Details
UK - HSL is supplying full lighting production and crew for the Beautiful South's new Superbi tour, designed and operated by Dave Byars, and currently on its first UK and Irish leg. The tour is being project managed for HSL by Mike Oates who says: "It's great to be working with Dave. He spent three days in our demo room pre-programming elements of the show, and we're honoured that both he and tour manager Simon Foster have trusted a new company to supply the kit."

Byars is renowned for the quirky, skilful blending of imagination and idiosyncrasy in his designs. The starting point for the tour was custom-made set of drapes, consisting of ruched red wine-coloured stage drapes, borders and riser scrims and a grey upstage tab drape. This gives the stage a plush, textu

Details
USA - This summer the Red Hot Chili Peppers will hit the road to support their new CD, Stadium Arcadium, with custom equipment from Tomcat USA. Working with Five Point Productions, based out of Atlanta, Georgia, Tomcat created a 64ft (20m) span of custom 30" x 30" spigoted truss.

During the show, four video modules will move back and forth along parallel I-Beams that run along the bottom of the truss. Since these panels weigh approximately 4,000lbs (1.8 tonnes) apiece, special design concerns had to be taken into consideration. In addition to the truss, Tomcat manufactured six custom pick-up bars designed to attach in-line with the truss spigots in the top face, as well as dolly frames that will be utilized to transport the truss section from venue to venue.

The tour kicked off in May including a surprise show at New York City's Irving Plaza then moving on to schedul

Details
UK - Bristol-based PA company Sonix Audio has purchased four of Klark-Teknik's new DN9848E system controllers, one of the key components of the new Show Command integrated system, which provides full control over loudspeaker management and/or in-ear monitoring using Ethernet technology.

Part of the Helix suite of products, the DN9848E processors give Sonix engineers the freedom to roam around their venues, controlling delay times and EQ settings from a wi-fi enabled tablet using the new ELGAR plug-in based remote control software.

The DN9848Es were supplied, along with six KT DN370s graphic equalisers for general inventory top-up, by Shuttlesound. Sonix Audio's Paul Goold says: "It was a two-way choice between different brands, but we felt that the Klark-Teknik unit was ultimately more future-proof than the alternative."

With most of its work in theatre and high-en

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
Ireland - J&C Joel has supplied and installed nineteen 200 KG SWL electric Pilewind winches into the overstage area of the main auditorium within the brand new Solstice Arts Centre in Navan, County Meath, Ireland. This hugely versatile Pilewind system is designed for the quick and easy rigging and de-rigging, of lighting, audio and AV equipment, scenery items and props.

Solstice, the result of a 13.5 million Euro project, is owned and operated by Meath County Council. It is designed by Shelly McNamara of award-winning Grafton Architects and the space includes a 320-seat theatre, three visual-arts areas and a café/bar. It's the County's first major cultural centre, and is heralded a glowing symbol for the belief, pride and commitment to cultural and artistic life in Meath. Solstice is already being hailed as one of the finest arts centre outside Dublin.

J&C Joel was invi

Details
USA - As part of an extensive renovation project, the sanctuary at Immanuel Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland features a new sound reinforcement system driven by Inter-M L Series power amplifiers. Audio-Video Group, a design-build system integrator based in Frederick, Maryland, provided the design of the new sound system in addition to heading up its installation. The company chose to go with a distributed, mono approach to insure complete coverage throughout the 300-capacity room, which is wider than it is deep.

"This new system represents a big improvement over the 15-year-old version it replaced," says Charles Cassell of Audio-Video Group. "We've all been quite pleased with the sonic upgrade in every aspect of reinforcement at services and other events held in the sanctuary." Four Inter-M power amplifiers (two model L1800 and two model L2400) are rack-

Details
UK - PRG Europe provided lighting equipment and crew services for two very distinct productions at the 40th Brighton Festival: Group F's spectacular firework display in Brighton's Preston Park and the world premier of the Lost and Found Orchestra at the Brighton Dome concert hall.

French firework expert Group F has an impressive back catalogue, including the display during the 2006 New Year celebrations at the London Eye, the spectacular show on the Eiffel Tower during the millennium celebrations in Paris and the opening and closing ceremonies of the Athens Olympics. The Brighton event was no less spectacular.

Overseeing the lighting hire needs for Preston Park was Loz Wilcox, project manager at PRG Europe's Croydon office, who explained: "We were contacted by event production manager Jon Linstrum, via event organiser Zap Art, back in November last year. I contracted one

Details
UK - Strand Lighting has announced that its new Project office, located in Cambridge, is now operational. "It has been a long road since our June 2005 announcement of our planned consolidation of the multiple UK sites to a single facility, but I am pleased to say that we have now completed the transfer of all UK projects, customer service and accounts functions all under one roof," says David Catterall, European sales director. "I believe this should significantly improve our service levels and the quality of communication over the next months."

"We have retained a strategic store of service parts and a workshop facility in the London area for service support but essentially we are now all operating from one main UK office or from satellite home offices connected to that office".

The Projects office in Cambridge is managed by Ed Twentyman, who has

Details
France - State Automation dimming and network products will be installed this summer by INEO Media System for a new permanent dimming system at the Grande Halle - the iconic building inside the premier urban cultural park, Parc de la Villette.

Built in 1867 by Jules de Merindol as the old oxen market, and was entirely transformed in 1982 by the architects Bernard Reichen and Philippe Robert to become the place for all sorts of events from theatre shows, creative exhibitions to cultural activities of concert, balls, dances, photo expos and films. The Grande Halle, is undoubtedly the main treasure of the park for its unique identity of "where the most diverse people cross one another."

State Automation was the pioneer in developing the sinewave technology in 1995, won the PLASA Award in 1998 and had the world's first SineWave installation at Sydney Opera House in 1999.

Details
Belgium - Barco has announced the launch of a new addition to its OLite family of LED products.Launched at Infocomm 2006, the OLite 612 marks another leap forward in LED technology through its ultra bright light output and vastly improved contrast levels.

The new OLite 612, has a pixel pitch of 12mm and has an ultra bright light output of 6000NITs. It also features a radical new shader design which results in much darker black levels especially in broad daylight. When combined with the high brightness light output, the OLite 612 delivers vastly improved contrast levels, critical in outdoor events such as live concerts.

Built specifically for the demanding rental and staging market, the OLite 612 is designed for creative applications as well as the classic Image Magnification (IMAG) applications. Each tile can be easily split up into 48 small, square individual modules enabling

Details
UAE - Mall of the Emirates in Dubai is one of the largest shopping malls outside of North America. But that is not what makes it unique. Although the Mall features the usual amenities of a large shopping centre, its claim to fame is something altogether new for a desert environment - specifically, a one-of-a-kind indoor ski complex.

Located in the heart of what is deemed 'New Dubai,' the 223,000sq.m centre offers a full range of shopping, leisure, and entertainment activities. Officially opened in November 2005 it is home to over 400 retailers and includes Ski Dubai, the five-star Kempinski Hotel, and Magic Planet, the largest indoor family entertainment centre in the country.

Martin Professional Middle East, already responsible for some of the region's most distinguishing lighting solutions, was called in to provide a dynamic lighting scheme for several key areas. Ski Dubai i

Details
UK - Compulite Vector control systems and Hippotizer media servers, all supplied via Stagetec Distribution, provided all the intelligent lighting and media control on the latest production of X Factor - Battle of the Stars on ITV, shot at Fountain TV Studios in Wembley.

A Compulite Vector Blue operated by Russell Grubiak controls the three Hippotizer Stage media servers, all running in dual output mode and a Vector Green operated by Bill Peachment controls the intelligent lighting rig consisting of 34 Vari*Lite VL3000 spots, 32 Vari*Lite VL3000 washes, 30 VL5s, 34 VL6Cs, 10 VL1000TSFrm, four High End Cyberlights, 20 James Thomas Pixel Par 90s, 46 Pixel Line 1044s and 36 Pulsar Chroma Strips - all run on eight streams of DMX transmitted via Ethernet from the Vector.

The Vector control systems were used for the previous series of X Factor, but the Hippotizer media servers

Details
USA - Color Kinetics Incorporated today announced that it has been awarded approximately $1.7 million by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop an LED-based alternative to incandescent lamps for general illumination.

Color Kinetics is one of five companies, including General Electric, Eastman Kodak, Osram Sylvania and SRI International, to be awarded a share of $7 million in this round of DOE funding for LED-based solid-state lighting. As is customary, the awards and the specific details of the proposals are still subject to final negotiation between DOE and the participants.

Color Kinetics' proposal, An Integrated Solid-State LED Luminaire for General Lighting, aims to develop replacement lamps for 60-watt incandescent light sources that, with a four-fold increase in efficacy to 80-lumens per watt, would meet or exceed the efficacy of nearly all conventional li

Details
UK - Leading staging company Stagecraft Theatre Services recently completed the design and installation of a new theatre system at the award-winning Mossbourne Academy in London. Mossbourne, which recently won the RIBA Award for Design Excellence, is one of the new flag-ship community academy schools in London, opened by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005.

"Working with the team at Mossbourne, we have created a lighting and sound system which is equal to that of many professional theatres. The lighting is rigged onto a flown truss to give the school complete flexibility and we have installed a variety of lanterns to ensure that every angle of the stage is covered. Likewise, the sound system includes sound desks which give direct access and control of the CD/DVD players, the mics and radio mics, to allow students to move around the theatre without losing sound quality,"

Details
As the world waits for his main tour to kick off, Robbie Williams gave fans a hint of great things to come ina series of 'warm up' shows. L&SI's Chris Henry caught up with the crew in Dubai . . .UAE - It's official, the Robbie Williams machine is rolling back into action (following a well-deserved post-Knebworth rest) and boy, is it a slick operation. As the technical teams head to Belgium for more rehearsals and test builds, following a three-week stint at Northern Studios in Wakefield, the tour proper finally kicks off on 9 June at Croke Park in Dublin.

Billed as the 'spring leg' of the tour, Robbie's three South African shows and one in Dubai, with his 'B rig' have been and gone. L&SI met up with the brains behind the scenes, and asked what treats lie in store on the main show, and how on earth do you top KnebworthΩ

Wob Roberts, production manager "It's been diff

Details
UK - In Cardiff, the Albany Road Baptist Church has opted for one of the UK's first installations of Electro-Voice's new Zx5 high-performance lightweight loudspeakers, elegantly presented in white.

Specified by local church installation specialist David Corick of Springwood Professional Services, the system includes a Dynacord PowerMate 2200 22-input mixing desk, and a comprehensive package of Electro-Voice lapel and lectern microphones, ideal for a church which regularly features bands of up to 12 pieces in its services.

EV's new Zx5 is a 15-inch, 2-way cabinet featuring the newest generation of EV components, the all-new DXV3150, 500W, 15-inch woofer and the all-new 2-inch neodymium ND2 compression driver. Rated for 600 watts long-term power handling and capable of producing high SPLs whilst providing a very smooth frequency response, the Zx5 is ideal for the variety of prog

Details
Dubai - The fourth annual PALME 2006 show took place on 23-25 of April in Dubai's World Trade Centre. The show's organisers claimed a 30% increase in visitor numbers after the event, so were the exhibitors' palms crossed with goldΩ

The exhibition comprised three individual sector shows, Install, Event 360 and MUSAC. Install unsurprisingly focussed on the installation market, Event 360 targeted those with event and production needs, and MUSAC catered for the musical instrument market. PALME's well-developed seminar programme ran alongside.

A slinky dancer projected on a FogScreen lured visitors to the company's stand. CEO Mika Koivula indicated that FogScreen were "open to options" of an office or distributors in the region.

Vicky Fairall, formerly of DHA, was the friendly face of Goboland who were launching their brand new steel gobo collection

Details
USA - Worldwide-automated lighting manufacturer High End Systems (HES) has announced the Collage Generator, a new software feature coming soon for the HES DL.2 Digital Light. The patent-pending software enables DL.2 fixtures to create seamless panoramic media projections controlled from a lighting console. Collage Generator allows the user to take any image, either stock or custom content, and segment it into countless images for projection through DL.2 fixtures.

Says Scott Blair, HES DL.2 product manager: "This new feature differs from the existing edge-fading feature in DL.2 in that Collage Generator allows the user to define a panorama using a selectable array of fixtures and then manipulate the panorama as if it were one single fixture. This special form of edge-blending is optimized for this fusion of images into one."

Providing an example, Blair adds: "The

Details
USA - The Christian Cultural Center in Brooklyn, is one of the largest churches in New York. Built on an eleven-acre campus that includes a café and book store, prayer centre, gardens and restaurants in addition to the worship centre, conference facilities and a preparatory school, CCC now has a congregation of more than 25,000 with another 300,000 tuning in to hear CCC's senior pastor and founder, Reverend A. R. Bernard, on New York's Christian radio station, WMCA-AM. In fact, Rev. Bernard was recently cited as one of the most influential men in New York by New York Magazine.

This spring, CCC was asked to provide a two-hour special to air around the globe on the world's largest religious network, Trinity Broadcasting Network. As the church does not typically produce television shows, they brought in Steve Simmons of Concentric Seminars and Consulting in Atlanta, Georgia,

Details
Belgium - Barco has announced the launch of MiStrip, a new high bright, slim, high pixel density LED strip. The latest addition to Barco's growing creative LED portfolio, MiStrip is having its debut on the current Bon Jovi world concert tour.

MiStrip sets a new standard for LED display technology in a wide variety of applications. From large free-form video displays to architectural visual design. MiStrip is also ideal for integration into stage sets, exhibition booths and interior as well as exterior architectural usage. IP65 protection rating and a wide temperature range enable outdoor usage in all weather conditions, say Barco, while the built-in mounting track and smart cabling solutions make installation of even very large systems fast and easy.

For the Bon Jovi tour, MiStrip is being used to create an enormous 42m-wide three-dimensional scenic stage backdrop, designed by

Details
UK - White Light moves to the Lindley Hall at this year's ABTT Trade Show; products from Robert Juliat, LDDE, Wireless Solutions and others will be on show. Leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light will be exhibiting at the ABTT Trade Show once again this year (14-15 June, Royal Horticultural Halls, London). White Light has switched halls this year, to the Lindley Hall. "The Lindley has blinds on its windows," comments White Light's managing director, Bryan Raven, "which we hope might make for an atmosphere slightly more conducive to demonstrating lighting products!"

Those products will including a selection of new ranges from Robert Juliat, including the Super Korrigan and short-throw Lucy followspots plus the Lutin interchangeable PC/fresnel lantern and Espion DMX tester. Alongside these will be Look Solution's new Unique2 hazer as well as their

Details
The tiny town of Culdaff boasts a live music venue which is one of the Irish Tourist Board's rising stars. L&SI reports . . .

Ireland - Far up on the craggy, northernmost coast of the Republic of Ireland lies a small and pretty village with two treasures it can call its own. Culdaff (pop. 200), in Inishowen, County Donegal, boasts both one of Europe's top-rated Blue Flag beaches, a perfect golden strand, and, these past few years, one of the island of Ireland's most enterprising live music ventures, the Backroom at McGrory's.

The Backroom, whose seated capacity neatly equals the village's population, is the main reason McGrory's is one of the Irish Tourist Board's rising stars. It's complemented by a 70-covers restaurant with an enviable reputation for fresh locally-sourced cuisine, while the atmospheric main bar serves up yet more food and live music.

Culdaff's remoteness h

Page 1928 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .