Lighting

Details
South Africa - A severe drought and water shortage left Kroonstad, situated in the Free State, in dire straits earlier this year. In fact, there has been little improvement since. In the midst of this crisis, Kroonstad Cell Church were moving into a new church building which they had worked on for a couple of years, when Johannesburg based Maranatha Community Church decided to pay it forward and donate some of their existing lighting system to them.

"Kroonstad Cell Church is a dynamic local church with sound leadership," said Pastor Kobus from Maranatha Community Church. "We believe that if you touch a church you touch a community and so we wanted to give them a kick-start in getting on their feet in the new building."

Maranatha Community Church decided to upgrade their own auditorium with Longman Phoenix Bars and then to donate their existing Robe LEDForce 18s and a l

Details
USA - Rock band Blink-182 - known for their raw, adrenalized, hi-energy performances - are back on the road and blasted straight back up to the top of the charts in both the US and UK with their new studio album California and single Bored to Death!.

An extensive tour - currently in the US is re-igniting the enthusiasm, passion and commitment of their loyal fanbase who have rocked up to show their continued appreciation and enjoyed intense performances with an eye-popping production design to match created by Dominic Smith from Neon Black.

Dominic - who is based internationally in the US and the UK - started working with the band in April and Neon Black delivered the full production design for the tour - lighting, video and set. The lighting rig includes 40 x BMFL Blades which are being supplied by VER.

It's the first time Dominic has toured with

Details
At the Martin Group's Annual General Meeting in mid September, the Board of Directors announced expectations for both a positive turnover and profit for the current financial year. The Board also suggested changing the financial year to follow the calendar year with May 1st - December 31st 1999 as a transitional period. This eight month transitional period is expected to show a turnover of approximately $60 million compared to $47 million for the same period last year, with a pre-tax profit around $3.5 million compared to a loss of $3.7 million last year. The result for the period also allows for a $430,000 expense related to the pending lawsuit with Vari-Lite in the US.

Details
UK champion Chris Shead has won the final of the World Light Jockey Contest - sponsored by Clay Paky and Pulsar - which was staged at the Hippodrome in London during the recent PLASA Show. Runners-up were French champion Benjamin Prot and Dutch champion Amir Barbel.

Details
Earlier this year, Lighting Technology Group won the tender to supply London's re-built Royal Opera House with its main stage lighting equipment. The order, consisting of some 1,700 pieces of equipment, with a value in excess of £470,000, covers equipment from a wide range of manufacturers including Strand Lighting, Robert Juliat, ETC, James Thomas, CCT Lighting, ADB, Rainbow, Smoke Factory, Doughty, Rope Assemblies, SES and lamps from all the major. The order is one of the biggest single orders ever received by LTG for luminaires and associated equipment and probably the biggest single order of its kind ever placed within the UK.

Details
Stage Electrics has just become the largest stockist of Martin Professional lighting equipment for hire within the UK. The £17m turnover company, with branches in Bristol, Birmingham, Exeter and Plymouth, has just completed a purchase from Martin UK that swells its stock of MAC 600, 500, 300 and 250 moving heads to an impressive 500 units.

Details
Stephen Lakin, chairman of newly formed Production Technology, has acquired Vari-Lite Production Services, Dubai. The acquistion of Vari-Lite's entire Dubai operation gives Lakin access to the largest array of automated lighting in the region. He confirmed that this was the first in a series of regional acquisitions and stated an intended policy of expansion into full service facilities.Industry veterans James Rock, Adrian Bell and Nick Chapman head up Lakin's new management team.

Details
ETC dealer LT projects has been awarded the major dimming contract for the Millennium Dome. In what is believed to be the largest single installation of the system in Europe, LT projects is installing 3,000 channels of high density ETC Sensor dimmers.

Details
Selecon has parted company with former distributors AJS and ELX and set up Selecon UK Ltd. The operation is headed by Graham Eales, Selecon's international sales and marketing manager, assisted by Andy Trevett as sales manager. The essential logistics support, customer help line and stock holdings will be managed by Zero 88 Lighting Ltd from their South Wales base.

Details
Derek Gilbert, former managing director of Glantre Engineering, is to join Northern Light as overseas sales manager. He will become responsible for Northern Light's overseas development. Other former members of Glantre are also transferring to Northern Light, including Graham Fisher who will join the Estimating and Proposals section, Richard Passman, senior AV project engineer and Graham Lawton who will be located in Riyadh.

Details
Bert de Haes has left Vari-Lite. In his place Vari-Lite has welcomed back Jimmy Barnett who is the new general manager for European operations for VLPS. Barnett, well known within the Vari-Lite community, will oversee the growing network of VLPS offices that he was instrumental in expanding during his earlier stint within the company (1984-1990). Working under Barnett will be the general managers of the regional VLPS offices: Ed Pagett (VLPS London), Jan Van Malder (VLPS Brussels/EML and VLPS Amsterdam), Jan Lambrecht (VLPS Paris) Adrian Bell (VLPS Dubai) and Sonia Sward (VLPS Stockholm and VLPS Madrid).

Details
CAST Lighting, the creator of WYSIWYG, has created a new program for lighting console manufactures - the WYSIWYG Developers Program. The intention is to create a dialog between CAST and console manufacturers, and the goal is to develop a more useful electronic connection between WYSIWYG and other devices. The current list of developers includes ETC, Strand Lighting, Flying Pig Systems, Compulite, Rosco ET, and AVAB/Transtechnik.

Details
Griven has launched the Kaleido MSD 575W into the ever-growing architectural lighting marketplace. The Kaleido features a mart CYM subtractiove colour mixing system to give even colour change, as well as anew patented wide-angled optical system. The product is distributed in the UK by Multiform.

Details
A new company has been launched to enhance Denmark's position in the lighting and truss manufacturing market. SeeLite merges together the activities of three companies - Paradise Tour Production Aps, Pan & Tilt A/S and Gøgler Lys Udlejning A/S and has been set up by Søren Nørgaard, Jens Lind, Frank Paulsen, Viggo Ladekjær, Leif Hellberg, Lars Nissen and Martin Corneliussen.

Details
Richard Castillo has joined the expanding Lightfactor Sales team as Southern Area sales executive. His assorted work experiences include grooving as a club light jockey for two years, working for a sales and rental company and two years as a freelance lighting designer.

Details
Multiform Electronics has enlisted Ian Rose as UK and Export sales manager. Rose has a degree in European Business Studies and is a member of the Institute of Export; his role will be to build closer relations not only with Multiform's UK distributors, but also with the company's distibutors throughout Europe.

Details
High End Systems Inc and Flying Pig Systems have released two new controllers in the Wholehog II family - the Hog 1000 and Hog 500 consoles. The Hog 500 and Hog 1000 include fewer control channels than the Wholehog II consoles, but feature the industry standard Wholehog II operating system, making them perfect for smaller professional applications.

Details
At PLASA 99, the White Light Group launched Colourhouse Technical Presentations, its new specialist conference and exhibition lighting company. Formed to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of corporate and exhibition clients, the new operation is headed by Steve Bartlett, familiar to many in the conference trade from his time at TIS. He is joined by former TIS colleague Cliff Williams. Though Colourhouse was officially launched at PLASA, the team were busy prior to the show having already completed a corporate event for Blitz Vision at the Pyramids in Cairo.

Details
Strand Lighting has expanded their SL series to include an architectural version. The new SL Architectural line includes fixed spotlight with beam angles to match their incandescent range of fixed and zoom spotlights. Utilising the new Phillips 150W CDM lamp, the Architectural version provides high light output, cool operation, sharp focus, and pattern projection. Since the introduction of the SL range in April 1999, Strand Lighting has already sold and shipped 15,000 units. The addition of the architectural version will increase the various applications of the SL range.

Details
High End Systems formed a new architectural division using the Lightwave Research brand. As a result, the High End brand will be used with entertainment lighting products and the Lightwave Research brand will be used for products developed specifically for the architectural lighting market. The promotion of High End's Charlie Hulme to Architectural Sales Manager for Lightwave products is the company's first appointment to the new division. Hulme will oversee sales and distribution, as well as design support of Lightwave products through High End Systems' worldwide network of manufacturer's reps, dealers and distributors.

Details
High End Systems has promoted several key sales representatives. HES Canadian sales representative Patrick Bouchard, who has been involved in the Canadian lighting market for many years, has been named High End's Regional Manager in Canada. In another strategic move, the company promoted Charlie Hulme to a new position as sales manager for Lightwave Research Architectural Products. Hulme will oversee sales and distribution, as well as design support of these products through High End's worldwide network.

Details
The PRG Lighting Group has made three changes to its sales and marketing team. Bill Groener and Zoe Paine move to expanded roles at Production Arts, while Patrick Eagleton has new responsibilities with the PRG Lighting Group. Groener becomes vice president of system sales for Production Arts, whilst Paine has been appointed director of rentals and production sales for the company. Meanwhile, Eagleton has accepted the position of marketing support manager for the newly formed marketing group at the (PRG) Lighting Group. Most recently, he was product manager for the Robert Juliat product line.

Details
The autumn season is proving busy for Stage Light Design, the exhibition and conference creative lighting design specialists. The company is providing equipment, crew and lighting design services for no less than four stands at the massive Geneva Telecom quadrennial at the PalExpo. All stands have creative lighting designed by a collaboration between John Rinaldi and Alastair Crooks. In Geneva, Stage Light Design lit two shows for Intel, one in Paris and the other in Milan. These were re-runs of their highly successful imaginative lighting for Intel stands at the Networks show in Birmingham earlier in the year.

Details
Royal Festival Hall, London's famous South Bank complex, has recently added to its existing range of Jem products. The world famous live venue has just purchased a Jem Heavy Fog 2500 complete with a full range of ducting accessories. RFH has also purchased a special customised version of the Jem Club Smoke System modified for the theatre environment. The new Jem products are the latest purchases in are re-equipment programme that also included a comprehensive Martin Professional lighting package. On a separate note, Jem also announced the sale of two Roadie smoke machines to London's newest landmark the Millennium Dome.
  1. Virtuoso at MTV Video Music Awards
  2. Welsh Theatres Line Up for Strand
  3. Young Joins AC
  4. Vari-Lite Closes Dallas and Atlanta Offices
  5. Armin Kloss
  6. New WYSIWYG Service Providers
Page 473 of 1201

Latest Issue. . .