and event segment manager, Mark Ravenhill, had just settled into his new Florida home, following his move from Denmark, and was having an "absolutely great" show.He showed us the company's latest prototype moving head, the Mac TW1 ('Tungsten Wash') - its first incandescent fixture, following many requests, said Ravenhill. The idea, he explains, was to achieve "everything in one fixture": no small aim. It consists of a new, magnesium-bodied head on a Mac 2000 yoke sitting on a Mac 700 base, sensibly taking advantage of tried and tested components. It features a twin-lensed zoom system, an internal dimmer (various dimming curves are available), plus a connection for external dimming; it also includes full CMY colour mixing, very precise movement, a quarter-turn lamp access door and is 110/230V compatible. Its patented (a

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XLNT gave the official US debut of its Cyberhoist/InMotion 3D motion control system, winning LDI's Rigging Product of the Year Award in the process to add to its PLASA Award for Innovation, won in 2004. The system's two main elements are the InMotion 3D programming and control software and an unlimited number of CyberHoist intelligent motors. The dedicated DataMotion Ethernet network and PowerMotion power distribution system complete the package.

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Show Distribution revealed that it has supplied to Tait Towers the biggest Chainmaster Variolift system in the world, for the current Jon Bon Jovi tour. The company also has gear out with the Foo Fighters (due to be covered in depth in L&SI, February 2006) and other music acts.

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Seen earlier at PLASA, but hotly anticipated in the US was the return of Vari-Lite's VL5 in its updated guise as the VL500. There are four versions: the VL500 has the option of a 1,000W or 1,200W lamp and uses a conventional dimmer circuit for intensity control. The VL500D has a built-in IGBT dimmer but is otherwise identical to the standard VL500 - right down to the 12.5-to 20° beam angle. The VL500A is the arc-source version, with the option of either a 575W or 700W source. The VL500A is significantly narrower than its tungsten cousins, at 7.5 to 16.5°, and uses an external ballast. The VL500 80V uses an 80V/1,200W incandescent lamp, an external dimmer, and has a beam angle of 11-16.5°.

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Apollo Design Technology showed its new collection of gobo patterns for 2006. A neat new product was a tapered top hat for conventional fixtures. These can be stacked on top of one another, taking up just a tenth of the space of a normal collection of top hats.

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UK - The nominees for this year's Laurence Olivier Awards, presented by the Society of London Theatres, were announced yesterday. White Light would like to congratulate lighting designers Paule Constable, Rick Fisher, Howard Harrison and Hugh Vanstone, along with the nominees in all of the other categories.

The lighting designers were nominated for Don Carlos at the Gielgud, lit by last year's winner, Paule Constable; Billy Elliot at the Victoria Palace, lit by Rick Fisher, Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly, lit by Howard Harrison, and Mary Stuart at the Donmar Warehouse and then the Apollo, lit by Hugh Vanstone. Guys and Dolls and Billy Elliot were also nominated in many other categories, receiving a total of eight and nine nominations respectively.

Of the lighting nominees, two shows, Billy Elliot and Mary Stuart used li

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Pathway Connectivity has incorporated DIN-rail mounting, popular in industrial controls, into its new line of eDIN DMX distribution and interface products. They include four-way DMX opto-splitters, 12-way DMX contractors, and 16-way DMX demultiplexers in eDIN modules, with additional products on the way. Pathway also introduced the new DMXManager Plus! This product provides four ports that can be user-configured as any combination of inputs and outputs.

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A.C. Lighting's main announcement was the introduction of the Chroma-Q Color Web - a transparent, modular LED matrix developed by Artistic Licence (as Pixi-Web). Featuring a unique modular design, each flexible 1sq.m panel provides 16 individually addressable colour mixing LED cells with a pitch of 250mm. Panels clip together on all four sides and can even be joined over distances using separately available interlinking cables, giving users complete control over the size and shape of their display area.

As only 20% of the surface area is taken up by the lightweight, flexible webbing, it offers unparalleled transparency for double hanging or multi-layering at distances. Color Web can be lit through for integration with set and other lighting elements. The product is also extremely cost-effective: 10 x 1m panels with PSU would weigh less and be size and cost comparable to a moving light,

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Rosco showed several new products, including Infinity Effects, a new gobo animation device offering kinetic lighting effects combined with simplicity of use and low cost; Keystroke, the hardware/software solution for running PowerPoint projections directly from your DMX control board; and the upgraded X-Effects projector, which now has onboard DMX and a mechanical dowser. New colours from Rosco include Hemsley Blue, designed by Mark Stanley, lighting director for New York City Ballet, in honour of his mentor, the late Gilbert V. Hemsley, Jr., and Pale Bastard Amber, created by Michael Chybowski to warm the light of an ETC Source Four to enhance skin tones.

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Sunlite showed the 2006 suite package of its Easy Stand Alone system. This version adds a new stand-alone Ethernet DMX 512 interface (IP version) to the already existing USB-DMX interface.

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Element Labs displayed the new Versa Pixel system, which allows a video wall to contain any shape or size of pixel. Also on show was a new mounting system for the Versa Tube system.

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Something new in LEDs is Selador's X7, which uses seven colours - red, green, blue, amber, red-orange, cyan, and indigo - for a more sophisticated form of colour mixing. The company offers its LEDs in a number of strip and block configurations for different uses.

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Wyatt Enever left DHA Lighting, the company he helped build for 25 years, at the end of March 2005. Julie Harper catches up with him and his new venture, Studio Wyatt . . .

UK - Wyatt Enever, photographer, projection specialist and one-time managing director of DHA Lighting Ltd, has since spent the last nine months developing Studio Wyatt. In doing so he is returning to his roots as a photographer and exercising over 30 years of accumulated experience in innovative and traditional projection techniques.

Based near Guildford, Studio Wyatt offers consultancy and in-house production of all formats of projection slides - from 35mm through 18cm x 18cm for Pani and E/T/C Pigi projectors, to the 240mm x 240mm required for Pani 12k projectors - using both photographic and computer graphics.

It may have come as a surprise to some that Enever decided to take this route after so many y

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UK - Lighting designer Dan Hardiman (above) is no shrinking violet when it comes to embracing new technology. An Engineering graduate, he has been pushing at the boundaries of the possible from the moment he joined the touring fraternity.

For his most recent endeavour with UB40, he presented himself with one of his biggest challenges yet; how to run an arena-sized light show complete with followspots, and call a four -camera video team, single-handed? The solution he's evolved will be more than a useful tool; to many it will be a salvation.

"I told the band what I had in mind, and that it might not work, so we had a touring video director on standby, but six weeks in it's working fine." It's no trick: Hardiman has harnessed technology to his needs, but in solving one problem he has also addressed another: "It's founded on an idea I've had for a long time. On my

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Pulsar had recently appointed Jerry Colmenero as their dedicated sales manager for the Americas, and LDI was our first opportunity to meet him. Based in Texas, he will help to develop Pulsar's business in the Americas and also offer support for the company's distributors in Canada, USA, Mexico, and South America.

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ESP Vision's pre-visualisation software has reached V2.0. It includes physically correct light-field rendering, true rigid-body simulation for moving truss and set pieces, and reflective and translucent surfaces. To celebrate this new release, ESP Vision's world-wide distributor, Zzyzk, Inc., announced that it is sponsoring a contest to find the best lighting design to a song.
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