Lighting

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USA - Color Kinetics Incorporated (CKI) and City Theatrical Inc are collaborating to deliver a full line of versatile accessories for use with CKI's award-winning line of professional LED-based lighting systems. The accessories are designed to enhance the flexibility of the systems and expand creative options for lighting designers by providing greater control of light dispersion and effects.

The first release of accessories is designed for use with CKI's ColorBlast, ColorBurst, and ColorBlaze units. Standard accessories include accessory holders, top hats, half-top hats, spread lenses, egg crate louvres and barndoors. Recognizing the wide-ranging needs of lighting designers and consultants, the collaboration also accommodates the need for custom accessories, say City Theatrical.

Bill Sims, president and COO of Color Kinetics, says: "We're pleased to work with City Theat

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UK - Digital media server and content specialist Projected Image Digital has announced two new products from D-Tek Industries for which it has exclusive distribution rights - the D-Switch and the D-Switch Pro. Both products are designed to aid the growing creative convergence between visual production mediums such as lighting and video, and both were previewed at PLASA.

Projected Image Digital's David March comments: "We're excited to be working with D-Tek Industries and products that are at the forefront of visual production and creativity. The industry is currently moving very fast, and these are the first of a whole series of related products."

The D-Switch, a DMX-controlled 4:1 video switch unit, is the first in a series of new products from D-Tek, developed to give lighting designers the power and flexibility to control the video elements of their show. The D-Sw

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UK - Trilogy, Doncaster's latest nightspot, features an interesting lighting scheme, with equipment supplied by Robe UK to installers Willpower to kit out three rooms - The Crest, The Temple and The Chamber - at the new 2,100-capacity venue. The lighting design was created by Robe UK's Nathan Wan, working closely with Trilogy's owner, Gary Hunt of Brook Leisure.

In each room, the lighting needed to complement the room themeing, and also had to be flexible and eye-catching: "It was great to get onboard with and work alongside the interior design team from the early stages," says Wan. The club's overall design was led by Hunt, who adopted a hands-on role throughout the project.

This interesting medieval-styled Chamber is also the main dancefloor. The lighting had to be dynamic to cater for a wide range of musical styles. They took a completely customised approach in t

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Sweden - "It's the 'dinner of the year' throughout Europe - perhaps even the world," says lighting designer Per Sundin. But it's not the menu that matters - it's who is being served. The Nobel Prize Awards Ceremony (covering all awards except the Peace Prize) takes place annually in December at Stockholm City Hall in Sweden to honour those who have achieved distinction in Physics, Chemistry, Literature and Physiology or Medicine.

Afterwards, the real party starts with the 'Table of Honour - the Nobel Banquet' - a banquet for 1,300 people, including the entire Royal Family of Sweden, along with dukes and duchesses, counts, ambassadors, lords, ladies and political figures and even more distinguished guests. Sundin (of Sveriges Television), as LD, has for many years been in charge of enhancing the event for the guests and for Scandinavian TV broadcast. "The goal is t

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UK, University of Manchester - The University of Manchester's new £6 million School of Music and Drama includes the new Cosmo Rodewald Concert Hall, the John Thaw Studio Theatre, the Lenagan Library, audio/visual facilities, improved performance, workshop and practice spaces and new electro-acoustic music studios.

Stage Electrics designed and installed the new facilities' sound and lighting systems, with Hills Electrical plc, main contractor Totty Construction, architects Cruickshank & Seward and acoustic consultants Arup.

The Music Department boasts a 350-seat concert hall (pictured right), while the Drama Department is equipped with a studio theatre. The concert hall has been designed primarily for orchestral performances, with stage space for up to 90-piece orchestras. Four lighting trusses are fitted with Strand Cantata and SL lanterns, while the Concert Hall control roo

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USA - American DJ has introduced a series of affordable Par Can Combo Kits, featuring complete Par can set-ups and available in three models - Par 46 Combo, Par 56 Combo and Par 64 Combo. Each Par Can combo kit contains a Par can, lamp, gel frame, four colour gels (red, blue, green, yellow), a clamp and a safety cable. The kits are ideal for bands, mobile entertainers, theatrical and stage productions, recital halls and places of worship, say American DJ.

"Our new Par Can Combo Kits offer the ultimate ease and convenience for stage lighting users," says Scott Davies, general manager of the American DJ Group of companies. "Each one comes as a ready-to-use turnkey package - all you have to do is plug it in."

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Using 27,000 cubes of frozen lake water, Minnesotans are working around the clock to construct the Ice Palace, the spectacular centerpiece of the 2004 St. Paul Winter Carnival. More than one million spectators will flock to the outdoor festival starting on 22 January. The event climaxes on 8 February with the National Hockey League's All Star Game.

The Ice Palace promises to be a feast for the eyes. It measures 240 feet wide, with turrets towering to 75ft high. A wall of ice surrounds the grounds with 20-foot high turrets. Adding to the spectacle is a fountain with a 20ft high flame, two stages for entertainment and an ice rink. The entire five-acre site is enhanced with nearly 500 High End Systems lighting products supplied by HES in Austin, Texas, and TLS of Huntsville, Ala. Lighting design is by Frattalone & Associates Inc of St. Paul, Minnesota. High End's Tim Grivas i

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Denmark - Martin Architectural has introduced a 'long barrel' version of its popular outdoor CMY colour changer, providing more flexibility as a response to market requests for narrower beam options.

The Exterior 200 Long Barrel's greater length allows for narrower beam options for longer light throw, while maintaining a high intensity beam, say Martin. Two different options are available: 22° field angle (using Fresnel lens) and a 12° field angle (using the PC lens, which replaces the front glass). It is also possible to mount a beam-shaper glass to the underside of the PC lens, which provides an asymmetric beam shape of 14° x 69°. The new options mean that field angle possibilities for the Exterior 200 now range from 12° to 70° flood, with six different steps to choose from.

The Long Barrel's narrow angle options are also useful for illuminating columns and other narro

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UK / France - Le Maitre has announced the appointment of SFAT, of Chalon-sur-Saône, as its new distributor for France. SFAT, a well-established manufacturer of foam, snow, confetti and wind inflatables, has taken on the distribution of all of Le Maitre smoke products, including smoke machines, hazers, and bubble machines.

SFAT's Christophe de Lora commented: "We are very happy with this deal, we plan to launch the new Le Maitre machines at the SIEL show in Paris. We feel strongly that Le Maitre products fit perfectly well with our existing ranges."

Rick Wilson, Le Maitre's sales director added: "This is a positive move forward for us. I have always viewed the French market as a key constituent for the overall European marketplace. Our current pyro distributor, JP (Pyrofolies), will continue working with pyro, with both companies supplying each other. In all, a

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UK - The smash-hit musical from last Christmas, Trevor Nunn's Royal National Theatre production of Anything Goes, has now transferred to the West End - and DHA Lighting has again been involved with making lighting designer David Hersey's vision for the show a reality.

At the National, DHA's Wyatt Enever and Steve Larkins carried out the careful pre-distortion of the images projected onto the show's cyclorama. The projection - particularly the scrolling image of New York as the ship on which the show is set leaves dock - proved so successful that it was expanded for the West End production.

However, the changes required the DHA team to produce newly pre-distorted images to suit the different shape of cyclorama and projector positions at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane - one of London's largest stages, but here filled with John Gunter's recreation of an Atlantic liner. Gunte

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Australia - December saw Resolution X install a record nine separate Christmas lighting displays in various locations all over Melbourne. Since its beginnings in 1998, the company has developed a reputation for delivering innovative displays on-time and on-budget has seen the number of Christmas clients steadily grow, with many commissioning multiple installations in separate locations.

2003's installations ranged from the 1km-long Burke Road, Camberwell display to a single tree in Victoria Gardens, Prahran. Many of these shows were run from Enttec's DMXPlayback unit, a compact DMX show recorder, which can be configured to either start a particular show on power-up, and loop through until the power is turned off again, or trigger up to 26 different shows via RS232.

By far the largest installation, the Burke Road, Camberwell show featured giant custom-built panels depicting va

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Germany - Pro lighting manufacturer GLP, based in Karlsbad, will be presenting its latest range of products at the forthcoming international trade fairs in Rimini and Frankfurt this spring.

At the SIB exhibition in Rimini, Italy (13-16 March) GLP will be exhibiting on stand 075-086 in Hall A1, where the new Startube 4 will be having its world premiere. This will be followed by its introduction to the German market at the ProLight+Sound exhibition in Frankfurt 31 March - 3 April) where the company can be found on stand B16A in Hall 9.0.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - It was a royal extravaganza dampened by blustery, rainy weather as Queen Elizabeth II christened the world's largest ocean liner on Thursday 8 January in Southampton. In front of 2,000 invited guests, she launched the £500 million Queen Mary 2 - the first liner for transatlantic and worldwide routes to enter service since the QE2 in 1969.

Although the Queen was protected from the strong winds and downpours by a temporary structure, hundreds of Southampton residents, barred from the dockside by tight security around the Ship, braved the elements to watch the ceremony on large screens in the nearby park. Weather conditions were fierce and health and safety regulations prevented the rigging of the stage and other equipment until the eleventh hour when the winds finally calmed. Despite the weather, the afternoon was a colourful, lively spectacle thanks to an array of imaginat

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UK - White Light Events reports the completion of an extremely busy Christmas period, which has seen it providing lighting to some of London's most prestigious party venues.

For the third consecutive year, the company was invited to design and supply the lighting for the parties and events held at Coram's Fields in north London, managed by European Events. This year's parties were themed around the Winter Solstice: lighting designer Mike Robertson responded by creating a fantasy world using a mixture of lavenders and blues to embellish the themed environment.

European Events were also managing a new marquee structure in the grounds of London Zoo, themed as the Latin Quarter. Here White Light Events used image projection, haze and colour washes of vivid reds, pinks and ambers to create a highly charged atmosphere for the parties' guests. The lighting system was also flexible en

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USA - VLPS Lighting Services is providing the lighting and production services for singer Josh Groban's first international tour. Since his debut in 2001, Groban has successfully crossed over to the pop charts from the opera and classical markets. The 40-plus-date tour, promoting his second studio album, "Closer," begins today at Boise, Idaho, and is already sold-out.

Lighting designer Anne Militello worked closely with director Daniel Ezralow, set designer Bruce Rodgers, and projection designer Amy Shock to create a show concept and concert style for a new artist who has never toured before. "This was definitely a more formal presentation than a loosely-based concept," commented Militello. "The look is clean, precise, and all the lights and truss are in straight lines producing a very simple and formal look. The scenery is very basic, employing mainly

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UK - ShowCAD's Artist has recently been installed as the architectural lighting controller for the gymnasium in the latest Amida Health Club in Hampton, near Twickenham, by Atmospheric Ltd, a leading entertainment, media and lighting solutions provider for the health and fitness leisure industry.

Artist has been commissioned to control the Atmospheric installation of the Brown Box AV product, Colorflow - a 1.5m long three-channel DMX-controlled RGB cold-cathode uplighter. Over 150 Colorflow units were utilized in this latest installation, enabling the projection of both full colour washes and more intricate multi-coloured effects over the roof of the venue.

Artist was employed for this task because of its built-in matrix functions not found on many other controllers, making programming such large matrices extremely easy. Lines, chases, cascades, washes, rainbows and many other

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UK - Creative Laser Services purchased 130 Alkalite Octopod 30 LED colour changers from distributors Lighting Effects Distribution - and built them into the stage set at London Weekend Television (LWT) for Graham Norton's recent Channel 4 series, V Graham Norton. Richard Jarvis says the production team at So Television wanted to incorporate some visual excitement into the walkway down which the guests are escorted - and so he suggested Octopod: "We demoed the product for them on set and they liked the fact that Octopod could change colour and run chases. There are a lot of LED products now on the market but we like Octopod for its price and reliability."

His company is also starting to use Octopod 30s in its club installation work - recently fitting 64 pieces into Mercy in Norwich. Octopod 30 is an eight-head distributed intelligent LED colour-chasing system and

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UK - Stagetec Distribution has supplied the recently released Compulite Vector lighting console to lighting operator Bill Peachment for the BBC's new Top of the Pops. Vector, say Compulite, is the first Lighting Workstation that lets the operator work the way they want to work. It has a dual processor system which provides the operator with a user-friendly windows environment to work in, while ensuring optimum stability and speed.

Lighting director Dave Davey says: "Returning to TOTP, I was keen to ask Bill Peachment to work as my assistant on the show and to take control of the automated lighting operation. Bill and I had a discussion about the best way of controlling and programming large rigs of lights of all types and as always my main concern was to achieve good results quickly and efficiently. Bill suggested we try the Vector. Having used Compulite Sparks, Microns and

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UK - PA Installations (PAI) and i-Vision have collaborated to design, specify and install a dynamic LED lighting scheme for Cardiff's 'Tower of Light' at the new Millennium Plaza entertainment complex. The Tower of Light is a six-storey, glass block stairwell, designed by architects The Burgess Partnership, and built by Taylor Woodrow Construction, and the illumination is part of a brief to ensure that Millennium Plaza becomes a modern 'destination' venue, and a local landmark.

The idea was to create an illuminated beacon to act like a magical, 21st century lighthouse, radiating interest and drawing people into the building - in addition to making a dramatic visual statement. Building owners Delancey approached PAI with the brief to make the tower come alive with an exciting lighting scheme. PAI's Paul Adams invited i-Vision's Geoff Jones to help realize the illumination of this

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UK / France - In the past 10 years the retail and leisure industries have discovered the power of smell to evoke emotion, create an experience or trigger a purchasing decision. For example, some travel shops use the scent of coconut oil or an infusion of pina colada to induce holiday spirit.

Many of these scents are supplied by Lancashire-based company Dale Air, which for over 25 years has re-created the smells of melted chocolate, roast chicken, coffee, home-baking and sun-cream to the more pungent stenches of dragon's breath, flatulence, an Egyptian Mummy and New York tenement housing. The company is known worldwide for its provision of themed aromas to a wide portfolio of clients from museums and public displays / attractions, to hotels, zoos and retailers.

Dale Air's managing director, Frank Knight said: "Our sense of smell is unbelievably powerful, it triggers emotio

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Germany - Hamburg-based Procon MultiMedia AG has decided to make available a large number of Martin Professional's new Maxxyz lighting consoles to its customers. Procon, one of Germany's - and indeed the world's - largest service providers to the media and event management industries, offers innovative and complete solutions for a wide range of events that require both qualified staff and state-of-the-art technological equipment. Extensive investment in the latest market technology is a key element to Procon's success and leading position in the entertainment rental market, say the company.

Procon managing director Jürg Stalder commented: "We can achieve long-lasting customer relations only by keeping our equipment technically up-to-date. Quality and product innovations are requirements of the market we have to fulfill. Only by the continuous extension of our equipment poo

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Denmark - Martin Professional has introduced the new Wireless DMX-512 and Wireless DMX-512 Pro Diversity which, it says, are the easiest way to connect remote fixtures to your DMX system within line of sight. Both devices offer a fast and easy way of connecting and setting up a lighting system, especially where remote or hard to reach fixtures are involved, as no cables or expensive downtime is required. The Wireless DMX-512 and Wireless DMX-512 Pro Diversity mean that fixtures need only sit within range of the transmitter box.

The Wireless DMX-512 is designed for architectural, installation and smaller event applications. It has a range of up to 200m (650ft), can be set up via a PC and PC-based controllers such as the Martin LightJockey and can be configured as either a transmitter or receiver.

The Wireless DMX-512 Pro Diversity is a 19" rack-mount version aimed at stage

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UK - Lighting designer Tom Lesh specified Pixelline LED battens for the current Primal Scream UK tour - to add an extra layer of excitement to his high-energy lightshow. With just eight Pixellines, Lesh proves once again that less is more, with the fixtures forming a powerful and bright back 'wall' to the stage.

Lesh also specified PixelDrive, the new software control platform for Pixelline, which is a co-development project between James Thomas and IRAD, manufacturers of the RADlite digital media server. Pixelline allows the very quick and easy programming of complex 'liquid' effects via a PC. The software pixel-maps the 18 pixels in each batten for easy on-screen pattern creation.

Using PixelDrive's latest enhancements, Lesh was also able to access and utilize the Pixelline battens' internal strobing effects which - at up to 28 flashes per second. The Pixellines were positio

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UK - The BBC's Top of the Pops is now imported and broadcast by television channels in Italy, Germany, Australia, France, Japan and Holland. Italians can watch the program on Italia 1, presented by Daniele Bossari. With links between London's Top of the Pops studios and Italy, the program is able to show both Italian and international artists, plus exclusive star interviews.

Italia 1's most recent edition of Top of the Pops drew from the immense BBC archive to mark the initial successes of megastars such as Michael Jackson, David Bowie and U2. The Italian set design and studio environment have to be similar to the original program: a white stage and modular walls, wide black edges and the 'Top of the Pops' logo all over the studio. However, local production has complete freedom within this format, including in lighting design. Riccardo Barbaglio, the program's photography direct

  1. Artistic Licence at SIEL 2004
  2. New staff at DHA Lighting
  3. Lighting Logic is Launched
  4. New sales manager for A.C.T
  5. Pop Idol Lebanese style
  6. LM Productions around the world
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