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UK - Smoke Factory UK are launching their new range of LED Fixtures at Plasa 2012 (Stand 1-C4). Alongside the new Kandolite LED range will be the full range of Smoke Factory haze and fog machines.

On show for the first time is the Kandolite range of LED fixtures. These Chinese manufactured units have been built to rigorous European specifications and to a high build quality. The 36 and 60, LED 3 watt Par fixtures, plus RGBAW 3 watt battens and cyc Lights, 1 watt and 3 watt LED wall wash units and a powerful moving wash ight completes the range.

The Smoke Factory range will feature the ever dependable Tourhazer 2, the original industry standard for Haze machines. Alongside will be the CaptainD, Data2, Scotty2 and the rest of the Smoke Factory range. Manufactured in Hannover, thes

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UK - A packed programme of sessions is now confirmed for the third annual PLASA Rigging Conference at the Earls Court Conference Centre in London on Monday 10 and Tuesday 11 September 2012.

The PLASA Rigging Conference is delighted to confirm that the conference will close with 'Question Time' hosted by Alan Jacobi LVO, MD of Unusual Rigging.

An iconic figure in the world of rigging, Alan's involvement with the Rigging Conference dates back to its inception, as conference consultant Chris Higgs explains, "Alan Jacobi (AJ) opened the inaugural PLASA Rigging Conference in 2010 in his inimitable style but sadly wasn't able to join us last year. I was therefore delighted that he agreed immediately to host the closing Q&A session this year. Alan is an inspirational character to many of us and someone who I have no doubt will again ask insightful questions, act as question mast

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London Calling - More than 12m people have taken part in the London 2012 Festival - the cultural programme of the Olympics - according to organisers. Their figures are based on ticket sales, attendance figures and surveys of the UK population. Approximately 2.9m took part in a mass bell-ringing session on the opening day of the games. A further 9.6m visited free events like Radio 1's Hackney Weekend and the Tate Modern's oil tanks. Festival director Ruth MacKenzie, said she was "delighted" and that audience numbers were "well ahead of expectations".

Off Stage - Long-running musical Blood Brothers is to end its current run after spending 24 years in London's West End. The show has its final performance at the Phoenix Theatre on 27 October but will continue to play on tour. A spokesman for producer Bill Kenwright said it was "the end of a cha

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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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South Africa - Schalk Botha has joined the sales team at DWR Distribution.

Schalk's introduction to lighting came when he was appointed as co-resident DJ at Bourbon Street, a nightclub in Boksburg; he was known as DJ Shabz.

In 2004 Schalk joined Prosound's TNA Lighting doing technical sales, repairs and installation.

He has freelanced with companies including Black Coffee and Hirezone, doing everything from rigging, programming and running shows, and then striking and loading trucks.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - A recent string of high profile appearances has seen Tinie Tempah at some of the most prominent music events of the summer, along with Chaos Visuals. "Tinie Tempah's creative director Willo Perron presented us with the initial concept in late May. Perron is an outstanding conceptualist; this was to be something very special, kicking off with the BBC Radio 1 Hackney Weekend," explained Alex Leinster, Chaos Visual's MD. "Willo's idea was bold but fitted perfectly with such stage events where we see many artists pass through in short order. From our perspective the core of Willo's staging concept for Tinie was a series of wheel mounted columns between two and four metres tall, all clad in LED video."

Leinster appointed Andy Tonks to the project for Chaos: "Antony Randall, Tinie's show producer consulted with myself and Alex and led the realisation of W

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Oman - More than a decade after Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman ordered the building of an opera house, his vision has finally became a reality. Work was recently completed on Royal Opera House Muscat (ROHM), which now stands opulently in the Shati-Al-Qurm district of the city as Oman's premier venue for musical arts and culture.

A special production of Turandot took place on the 1,000-seat venue's opening night, which was directed by the legendary Franco Zeffirelli (who also designed the set) and conducted by Spanish tenor, Placido Domingo. Approximately 350 Italian performers were flown in especially on order of the Sultan, to create a musical night to remember.

At the beginning of this gargantuan build, a concrete shell was created and a team of 30 carpenters built a 1:5 scale model of the Sultan's vision, which was regularly subject to change.

Originally, the venue

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UK - On Sunday 15 July, the US choreographer Elizabeth Streb unleashed her daredevil dancers on London landmarks to perform seven guerrilla-style events. Each was shrouded in secrecy until the power of social media brought out crowds that increased in number throughout the day.

Working for LIFT (London International Festival Theatre), production manager Tom Bailey and lighting designer Paul Cook, PRG's Loz Wilcox supplied lighting to illuminate the EDF Energy London Eye. This was the last event in the Surprises:STREB sequence and an exciting finale.

Production manager, Tom Bailey said, "With such a complex project, spread over seven iconic London sites on one day, I was looking for a turn-key approach from PRG to tackle the lighting of the Eye. PRG took this on-board right from the start and managed the process in a straight forward and efficient manner - and produced fan

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UK - The ETC Source Four 'classic' incandescent spotlight will be 20 years old in autumn and has now shipped 3m units. Introduced at the 1992 LDI tradeshow and sweeping that year's product awards, the fixture is now a mainstay of conventional lighting in rigs everywhere.

"For lighting designers, the Source Four has almost become a photometrics reference point, a unit of light," says ETC's David Lincecum. "They know how much light they'll get from the first electric, and that's a shared language of light output."

This year ETC introduced a much anticipated and well received LED version of its classic spotlight - combining the advantages of the revered Source Four optics with the colour system and further energy efficiencies of an ETC Selador LED luminaire. A rig of these was recently employed in the temporary London studio of France TV Sport for the Olympics

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UK - The Hard Rock Calling concert weekend in Hyde Park, London is now one of the most important music events in the UK. Sponsored by the Hard Rock Café organisation and featuring world famous rock acts, each concert attracts an audience of 55,000 people to the most prestigious of the Royal Parks.

MDS of Maidstone were chosen to provide lighting and sound for the VIP area during the weekend and supplied MT Professional Audio speakers and lightweight amplifiers to provide FOH sound and on-stage monitoring on three stages. Artists using the equipment included Big Country, The Guillemots, James Walsh and the Punch Brothers, and nobody had their power switched off.

Darren Tomlin, proprietor of MDS commented, "I visited MT Pro at their showroom near Maidstone, Kent to listen to the amps and speakers before making the purchase. I was very impressed with both the sound an

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Russia - Italian entertainment lighting manufacturer Clay Paky has congratulated its long-term Russian distribution partner Doka on 25 years in the business at its annual seminar in Moscow.

More than 300 movers and shakers from the Russian entertainment technology industry attended the seventh annual Russia-wide seminar, which bought lighting designers, rental companies and technicians together to share ideas, meet new equipment and network.

Pasquale Quadri, president and CEO of Clay Paky, said, "On the occasion of 25 years since the foundation of Doka, the Clay Paky team would like to thank you for a business partnership that has seen an extraordinary growth of both companies over the years. Professionalism, honesty and trust are all values that underpin the strong foundation of our long lasting partnership that, over the years, has forged a strong friendship that goes w

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UK - Offering spectacular views over the River Thames, the Grade II-listed Old Billingsgate is one of London's largest 'blank canvas' venues, with the capacity to stage major events, from film premiere parties, private dinners, concerts and fashion shows to conferences and exhibitions.

Of its three spaces, the vast 28,000sq. ft. main space, with its triple height ceilings, is the centrepiece, and can host sit-down dinners and conferences for in excess of 1,000 people.

LCI was invited to tender for the technical design, installation and commissioning of a comprehensive house production system, incorporating industry standard sound, lighting and video. This would be available to any incoming production companies along with smaller event clients who don't have a production partner associated with them.

Speed of rigging/derigging was an essential part of the criteria, as was a s

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UK - AV suppliers to the event production industry, Harmony Audio Visual, recently chose the Roland M-300 Digital Console and S-1608 Digital Snake as a solution for the multi-room element of an extravagant audio and visual production to mark the opening of a multi million pound music centre at one of the UK's most prestigious schools.

Stars of the music world, including musician and songwriter Richard Stilgoe OBE and Julian Colbeck, joined opera singer Dame Felicity Lott DBE for the official opening of the new £3.2m Monkton Senior School Music Centre. Located at the prestigious Monkton Combe School in Bath, the new centre will provide facilities to pupils of all musical abilities under director of music, George Bevan, but will also be available as a rehearsal and performance space for professional musicians.

Over 1000 guests attended the weekend opening event and were tr

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USA - Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band's Wrecking Ball tour continues to roll across the country with three Manon, eight Topaze, and four Lancelot followspots from Robert Juliat. The Boss is touring in support of his 17th studio album, also called Wrecking Ball, with an electrifying series of concerts featuring a number of technical innovations.

Robert Juliat followspots first went on tour with Bruce Springsteen in 2007, on the Magic tour. Lighting designer, Jeff Ravitz, of Intensity Advisors in North Hollywood, California, wanted to use Manon and Topaze spots in the truss for their optical quality but he also needed the spots to have electronic power supplies to insure there were no frequency interference issues with the video system on the tour. Robert Juliat got together with Morpheus Lights, of Las Vegas, Nevada, the production company for the tour,

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UK - Bow Arts Trust, the East London arts educational charity, is the recipient of the first major installation of Artistic Licence Engineering's new modular Multichrome Tube LEDfixtures.

Integration company, Technical Entertainment Services, which specialises in architectural LED feature lighting, was commissioned by Bow Arts Trust to refurbish its permanent installation of vertical tubes of light which are suspended over the public walkway between its two buildings on Bow Road.

"Bow Arts Trust wanted to replace the existing fluorescent tubes with an LED alternative which would better comply with their environmental concerns, and offer extended lamplife with reduced maintenance and running costs," explains TES technical director, Matthew Owen.

Owen proposed a multi-pixelRGB fixture as the best solution to these requirements, which would also allow Artists in Resid

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UK - A Midas PRO6 mixed The Stone Roses' comeback' gigs in front of 225,000 fans at Manchester's Heaton Park.

In control Front of House is long-time Midas user Robbie McGrath, whose sound engineering credentials include some of rock music's finest acts including The Rolling Stones, AC/DC and Kasabian. McGrath praised the PRO6 for its wealth of musical ability.

"The head amps are incredible, I can set up the PRO6 the same way as I would a great analogue console such as the MIDAS XL4. On top of this you have a very smooth digital trim, which is fab. The EQ is exceptionally musical - it really retains that much-loved MIDAS sound and the on board compressors are amazing."

He continues, "The Stone Roses' are incredibly talented. Because it's drums, bass, guitar and vocals, with no trimmings whatsoever, I need a desk that will concentrate on the quality of the raw m

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UK - Previewing from 31 August at the Bristol Hippodrome, The Lion King UK tour will be one of the heaviest touring productions in the UK at the moment, requiring Unusual Rigging to undertake a serious upgrade to the roof truss at the Bristol theatre.

Although the show's total weight does not exceed the limits of the Hippodrome, most of the weight is concentrated in the downstage area, necessitating the strengthening of the four roof truss bays to enable each one to take the full weight at any one time. This meant each bay had to be capable of carrying 30 tonnes, the theatre's existing evenly distributed show load.

Using eight tonnes of steel, Unusual Rigging worked with Sheetfabs to fabricate 15m x 1.5m of strengthening truss for each of the four roof truss bays, and completed the install in just 10 days. The team also strengthened the upright truss stage left and righ

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UK - West London based Entec Sound & Light supplied a substantial stage, architectural and garden lighting package to the 2012 Larmer Tree Festival, staged in the picturesque environs of Larmer Tree Gardens at Tollard Royal, south Wiltshire.

It's the seventh year that Entec has been involved with providing lighting the popular boutique festival, set in the environment originally created by prominent Victorian, Lieutenant-General Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, and opened as the first private gardens for 'public enjoyment' in the UK.

The Entec crew of five was led by Richard Hutton. The equipment and designs covered five principal music stages of various sizes and a theatre / club space located in England's oldest corrugated iron building.

The Main stage was an 18m saddle span structure which was new for this year, bringing its own set of lighting challenges for designer

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UK - At PLASA 2012 (Hall 1, Stand F38), DPA Microphones and its UK distributor Sound Network will showcase its range of high quality microphones that are suited to the rigours and demands of the live sound and touring industries.

Christian Poulsen, DPA's CEO, says, "We are excited to be exhibiting at the PLASA show this year with the UK being one of our key markets. With the new d:fine headset, d:facto vocal and d:vote instrument microphones, we are raising the bar for good sound in challenging environments, where DPA microphones have already set the standard for headset and miniature mics for many years. DPA's long list of fantastic references within theatre, broadcast, lives and installation environments proves the unique combination of high sound quality and reliability."

DPA will show its expanded d:fine series of headset microphones that recently won Live Des

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UK - During PLASA 2012, Spotlight will be exhibiting its new LED products from the Green Line range. Those fixtures are characterized by high optical performances and energy saving, lower heat emission, long life of the LED source, no generation of dangerous infrared and ultraviolet rays, to the benefit of the lit up people and objects.

At Hall 1, Booth H5, Spotlight will present the new products of this series dedicated to the entertainment sector. For the first time at PLASA, they will show ProfiLED 100 RGBW, ProfiLED 180 RGB and FresneLED 200 White (CW, NW, WW). Furthermore, on preview, they will present ProfiLED 200 White (CW, NW, WW) and FresneLED 250 White (Tunable).

Spotlight will also feature a selection of their various ranges dedicated both to the entertainment and the architectural markets.

Customers and Visitors are welcome to discover the advantages of the LED t

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Slovakia - PR Lighting fixtures have appeared on the biggest DJ festival to take place in the Slovak and Czech Republics.

The Chinese manufacturer's territory representatives, Techhouse, ensured that the portfolio was well represented at the Bee Free (free festival) after taking on the distributorship at the end of last year.

"The quality of the products is vital to us, and we are delighted when that is matched by the price," states CEO, Stefan Kollar. "When we purchased the first samples of the lights at the end of 2011, we were positively surprised by the quality and reliability."

They had no hesitation in recommending them to the event, which was again held at Aiport Pieštany, and attended by around 20,000 visitors. Organised by teams from Storm Promotion and KuulFabrik, every year more than 150 DJ's perform on five stages.

Techhouse's rental

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France - French loudspeaker company APG has reported an exceptionally busy summer season so far following the sale of a number of Uniline line array systems to rental companies across France and abroad.

One of the most active has been Lyon-based rental company, Audio Technique, who have been very busy since they joined the Uniline Solution network with the purchase of their system in May this year. Two of their most prestigious festivals featuring Uniline this summer have been the FΩtes Escales in Venissieux near Lyon - a six-day festival that saw audiences of over 6000 every night for an eclectic music programme ranging from the Opera de Lyon to the urban rap sounds of Zebda and everything in between - and the Nuits de la Guitare festival held in the spectacular setting of Patrimonio in Corsica.

Held over eight days, this festival of international renown featured perfor

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