Details
India - MA Lighting's distributor for India, Reynold's Sound & Lighting Services recently held training in Bangalore. The 30 attendees were lighting designers, rental companies, system integrators, theatre personnel, consultants and specifiers from all over India.

Their feedback was very positive and enthusiastic. "It was the first time we held training for the MA consoles and we were completely overwhelmed by the huge success. After what I've heard from the participants, grandMA has got a really bright future in India," said Felix Remedios, Reynolds managing director.

"The training, organised by Reynold's, was held to meet the growing demands of the Indian market, to bring productions to a higher level and to link with our new office MA Lighting Middle East / Ind

Details
UK - ETC distributors and dealers from across Europe met at ETC's west London offices and demo facility - aka the Playhouse at Gypsy Corner - on 22 and 23 May to discuss the company's latest products and strategies as well as to receive general product training.

Over the course of the two days, more than 40 delegates from ETC's partner companies were given demos of SmartFade ML and, courtesy of ETC's Eos product manager Anne Valentino, the new Eos lighting control system, which is set for European outings at ABTT and Showtech in June.

The summit attendees also had a chance to discuss technical issues and developments including ETC's Net3 networking and ACN, the new lightweight single-direction protocol used to transmit whole DMX universes over Ethernet, as well as network among their colleagues.

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - Bandit Lites UK is supplying full lighting production and crew to the current Travis tour, promoting their latest album, The Boy with No Name. This is their first tour in 3 years. Bandit chief executive, Lester Cobrin has previously worked with Travis and comments, "Travis is a band of outstanding talent and I am truly looking forward to working with them again here at Bandit."

Long-time Travis lighting designer Matt Jensen created a crisp, clean style for this show - essentially a theatrical vehicle with some contemporary twists - including lots of soft washes and iris focuses.

Lead singer Fran Healy took a relatively active role in the initial lighting brief, and then left Jensen to develop the show from there. The lighting features a slightly retro PAR can feel - a soft edged, tungsteny affair - and staying true to the design theme, Jensen did not inco

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
Spain - Góngora Gran Café in Cordoba opened its doors in December 2006, Situated in the historical heart of the city, the Café's new owners have overseen a meticulous conversion of the premises from bingo hall to café-bar during the day, live music venue in the evening and discotheque at night, and have adapted to suit the needs of a diverse and increasingly demanding public.

Lighting was the responsibility of company In-Out Soluciones Audiovisuales. The long-term friendship between the manager of the bar, Abelardo Cárdenas, and the director of In-Out, Antonio Solvas, as well as the motivation to create something spectacular yet elegant, led to the installation of a complete Martin package: 8 MAC 250 Entours, 6 MAC 250 Kryptons, 4 MAC 250 Washes, 2 MX-10 Extreme scanners, 10 Mania SCX 600 effect lights, 30 Cyclo 03 DMX fluorescent linear luminaires with a

Details
UK - Beginning July 2007, Strand Lighting Europe will officially open for business as a member of the Genlyte Group, LLC. The new office, near Gatwick airport, is located at:

Unit 2 Royce Road,
Fleming Way,
Crawley,
West Sussex
RH10 9JY

The contact telephone number is +44 (0) 129 355 0280.

"We are delighted to return to Europe with our new UK-based operation," said Steve Carson, Genlyte Controls vice president. "We are building a strong team and putting our resources behind them to deliver great products and services to our existing and potential clientele."

Key personnel in the new office will be Alan Luxford, general manager; Ken Berreen, sales manager for the UK, Spain, Portugal, and South Africa; Bill Richards, marketing manager; Tracy Downes, customer service manager, and Victor Mikheev, service and engineering Manager.

Alan Luxford a

Details
UK - One of London's most authentically-designed bars has opened in the east wing of The Cumberland Hotel at London's Marble Arch. The industrially-themed Carbon has been developed at a cost of £2.5m on the site of the Cumberland's former Callaghan's Irish Bar (which was closed three years ago).

Interior designer Mark Bithrey of B3 Designers has immersed the 450-capacity venue in a world of concrete, brick, steel, mesh and leather (peppered with industrial artefacts and extremely rare champagnes) to achieve a low-key, sultry Shoreditch style vibe.

Having worked with the Sound Division Group on a previous bar project he again tasked the A/V specialists with creating the aural ambience in the four-zoned venue. This is divided between the main ground floor bar, lounge, the separate bookable Chain Room and the suspended Mezzanine Bar upstairs.

Under the project management

Details
UK - After 27 years of running Harmer PR on her own, Lesley Harmer has been joined by Elliot Herman as a partner in the business. Elliot has been an employee of Harmer Public Relations for two years.

Harmer PR is to retain its name, but will have a fresh new look, with a new corporate identity and website. Journalists will benefit from being able to access each client's area directly by going straight to www.harmerpr.com/[client name].

Elliot said: "I've been surprised and delighted by the congratulatory messages I've received since we sent out an email to our clients, and look forward to working closely with them as Lesley and I continue to build on our success."

(Jim Evans)

Details
UK - At this year' ABTT Shows, XL's touch screen media delivery systems will be highlighted on the stand. These are designed for easy and quick visualisation during a performance, where manual operation is appropriate. The operator simply touches the chosen icon to start 'play' of a sequence or single clip of media. The system can be used with or without audio.

Recent tours for this system have included Tony Robinson and Mitchell & Webb - and it has proved to be particularly appropriate for comedic performances.

Also prominent at the show is XL's high brightness projection equipment. This will be displaying custom electric masked projected shapes above the XL Video stand - from a distance of 35m - complete with the new generation of Barco CLM quiet running 10,000 ANSI Lumen projectors.

(Jim Evans)

Details
Austria - Midas and Klark Teknik have appointed a new Austrian distributor: Eltner GesmbH. The company was established in 1950, founding its e.tainment - sound, light & media solutions division in 2001. This division, which deals mainly with the rental, installation and MI industries, distributes a range of top-end audio, lighting and associated products including Electro-Voice, Dynacord, and now the full range of Midas consoles and Klark Teknik signal processing equipment. The new ranges will be handled by Midas and KT product and sales manager Thomas Hasenauer.

"We are really proud to be a member of the Midas and KT family and are confident that we will be able to raise the profile of these two brands in Austria," says Eltner's sales manager Matthas Reinthaler. "The most important thing is to be in regular contact with the customers, conducting demos, workshops

Details
Canada - Comfortably Numb, Canada's Pink Floyd Show is considered one of the finest tribute acts in North America, performing faithful renditions of Pink Floyd classics to nostalgic fans. This authentic re-creation of the Pink Floyd experience has been made even more convincing thanks to the addition of Martin's RGB Laser 1.6.

"The LD saw an opportunity to insert it into the show since Pink Floyd was always known for its laser show in the past," comments André Daigle, product specialist at Erikson Pro Canada who programmed and operated the laser from a laptop. "Everyone was ecstatic about the added dimension it brought." Lighting designer Todd Minicola of NOC Audio Visual of Kingston, Ontario adjusted his existing light show on the fly to give the laser a 'front and centre' appearance in the show.

"It is so easy to create effects with the Marti

Details
UK - MAC Sound UK has continued a relationship dating back more than 20 years - by purchasing 16 of Martin Audio's WT3 theatre enclosures. These were specified by the Manchester-based company's sound designer Clement Rawling for two six-month national touring productions Hot Flush (featuring Sheila Ferguson, Marti Webb, Rula Lenska) for producer Paul Elliott, and Boogie Nights (Antony Costa, Alvin Stardust), for Qdos Entertainment Theatre.

The arrayable 3-way compact theatre enclosures were supplied with the appropriate flying frames and DX1 system controllers, and are deployed equally across both productions.

Having heard W3 and WT3 some time earlier Rawling was convinced of their suitability for theatre shows and set up a demo. "The WT3s have proved outstanding with both the producers and musical supervisor," he said.

The first batch of WT3s were pu

Details
UK - Students at the University of Kent held their annual Keynestock Festival earlier this month and attracted more than 1,400 people to the three day live music event, which raised over £2,000 for the Prince's Trust.

The majority of the cabling used during the Festival was high quality Van Damme, supplied UK by VDC Trading and sold to Kent Union Technical Services (the Student Union's internally-run events crew) by Idium Technology.

Over the last two years, Kent Union has amassed a selection of Van Damme multicore, mic, DMX and power cables, as well as an array of Cat 5 and video cabling. These purchases have been part of a major investment by the Student Union, which was determined to bring the running of events such as Keynestock in house, thus improving the range and quality of events on offer.

Jon Fagg, a final year student at the University who set up Idium Techn

Details
UK - An injury to a cast member during a performance of Lord of the Rings at London's Theatre Royal Drury Lane, led to preview performances being temporarily suspended late last week. It was reported on the BBC News website that one of the actors caught his leg in the moving stage during an early scene. The set includes a large hydraulic stage which can revolve, and be raised or lowered in sections.

Audience member Tori Lowe was quoted by the BBC as saying: "The hobbits were on stage and had a group of dancers dressed as rangers with them. There was suddenly a lot of screaming, but at first we thought it might be part of the show. But a stagehand came runnning on, and when the music stopped we could hear someone shouting 'My leg! My leg!'."

In a statement, the producers said they were "looking at modifying the staging" so previews could resume. The &

Details
USA - Tomcat is known for its stage systems and equipment that are on tour with some of the biggest names in the music business. However, the company reports that it is also supporting local Midland, Odessa, Texas performers as well.

Tomcat recently sold a custom fabricated 40ft wide x 20ft deep stage system to Rusk Elementary which is adjustable between 4ft and 6ft tall. The school approached Tomcat in 2006 about supplying a new stage system for the annual Veterans' Day show that the students perform at the Commemorative Air Force every year. Their old stage had become so worn out that safety had become a major concern.

For its part, Tomcat donated the stage decks required for stage set up they needed - some of the younger students would probably be very excited to know that the same deck was used on a Bob the Builder touring production. Rusk Elementary paid cost for t

Details
UK - LED lighting manufacturer i-Vision has installed a variety of its standard Lumos range of LED lighting products into the stylish new Intoto Kitchens showroom in Cardiff.

This illustrates the concept of 'The Green Kitchen' in terms of energy consumption, whilst also attractively illuminating the various premium kitchen ranges in the showroom, and offering Intoto's designers and clients a series of lighting packages and ideas to combine with their kitchen planning.

There is a heavy emphasis on contemporary designs, all of which lend themselves to feature lighting. Intoto's Chris Galtry says, "Introducing integral lighting as an option has been a great success so far, and definitely gives us the edge as designers and suppliers."

The showroom features examples from i-Vision's extensive white and RGB LED ranges including the Lumos Strip, Lumos +3s and +1s up/down-l

Details
Norway - Originally acquired by the City of Fredrikstad in 1931, the Lykkeberg Kulturhus House has only recently been converted from its cinema origins to become a multi-cultural venue for the community at a cost of NOK 35 million (around £3 million).

As a result of the progressive digital audio distribution backbone designed by integrators LydRommet, using the Harman HiQnet control and communications platform, this waterfront city in the south of Norway can now stage a wide variety of performances from theatre, classical orchestras and rock concerts to civic meetings.

LydRommet has devised an advanced, and economical audio transport system culminating at the new digital Soundcraft Vi6 console, incorporating a 64-channel Stagebox and local rack.

Owned by the Fredrikstad Kommune, the completely refurbished venue is divided between the large auditorium (Blå Grotte) and

Details
UK - Bandit Lites UK continues its busy early summer run with another major arena tour - this time with Girls Aloud, one of the most successful pop groups of the decade. Bandit is once again working with Production North.

Lighting for this Greatest Hits show was designed by Peter Barnes with whom Bandit has worked on many other projects including Westlife, McFly and the X-Factor. Lighting is being directed and operated on tour by Andy Hurst.

"It's great to be working with Iain Whitehead (production manager and set designer) and Production North again," says Bandit UK chief executive, Lester Cobrin. "We all work really seamlessly together, and once again Pete has put together another excellent looking show."

Barnes chose to use Martin Professional MAC 2K washes as the principal moving lights on the design, with 32 of these specified as opposed to ju

Details
UK - Following on from successful stints in Sunderland & Dundee, Radio 1 ventured to Preston to kick-off UK Festival season in style. Adlib Audio supplied a JBL VerTec sound system for the INMWT (In New Music We Trust) stage at Radio 1's One Big Weekend in Preston. Featured artists included The Gossip, Maximo Park, Bloc Party, Groove Armada, the Klaxons and many more.

It was the first time that Liverpool-based Adlib has been involved in the event, brought onboard by promoters SJM and Radio 1's Sam Cunningham. Adlib's client manager Phil Kielty says: "When Andy Redhead at SJM invited us to supply for this event he stressed how important it was to impress Radio 1 and we were determined to do so."

"We did everything in our power to deliver the service to an exceptional standard", commented Dave Jones Adlib's PA manager, who liaised with Andy Redhead to ensure

Details
Singapore - Leading line array manufacturers are being invited to go head-to-head in a shoot-out at this year's PALME Asia show, (previously known as PALA) in Singapore, 12-14 July, Singapore Expo.

The opportunity for visitors to make their own evaluation on a large scale is a development of the idea piloted at PALME India last year - on a much larger scale. As a result, PALME Asia's associate partner, UnUsUal Productions, will build the special infrastructure for the Event 360° segment of the show to support this in Hall 5 at Singapore Expo (which will now operate in parallel with the integrated exhibition in Halls 3 and 4).

"This is a major breakthrough for PALME Asia," said the show's sales manager, Hanslee Azhar. "We will be offering a maximum of 12 manufacturers the opportunity to participate - and the response has been overwhelming."

To date, DA

Details
Dubai - Awards recognising outstanding use of lighting in the GCC territories, were presented at the Middle East Lighting Design Awards (MELDA) gala dinner, which took place during the recent PALME Middle East exhibition in Dubai.

The standard of this year's entries reflected the remarkable pace of development and scale of new commercial projects in the region.

The difficult task of adjudication fell to a panel of top lighting professionals, including Barry Hannaford of the IALD, and director, dpa Lighting Consultants; Yahya Jan AIA, vice president, design director, Norr Group Consultants; Riad Saraiji, associate professor of architectural engineering at UAE University, and Paul James, Editor, Mondo*arc magazine.

Paying tribute, James said: "There is a general feeling in the design community that lighting, particularly in Dubai, is becoming increasingly 'Las Vega

Details
USA - Wireless Solution Sweden was recently part of the team responsible for an installation at Evangel Cathedral in Upper Marlboro, Maryland which features High End Systems DL.2s controlled with W-DMX.

Creative Stage Lighting from North Creek, NY supplied all the new equipment and the complete wireless system. This installation is in addition to Evangel's large existing lighting rig consisting of Wholehog 2 and Wholehog 3 Consoles, High End Systems x.Spots and Cyberlights, Morpheus Color Faders, Vari*Lite VL1000's and over 575 dimmers.

Koster Design of Branson, MO was responsible for the design and installation of the entire project. Kelly Koster and Mike Gormley of Koster Design first met with Bryan Meares from Evangel Cathedral at the High End Systems booth during LDI 2006.

The new gear was shipped directly to Creative Stage Lighting, where a staff of four worked exclusiv

Page 2076 of 3465

Latest Issue. . .