Lighting

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Sweden - Wireless Solution AB is Swedish based company with wide experience of the wireless industry. A radio engineer and a real-time programmer - formerly from a worldwide manufacturer of mobile phones and GSM base stations - run the company's R&D Department.

Swelite W-DMX is based on the technology and philosophy of GSM, with the same security of transmission including Frequency Hopping (FHSS) and Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA), which was originally developed by the US Army for safe and encrypted communication during wartime. With 128 different FHSS patterns plus TDMA it is more or less impossible to get interference from other equipment on the 2.4GHz band. To make it even safer the company has included an encryption on the signal from sender to receiver so that each receiver only listen to his master sender and ignores all other signals.

The system is used for both P

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USA - Interactive Technologies Inc, manufacturer of professional entertainment and architectural lighting controls, has introduced the Figment DMX version 5.1, which adds next-generation Bluetooth wireless connectivity features to the award-winning Figment DMX lighting console software package for Palm OS compatible PDAs.

Also new is a Sidewinder Bluetooth Module that easily adds Bluetooth wireless functionality to the company's Sidewinder family of DMX interfaces.

With Figment 5.1 running on a Bluetooth-enabled PDA, Figment can be used to focus fixtures, tech moving lights, run show files, perform diagnostics, view console channel levels and more, by wirelessly connecting to a Sidewinder DMX interface that has been outfitted with a Sidewinder Bluetooth Module.

Adding a Bluetooth module to the Sidewinder DMX interface allows a PDA running Figment DMX with built-in Bluetooth

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USA - Wybron's new Nexera dichroic CMY fixtures have debuted at Colorado State University's Theater Department. The Wash version appeared during the February production of Chess at CSU's Johnson Hall Mainstage. Chess is a metaphoric skit about how the Cold War affected the lives of those it touched, with the entire production revolving around a chessboard.

Two weeks before the show, lighting designer Barry Cleveland decided they needed extra colour to shape the scenes. "I knew I wanted a colour mixing system as opposed to a scrolling unit." Chess is a presentational production, so it required a number of rich rock and roll colours in quick, but subtle, lighting changes. After using Wybron's new Nexera wash lights, Cleveland commented: "It was great! We opened the units up and 15 minutes later, they were working. I really like the quality of th

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Germany - The Major S/E (Safe and Easy) blinders are the currently the safest blinders on the market, according to German distributor Lightpower. They are equipped, say the company, with an all-pole automatic shutoff which guarantees a safe and easy lampcheck and/or exchange, as the blinder is switched off after the lamp line has been opened. The complete product range includes 4-Lite and 8-Lite Par 36 blinders.

Both are divided into two swivel-mounted sections. The Par 36 blinders have been completed by the new 9-Lite and 8-Lite circle versions. In addition, the complete product range includes the 8-Lite blinder 4 x 2, which offers the possibility to achieve the popular fan-shaped effect when using ACL lamps. It is also available with a yoke to mount it horizontally or vertically.

(Lee Baldock)

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UK - Tryka L.E.D. has appointed a new Canadian distributor, Chimera Electronics Corporation. Well established in the electronics industry for many years, Chimera Electronics Corporation successfully branched out into the architectural and entertainment market just over one year ago.

Mike Fraser, Chimera's president, says: "We believe Tryka to be one of the few LED lighting companies that has actually listened to the customer. They build user-friendly, plug-and-playable, innovative products that even take the fear out of most traditional lighting OEMs, looking to make the transition to solid state lighting. Tryka will now enable us to aggressively move into areas such as entertainment, architectural, landscape and retail spaces, tapping into L.E.D. illumination technology."

Chris Rolph, Tryka's managing director, adds: "We like Chimera's proactive approach and e

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USA - Entering its fourth month of operation, Prelite LA has established a firm foothold by providing its lighting pre-visualization services to a variety of different types of productions, the company reports. Lighting designer Eddy Brantley worked with Prelite to produce early renderings for the National Indian Gaming Foundation, while Dan Boland also worked with the company for the international tour of Grammy-award winning artist Missy Elliot. A Prelite system is currently at Fourth Phase Los Angeles, where lighting designer Merle McLain and programmer Jessmine Baker are pre-programming the forthcoming tour for Earth, Wind and Fire.

Lightswitch designer Norm Schwab used Prelite for an AmGen Pharmaceutical project in Los Angeles, while his partner John Featherstone had a Prelite On-Site system in San Diego for pharmaceutical leader Takeda's annual sales meeting is San Diego.

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UK - Sting will join forces with Northern Sinfonia in June 2005 to perform the traditional classic 'Waters of Tyne' - specially arranged by composer David Lang - when high wire artist Philippe Petit crosses the Tyne gorge to the upper façade of The Sage Gateshead in June 2005. Tony Award-winners Fisher Dachs Associates will design lighting for this event, which forms part of The Sage Gateshead's opening year of celebrations.

Sting comments: "It's really exciting for me to know that this spectacular building The Sage Gateshead will enable visiting musicians to experience this vibrant area. I know how important music is to young people and I am delighted that many more of them will have the opportunity to develop their knowledge, skills and interest in all kinds of music. It will be really extraordinary to perform at this event celebrating the opening of The Sage Gateshead.&

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UK - An unusual lighting scheme has recently been completed for Stevenage Borough Council by Future Group Lighting Design, using the new KlipLED system from Light Projects Group. The KlipLED, part of the new AuraLED collection, is an interior flexible colour strip system using 1W Luxeon LEDs in red, white, royal blue, green, cyan and amber.

For the Stevenage project, the ceiling incorporates a series of concentric arcs: since the section was too small to accommodate conventional light sources, a new system was designed by Peter Phillipson, in which 2,500 Light Projects KlipLEDs concealed in the arcs by a specially detailed system. A mix of white and blue has been used so that the ceiling colour changes over the course of the day to simulate a changing sky effect.

The Customer Service Centre space is purposefully influenced by the lighting to create a very pleasant working env

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USA - Color Kinetics Inc (CKI) and Main Light Industries Inc, an entertainment lighting specialist, have announced an agreement whereby Main Light will leverage Color Kinetics' intelligent solid-state lighting technology to develop Soft-LED - an LED-based drapery for entertainment applications.

Through the agreement, Main Light will apply Color Kinetics' patented LED control technology to offer Soft-LED - a drapery which allows precise control of individual LED sources, offering designers a flexible medium with which to create shapes, patterns and complex light shows that span thousands of individually controllable tri-color LED nodes. Soft-LED will be available in various sizes and form factors to accommodate diverse applications and installations.

"Our agreement with Main Light opens another exciting channel for Color Kinetics' intelligent LED technology," said Bil

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Switzerland - In Switzerland, Pulsar's ChromaRange has recently played a major role in the renovation of a gentleman's club, The Brummel Cabaret, which is set beneath the five-star Palace Hotel in Lausanne. The club has been experiencing a complete refurbishment throughout the winter period by Yves Donati of Hybrid Concept in Geneva.

Giving the club a 'Roman-like' theme, Donati has employed an extensive use of Pulsar's LED ChromaRange products to enhance features and create ambience within the venue. Chromastrips are utilized to magnificently wash the stone walls, hall and entrance stairway, whilst ChromaScapes light the entrance from outside. An imaginative creation displayed in the lounges is of two bronze statuettes of beautiful goddesses holding ChromaSpheres on outstretched arms; one is holding a normal size 300mm sphere and the other is holding a smaller substitute.

All

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UK - Ten years ago, Milne's Cold Storage & Ice Factory in Perth, Scotland, was transformed into a nightclub featuring top-of-the-line Martin Professional equipment. Today, following a refurbishment including Martin lighting, Jem smoke and Mach audio gear, the venue is looking forward to another decade of success.

Michael Jordan, managing director of Nightclub Sound & Light (NSAL), a Martin preferred dealer located in Perth, provided the lighting, smoke and sound systems for all three rooms in the venue. Jordan explains: "I'm actually a DJ at the club and The Ice Factory is the reason I got involved with Martin years ago. I wanted to be able to service this venue," he states. "I kept the lighting going for 10 years and now I'm one of the biggest dealers in Scotland. This was a top Martin install when it opened . . . with 1220s, 218s and RoboColor IIs. Now with the

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UK - Bandit Lites UK is supplying all lighting equipment and crew to the three-month sold-out Westlife UK and European tour. Westlife are one of the UK's most successful boybands, renowned for their entertaining stage shows and high-value, high-energy productions. The bands four tours - starting with 2001's Coast To Coast - have all been the biggest in Europe in their respective years.

The 2004 Turnaround tour sees a new level of presentational confidence with the band, whose streamlined 90 minute performance is divided into five sections.

Bandit is once again working with the Production North team led by Steve Levitt, Jason Danter and Karen Ringland, on this, the fourth Westlife tour. The Turnaround show was conceived by the band, (Nicky Byrne, Kian Egan, Shane Felan and Mark Feehily), lighting and set designer Peter Barnes and production manager Steve Le

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UK - White Light and The Moving Light Company held an open day to introduce electricians, programmers and lighting designers to the grandma range of consoles. On Wednesday 28 April White Light and The Moving Light Company plus a selection of guests took part in something of an English tradition - afternoon tea with grandma. In fact, not just tea, but tea, sandwiches, cakes and other snacks. And not just one grandMA, but most of MA Lighting's grandMA range of lighting consoles.

"The grandMA range has been on our 'radar' for some time now," comments White Light's technical director, Dave Isherwood, "having proved itself on a range of rock-and-roll and corporate projects for others over the last few years. Having now supplied two systems to theatrical productions - Thoroughly Modern Millie in London and Mamma Mia in Holland, we found that many of our re

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The Netherlands - Lagotronics supported the Dutch version of the Pop Idols TV show with a wide selection of its state-of-the-art LED lighting devices. This was the first time that a brand new product, the DMX-i strip has been used in a large quantity for a live event of this scale.

The DMX-i strips are linear lighting devices, 30cm in length, equipped with 60 COB LEDs and direct DMX processing. Due to the small dimensions of COB LEDs, it is possible to create compact colour changing light lines or neon effects, directly controlled by DMX and per individual strip. The total setup of Idols 2004 included the following LagoLED products: 960 DMX-i strips used in 160 lines of 180cm; 40 USB-i controllers; 152 RGB LumiDOT 3W and 24 Beam.111 SC red fixtures.

This setup also featured a video-to-DMX software package, which enabled the crew to create stunning effects by using video signa

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USA - Lumileds Lighting is opening a new plant in Malaysia to meet growing demand for its Luxeon LEDs, possibly the world's brightest solid-state illumination sources. The new facility will replace the current factory in Penang this summer, tripling floor space to permit a corresponding increase in manufacturing capacity.

The plant will be located in a 200,000 sq.ft building that Lumileds purchased a short distance from its current rented space. The company expects to more than double its manufacturing workforce when all production lines are fully deployed. The new facility will also allow Lumileds to expand laboratory services such as calibration, reliability testing and failure analysis, and will include a state-of-the-art Luxeon Experience Centre to assist in hosting customer visits.

"Market demand for our Luxeon product line is accelerating as manufacturers and lighti

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The Australasian Lighting Industry Association is a body formed barely two years ago with the aim of bringing together all the Australasian participants, in all aspects of lighting. Their tiny stand, donated by show organizers ETF, and fitted out with gear scrounged from more than a dozen member companies, served as a meeting point for members, and an information station for those interested in a career in lighting.

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New Zealand's Theatrelight was showing a variety of new products at Entech, demonstrating its full recovery from the manufacturing and intellectual property problems which arose from its unfortunate joint venture in China. The Cuemaster II control console is the next level of development in the Theatrelight tradition of simple, powerful, and easy-to-learn consoles for mid-sized school, commercial, community theatre and studio applications. The range of new dimmers on show varied from single and dual channel stand-alone dimmers (pictured) to the very sophisticated 12-channel Nebula rack-mount and Meteor wall-mount racks. All dimmers are protected by magnetic circuit breakers and will operate anywhere in the world, on AC mains voltages ranging from 90V to 250V, at frequencies from 45Hz to 65Hz.

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USA - The host city of this year's 'International Pow Wow' of the Travel Industry Association of America - Los Angeles, decided to 'wow' delegates with LA's newest landmark, the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall and Los Angeles based Visions Lighting. The event, the world's premier international travel trade show, attracts over 5,500 attendees from 65 countries and features 1,375 booths.

The 'LA Now . . . Wow' event, produced by EventWorks, called for the intersection of 1st Street and Grand Avenue to be turned into a street party with a live band on stage, food and the lighting of the surrounding buildings. Production manager and lighting designer for the event was Visions Lighting's Todd Roberts. "We had two days, with the streets closed, to pull this off," said Roberts. "We started at 6am on the first day, and we were programming till 2 a.m. that ni

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Although well-known throughout the world for its lighting products, back home in Australia Jands is probably better known as the local distributor for such products as Shure, BSS, JBL Pro, Crown Audio, dbx, Clear-com, Stanton Magnetics, ETC and Vari*Lite. Their stand reflected this diverse range of products, although the clear focus of Jands efforts at Entech was the introduction of the Vista moving light console. Although the world may not need another moving light console, Vista is anything but just another moving light console. Its forehead-smackingly obvious timeline-based programming model and its designer-liberating Generic Fixture Modelling capability, offer a completely new way to integrate moving lights into a production.

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USA - On Thursday 6 May 2004, just before David Bowie was due to start his A Reality Tour at the James L. Knight Centre in Miami, a local lighting technician, later identified as Wally Thomas, fell 50ft to his death from a metal wire and rod ladder. Investigators are now trying to determine the circumstances which led up to the death of Thomas who had worked in the industry for 25 years and was an extremely experienced stage technician.

The Miami Herald reported that Homicide detective, Ed Avila told them: "Wally Thomas and two other workers - who were looking after stage spotlights - were all wearing full body harnesses. However, the speculation is that Thomas was not clipped into the safety line when he fell to his death.

According to colleague and stage hand Chris Ryan - who has worked with Thomas since 1978 - he was stunned to hear he was on a truss spot

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LSC probably deserve an award for the most original and charming stand at Entech, with their theme 'World class products . . . Right here in your own backyard'. The stand, which featured a typical Aussie suburban backyard, right down to the wooden fences, gas barbecue, rusty wheelbarrow and the metal tool shed, was topped with a full-width panoramic photo of a real Aussie suburb. A total contrast to the slick, modern, corporate look of every other stand at the show.

LSC was previewing KlubmaX, a concept club console built around PaTPad, the moving light controller developed for the maXim console. Although tucked away under the back porch, the first production versions of ADB's WARP profiles also attracted a great deal of attention.

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Balanced Technology is a new distributor on the Australian entertainment production scene, supplying an eclectic mix of products ranging from inline 5-pin to 3-pin DMX adapters and followspot sights, to Littlite task lights and complete aluminium truss systems.

Balanced Tech was featuring two new products. Brown's Precision Welding have developed a 500mm stacking truss system which, due to its advanced webbing design, is rated for higher loads than 500mm box truss. One person can comfortably move eight 3m lengths of this truss on a simple dolly.

Also on stand, Nic Moreau of Enttec was demonstrating his unique DMX Datagate, a sophisticated DMX device with one Ethernet port and eight bi-directional DMX512 (RDM) ports. The device can be configured, via its web interface, to perform any conceivable function with its ports: DMX distribution and routing, Ethernet to DMX, DMX to Ethernet,

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Argentina - On 16 April one of Argentina's leading electronic music festivals, Southfest, kicked off under a stable of Martin Professional equipment. Lighting design, programming and operation for the event was by Walter G. Buchholz, one of Argentina's key lighting designers and the chief lighting designer at nearly all major electronic music events in Argentina, among them Southfest, Creamfields, Moonpark and Pacha Buenos Aires (Clubland).

Freelance lighting designer and operator Ignacio ('Iñaki') Rosenberg, who often has the opportunity to experience Walter's designs, commented: "Walter is a great designer and a fantastic operator who does most of these gigs 'live'. As always, all the Martin gear worked flawlessly and provided a very important layer in the big mix of visual and sound images created." On the Southfest rig were 12 MAC 2000 Profiles and 10 MAC 500 prof

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UK - Hawthorn Theatrical hosted over 100 event professionals at its Leicester head office for an indoor pyrotechnics workshop this April. The workshops, presented in conjunction with Hawthorns' supplier Le Maitre Pyrotechnics and Special Effects, were a continuation of Hawthorns' policy of helping its clients get the most out of their services and ensuring health and safety issues are covered properly.

Le Maitre's Steven Ramos showcased the creative possibilities of a range of indoor pyrotechnics, explaining the applications and correct usage of each effect. Ramos dispelled several preconceptions about letting pyrotechnics off indoors. His interactive talk included getting the delegates holding a lit flair - which goes against the advice we have been given since our childhoods - but which highlighted the importance of selecting the correct specialist pyrotechnic material.

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  1. HES announces Hog III software upgrade
  2. First Sponsors sign up for Showlight 2005
  3. Lighting for Vegas' Cloud
  4. MovingLED from Raymax
  5. Siyan debuts new SGM fixtures
  6. Hog III at the Opera
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