UK - Robe lighting enjoyed "a fabulous and highly eventful PLASA 2012 exhibition at Earl's Court".

In addition to a super-busy four-day expo, the Czech moving light manufacturer launched seven new products; won a 2012 PLASA Innovation Award; raised £6,200 for industry charity Light Relief with the auction of a genuine Olympic Torch and hosted a popular party on the Sunday night.

Robe's 'Working With Winners' campaign launched earlier this summer embraced new levels of excitement, with Robe CEO Josef Valchar commenting, "It was an incredible PLASA all round for us - carrying on what's been an amazing year". Robe also celebrated its tenth PLASA.

Back in 2002 the company burst on the scene with its first PLASA as an 'own brand' entity, up to that point h

Canada - Audio companies are justifiably pleased with every new installation of their products, but US-based Community Professional Loudspeakers is especially proud when its products go beyond long-term anniversaries.

The Community installation at the Duke Point Ferry Terminal at Nanaimo on Vancouver Island has been facing the full force of coastal weather 365 days a year for 15 years. The cluster system, which utilises Community's legendary M4 compression driver on five PC1542M and three PC1564M long-throw, pattern-control horns, was designed by Barry McKinnon of MC Squared System Design Group of Vancouver and installed by Don Crocker and the team at Victoria, BC-based Sound Source & Lightrix.

BC Ferries built the Duke Point Ferry Terminal in 1997. The Duke Point main audio system was designed to broadcast from a single point to avoid signal delays and echoes across its wide

UK - A nexus of performance art, Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) provides a sustaining alternative to the relentless humour of the Fringe. Dance, drama, music, musical drama, and yes, even a little humour, is the breadth of what's available. With such variety, and a furious turnover where shows move in and out on an almost daily basis, it's an exhausting month for the stage crews and technicians.

Yet Tom Zwitserlood, head of sound for the EIF, was heard to say, "For me, if anything, introducing V-Series at the festival has made life easier for us." He's talking about the premier appearance of the d&b audiotechnik V-Series medium size line array in Scotland, in particular its use at the Playhouse theatre, where it has sustained every show that has passed through in the hectic 24 days of the EIF.

"First of all, the reaction from visiting companies to the fe

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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

The Netherlands - Kerkrade in the Netherlands is the home of ADJ Group's European headquarters and has now become a 'Center of Communication and Technology Exchange' for the company. Elation and AD Systems, as part of the ADJ Group portfolio, now benefits from the opening of a completely new-built facility. The Customer Care Center offers hands-on fixture tests, comprehensive fixture comparison possibilities and personal and competent Support Personnel accompanied with individual design and programming options. The Customer Care Center is open daily on weekdays and ADJ personnel will to do their outmost to turn your individual requests into reality, says the Group.

In addition to the new Customer Care Centre, the company has launched a set of themed seminar days. The PRO(theme)days are intended for those customers looking for the direct contact with the manufacturer, searching f

UK - Rosco has formed a joint venture partnership with The Black Tank, an advanced engineering group located north of Boston, MA to design, develop and distribute LED lighting fixtures to the entertainment and architecture markets.

The immediate result of this partnership was seen last weekend at the opening of the IBC Exhibition in Amsterdam and at the PLASA Show in London where Rosco debuted Miro Cube, its new line of wash lights based on Black Tank's successful Brick Blaster fixtures. Three luminaires - Miro Cube 4C, Miro Cube WNC, and Miro Cube UV as well as a range of innovative mounting accessories - are targeted at lighting professionals in live entertainment, film & television, museums & architecture, and theme parks.

"First of all, the products are fantastic. The engineering is so elegant and the light output is astounding. You can't believe it's coming out of th

USA - Chauvet Professional will showcase a wide variety of products at this year's Worship Facilities Conference & Expo show, scheduled for 19-21 September in Atlanta, Ga.

On display at will be fixtures from the VIP Series of video products, the new line of trussing TRUSST, Parnelli Awards nominee Legend 412 pixel-mapping moving yoke and powerful moving yokes Q-Spot 560-LED and Q-Wash 560Z-LED.

Representing the COLORado family of wash lights are COLORado Zoom Tour, COLORado Zoom WW Tour and COLORado Zoom 2 Tour fixtures.

Additionally, Chauvet Professional will highlight fixtures from the Iluminarc line of architainment interior and exterior lighting solutions.

(Jim Evans)

UK - 5 Star Cases reports yet another successful PLASA exhibition in London.

5 Star highlighted samples of its most popular product ranges for the entertainment industry, concert touring, television and theatre markets. Over the four days of the show these all attracted plenty of interest, with some deals also completed on the stand. 5 Star's MD Keith Sykes comments that visitor quality was "Generally very good".

5 Star's latest Drawered Racks attracted plenty of interest and were a prominent element of the stand display.

Three types of Drawered Racks are offered as 'standard' - two hinged versions and one with removable doors.

There's a choice of two dynamic styles for the hinged option - one with a fixed top and one with a hinged top, complete with very cool gas strut supports to prevent accidental closure.

The hinged top version also features a workstation a

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light has been involved with what The Guardian newspaper has described as an 'innovative art project' - NVA's Speed of Light, running in Edinburgh for the duration of this year's Festival.

An outdoor lighting project, NVA's Speed of Light created shapes and patterns of light across the giant volcanic hill, Arthur's Seat, which sits on the edge of the city of Edinburgh. The lighting was a living, moving, dynamic thing created by living, moving, dynamic performers - who wore suits of wirelessly controlled, battery powered LEDs and so were also the show's lighting rig!

The performers' movements across the vast expanse of Arthur's Seat, which rises to 251m at its peak, were precisely choreographed, while their lighting was equally precisely cued from a grandMA console. The lighting data was transmitted from the cont

UK - Hundreds of lighting professionals donned their finest outfits and put on their dancing shoes for the fifth Knight of Illumination Awards (KOI), held in London on 10 September.

The popular awards, organised by The Society of Television & Lighting Design (STLD), The Association of Lighting Designers (ALD) and Clay Paky, celebrate the work of lighting designers working in the UK.

The aim: to provide public recognition for outstanding achievements in touring, television and theatre lighting design, and forge closer ties between designers and the industry as a whole.

Hosted by Andy Collins, this year KOI was held at London's Battersea Evolution. The celebrations attracted a strong turn-out with over 450 lighting professionals from the worlds of TV, theatre and rock. Guests included lighting designers from all disciplines, production companies, trade associations and members

UK - Maintaining a cutting-edge technical inventory can be an expensive business when you run a turnkey live events production company.

But for Wetherby-based AV-Matrix it is certainly paying off - and the demand to service increasingly bigger functions has now led to them purchasing an RCF TT+ (Touring & Theatre) TTL33-A II, as the premier line array system in their hire fleet.

Managing director Mark Parker confirmed the order for 12 elements of the powered loudspeakers with RCF's northern sales manager (and TT+ touring specialist), Mick Butler. The order also included four TTS36-A subs - and the AV-Matrix MD stated that this was just the beginning.

Parker has been buying from RCF since setting up the company back in 2003. His company specialises in providing event solutions for functions ranging from conferences to exhibitions, product launches, fashion shows, corporate ev

Switzerland - The St Galler Festspiele, now in its seventh year, is hailed as one of the most important cultural events in the Swiss calendar. A three-week open-air festival dedicated to classical music and dance performances, the highlight of the event is an open-air opera performance against the stunning backdrop of the St Gallen cathedral, designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. This year's opera was La Damnation de Faust from flamboyant French composer, Hector Berlioz.

Swiss AV consultancy company Tingo GmbH were responsible for the sound design of the main stage outside the cathedral, for which they specified a Stagetracker FX realtime performer tracking system from TTA. Sound engineer and audio consultant Dani Niedermann who works with Tingo takes up the story:

"I have been working on this festival since it was first inaugurated in 2006," he said. "

Vietnam - ARX Systems, the Australian based designer and manufacturer of digital and analogue interface and signal processing products has confirmed the appointment of Hanoi based Stage Professional Co Ltd as their new distributor for Vietnam.

ARX managing director Colin Park said, "We're excited to be working with Dinh Viet Hung and the Stage Professional team in Vietnam, they're enthusiastic about the possibilities for ARX and our products amongst their extensive client base."

Stage Professional adds ARX to a distribution product portfolio that includes Digico, Outline, Funktion One, Martin and Avolites.

Recent clients of Stage Professional's very active rental division include Westlife, the Back Street Boys, Miss Vietnam 2012 and Vietnam Idol.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Rachel Bottomley of Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA) has won this year's Michael Northen Bursary (MNB), picking up a £500 cash award.

The Bursary is awarded annually to a student or recent graduate who has demonstrated strong, imaginative and creative lighting designs. It is organised by the Association of Lighting Designers, a professional body representing lighting designers in the live performance industry.

Northen was both a former chairman and president of the ALD and the first credited lighting designer in the UK.

Each year an award of £500 is presented to a young lighting designer who has shown excellence in the field of lighting design. The project must be a performance based lighting design in or out of the college environment. Two runner-up prizes of £250 each are also presented: an ETC sponsored award, and the ALD-sponsored Fran

UK - 2012 has seen the highest profile series of concerts yet in London's Hyde Park, with regular events like Wireless and Hard Rock Calling festivals joined by a stop on Madonna's MDNA tour and the BT-sponsored London Live series of concerts celebrating a summer of sporting excellence. Sennheiser UK has become a regular fixture at the event. This year, they once again manned an on-site office to provide technical support, RF advice, spares and repairs.

Britannia Row was, as usual, the audio contractor for the Hyde Park shows, providing a large amount of Sennheiser microphones and in-ear monitors, with the standard stage set comprising SKM 2000 with 935 capsules and EM 2050 dual receivers along with 2000 series IEMs. Incoming regular Sennheiser users included Rita Ora, Madonna, Snow Patrol, Two Door Cinema, The Feeling, Alexandra Burke, The Temper Trap and The Wanted.

With thi

UK - ETC's new Source Four LED luminaire has won the prestigious PLASA Award for Sustainability at this year's PLASA 2012 show in London, against some strong competition.

Performing at 30 to over 40 lumens per watt, the Source Four LED spotlight excels in efficacy. This powerful yet energy-saving light creates beauty and artistry in stage, studio and architectural applications. It combines the popular features of ETC's conventional Source Four profile spotlight with the intelligence and seven colours of ETC's Selador Desire LED luminaires. And it comes in three different models - the Lustr+, Tungsten, and Daylight - each using just a fraction of the electricity of its incandescent counterpart. As the PLASA judges also commented: "[The Source Four LED] has a highly efficient optical system, and you can reuse existing lens stock."

ETC's CEO Fred Foster responded to the

UK - With international sales of ETC's iRFR application for Apple's iPhone, iPod touch and iPad and the new aRFR application for Android devices now approaching4,500, the company this year presented Light Relief with a cheque for an amazing £16,855 as the UK charity's share of the profits.

When the app was first introduced in 2009, Luke Delwiche from ETC Tech Services in London suggested that the profits be shared between Light Relief and its US equivalent, Behind the Scenes. Since then, the sales of the app have raised over $200,000 for the two charities.

Thanks must go to the apps' developers, Chris Mizerak and Anders Ekvall, for designing such a popular app, which enables users to turn any mobile device into a touchscreen-based remote controller for Eos- and Congo-family control desks, Eos and Ion Remote Processor Units (RPUs) and the Congo Light Server. And, of cours

Sweden - SGM A/S has recruited the experienced Mikael Uddh to handle the Danish manufacturer's portfolio of LED products on an exclusive basis, under the newly-formed SGM Sweden.

Uddh is already familiar with SGM product distribution from his time with Interlite, having previously joined sister company, Wireless DMX as key account sales manager for Europe four years ago.

The Swede says he is now relishing the challenge of marketing the groundbreaking range of high premium low energy solutions to the core rental, broadcast, architectural and retail segments under the new company.

Speaking of the move, he said, "I first met [CEO Peter Johansen] at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt this year. Having worked in lighting for 20 years and been associated with major manufacturers including ETC, Arri and Vari-Lite - as well as SGM - I didn't want to pass the opportunity by when I saw

Germany - MediaLas has added new enhancements to the high end Infinity show laser projectors. Already the recipient of two industry awards, the Infinity is still MediaLas' "top-of-the-line product with many unconventional und extremely useful features for professional event companies and exclusive clubs."

"Besides the well-known, superb beam and color quality, the Infinity has been enhanced on the processing side," says the company. "A new firmware boosts both safety and reliability of the entire system. The computerized safety inside the Infinity even corrects user programming errors in some ways, be limiting the single point exposure time of the laser deflection system, and therefore smoothing the total irradiance of high powered laser rays. Further firmware updates have been released for the network client inside the Infinity, that allows to control t

RSC Record - The Royal Shakespeare Company has reported its financial results for 2011/12 - the first year in its new Stratford-upon-Avon home. Its annual report reveals that the company has recorded a turnover of more than £50m for the first time ever.

Box office takings have more than doubled to £18.1m from £8.3m in 2010/11, when the company had reduced operations due to the refurbishment of the Royal Shakespeare and Swan Theatres. Its audience almost doubled between the two seasons - up to 708,022 people in 2011/12. Percentage capacity remained static at 89%.

The results were reported at the RSC's annual general meeting in Stratford, which saw artistic director Michael Boyd and executive director Vikki Heywood hand over to Gregory Doran and Catherine Mallyon respectively.

NT in NYC - The National Theatre has announced that it is opening a New York

UK - The new Philips Platinum 5R beam moving head is at the heart of PR Lighting's latest automated stage light, the XR 200 Beam.

Sturdy, compact and with a highly developed optical path, the fixture offers "enormous brightness in a compact form factor, with a weight of just 16kg".

At the same time, PR Lighting has worked considerably on the design and structure so that in addition to its weight advantage the movement is also faster and the running much quieter, while the legendary colour, gobo and prism/frost filter wheel ensure that it is fully featured. In fact the colour wheel boasts 14 dichroic colours, the fixed gobo wheel has 17 gobos (plus white) and the Prism/Frost Wheel contains CTO, frost, and 8-facet prism (plus white). The fixture offers 540° pan and 270° tilt, with a beam angle of 0°-4° (linearly adjustable).

(Jim Evans)

UK - At PLASA 2012 in London, Sommer Cable - alongside its established catalogue of products -exclusively presented the NL4FX-SOM cable socket, a special version designed in close cooperation with Neutrik.

Peter Rieck, key account & distribution manager for Sommer Cable commented, "This year the PLASA show was again a big success for Sommer Cable. We were able to reach many customers and attract new customers. Next year the fair will move to the Excel Exhibition Centre and we have already confirmed stand space."

(Jim Evans)

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