Lighting

Details
Denmark - Martin has added to its Ego collector range of DJ effects with the Ego X4, a DMX controllable flower effect that projects sharp graphics and new gobo designs. This highly individual 250W effect houses a combined colour/gobo wheel and features new radical gobo designs unlike any other effect light. Top quality projection optics combine with a precise manual focus adjustment to produce extremely sharp, detailed projections.

Besides the benefits of customized DMX control, the Ego X4 can operate in either auto or music trig mode. In trig mode variable behavior tuning allows DJs to adjust how aggressively the effect reacts to music. A remote control is also available. The Ego X4's cool, composite design houses a powerful 250W, 1000-hour halogen lamp. Combined with a bidirectional parabolic reflector with highly reflective mirrors, projection is exceptionally bright.

Var

Details
UK - White Light Events recently added another category of celebration to its growing portfolio: an 18th birthday party. White Light Events were brought into the project by Flying Tortoise Event Design based in Battersea, South London, whose design for the party took the colour scheme of Shocking Pink, White and Zesty Green as a starting point. From this they created a series of fun, abstract, stylish environments set over three marquees: reception, dining area and nightclub. Collectively these accommodated around 120 guests, most of whom were aged between 18 and 20. The evening's design style was carried through to the catering and lighting elements. "Flying Tortoise had very specific ideas of what they wanted; our job was to turn these into reality," comments White Light Events' lighting designer and project manager Jason Larcombe - adding, "it was very liberating

Details
UK - Global Design Solutions, the creation of Matt Lloyd and Richard Cuthbert (previously of Stage Electrics), launched at the PLASA show this September to massive industry interest (see September L&SI). The company boasts many strings to its bow in both technical and commercial arenas and is developing new global products specifically related to the technical entertainment presentation industries - R&D for two of which is already well underway.

"We're bringing new, innovative ideas to the marketplace and creating solutions, says Lloyd. "We've identified gaps in the market and are using our expertise and imagination to create forward thinking design ideas which we'll licence to manufacturers and end users."

Alongside product development, GDS will offer design engineering and business development consultancy - the specialist fields from which both directors hail.

Details
UK - Bandit Lites UK supplied full stage and audience lighting equipment to the recent massive Miller Strat Pack show at Wembley Arena. This momentous event celebrated 50 years of the legendary Fender Stratocaster guitar. Event proceeds were donated to the Nordoff Robbins music charity.

The line up saw a role call of the great-and-the-good in the world of guitar heroes from past and present - starring Dave Gilmour, Gary Moore, Amy Winehouse, Phil Manzenera, Brian May, Joe Walsh and many, many more. Bandit worked with producers, Field Services (production manager Pete Edmonds), and lighting designer Baz Halpin collaborated with set designer Mark Fisher to produce a look that comprised a primary scenic truss overstage - in the shape of the reversed Fender "F", constructed from A-type trussing sections plus and a selection of custom-built pieces. Measuring approxim

Details
USA - Color Kinetics Inc, the US manufacturer of LED lighting systems, has been awarded another US patent that extends the coverage of its core methods for controlling LED-based illumination. This latest US patent extends coverage of core methods for controlling LED-based illumination, including use of standard DMX512 protocol.

Patent number 6,788,011 relates in part to an LED-based lighting system comprising a user interface and an addressable controller that receives a network signal: it attempts to include any and all such protocols, among them DMX512. This allows control of colour, intensity, and the creation of dynamic effects in both standalone and networked environments. The patent extends Color Kinetics' coverage of techniques for controlling the output of LEDs beyond pulse width modulation, for which it received a controversial earlier patent.

"This is a partic

Details
UK - Scotland's Lighting Show 2004 has been hailed a major success by organizers, exhibitors and visitors alike. Taking place from 24-25 September, the event was held at black light's Edinburgh headquarters. Although only in its second year, the show had grown considerably from the 2003 event. A clear demonstration of how seriously the show is already being taken by the industry was the fact that, although just eight days after the end of London's PLASA trade show, a range of heavyweight industry suppliers had made the journey north to exhibit their products and services.

"Even we were surprised at how the show has taken off in just its second year," said black light managing director and show organizer Gavin Stewart. "It was a fantastically successful event and the feedback from all round has been extremely positive. Scotland and the north of England are hotbeds

Details
Germany - B & K Braun of Karlsbad has strengthened its export department with the appointment of new recruit Mirjam Sojka, reporting to export manager Ralph Zoller. Sojka's responsibilities include the export activities of German Light Products (GLP). For 10 years, GLP has been developing and producing lighting equipment including moving lights, dimmers and lighting controllers. Already around 40% of its production is exported and this share is rising, say the company. Important markets for GLP products include not only Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia and Korea but also continental and eastern Europe.

(Lee Baldock)

Details
USA / Latin America - Production Resource Group (PRG) provided a complete lighting package for the live broadcast of Univision's Premios Juventud, the first annual award show on Spanish-language television honouring popular Latin stars. Broadcast throughout Latin America, the show was seen by over 23 million viewers in the US alone. It was the second highest-rated awards show in history on Hispanic television.

Entertainers featured in the show included Mexican superstar Thalía, Colombian heartthrob Juanes, and pop music sensation Paulina Rubio. The stars gave performances and received awards on an expansive stage that was decorated as a dance club, complete with a DJ booth and V.I.P. lounge area. The show's production crew included lighting director/programmer Felix Peralta, lighting director John Daniels, Catalyst programmer Jason Rudolph, head electrician Angus Sinex, and mov

Details
UK - Following the success French company Ayrton has enjoyed with EasyColor 1 via UK distributors, Lighting Effects Distribution, Ian Kirby has announced that the twice-as-powerful EasyColor 2 is now in stock in the company's Kent warehouse.

In addition to greater power, the new LED moving head luminaire offers more LEDs and more features than its precursor, enabling designers to be more creative. EasyColor 2 is equipped with 36 high-power Luxeon LEDs, with lamp-life duration exceeding 100,000 hours.

The product's new features include a totally new software programme, which allows variation of the colour balance. And in order to fulfil the increasing demand for installation in new vertical markets, EasyColor 2 is now available in a variety of finishes - Carbon (black), Snow (white) and Platinum (grey). An entirely new construction and higher-grade motors widen its application

Details
UK - ESL Ltd of Southend supplied the sound and lighting at this year's Daily Mirror Labour Party Conference Party, held on the Wednesday night of the convention at the Grand Hotel, Brighton. Their brief was to supply a state-of-the-art sound and lighting system for a live band and disco for the 1000 delegates who attended.

ESL's Mike Glover took the company's brand new KV2 Audio sound system to the event, which had been purchased just a week before following a demonstration at this year's PLASA show. The System was made up of ES1.8 subs, ES2.5 bass and the ES1.0 mid/high cabinets - all driven by KV2's EPAK amplifier/processing package. Glover says: "Even though we had not used the system in a large venue or in a live situation I had complete faith in what the equipment was capable of producing. We have had long discussions with Andy Austin-Brown from KV2 and this gave me

Details
Denmark - The new plug and play MC Switch from Martin lets you power up and down six fixtures such as lights, fog machines or mirror balls, with the option of daisy-chaining up to 24 units through four power boxes. The MC Switch controls lights such as the Martin Manias, Egos, T-Rex and Raptor, as well as other equipment including mirror balls and fog machines. Sturdy and robust, MC Switch may be placed on a table, rack-mounted or truss-mounted, say Martin.

Designed for easy use, installation and set-up, the MC Switch control box connects to a power box with six IEC channels out via RJ 45 cable - allowing a maximum of 300W output for each (US version maximum output 250W per output/fixture). Control is a mains power on/off digital switch, which is controlled via a remote control with on/off buttons.

(Lee Baldock)

Details
USA - Super Vision International Inc has announced the appointment by its board of directors of Anthony T. Castor III as a director of the company, with effect from 4 October. Castor currently serves as president, CEO and a director of Chromalox Inc - a Pittsburgh-based manufacturer of precision heating and control devices, currently a key portfolio company for JP Morgan Partners. Prior to his position at Chromalox, Castor served as President and CEO at the Morgan Group, Inc of Baltimore, Maryland, a company engaged in transportation and specialty outsourcing services.

From 1997 to 1999 Castor served as president and CEO of Precision Industrial Corporation of Montvale, New Jersey - a $200 million manufacturer of capital equipment for the metal processing industry, prior to which he was president and CEO of Hayward Industries of Elizabeth, New Jersey - one of the world's largest

Details
UK - Bandit Lites UK is supplying lighting production for the current McFly tour, working with lighting designer Graham Feast and production manager Iain Whitehead of Productions North, who also designed the set. McFly, currently at the forefront of the UK's high-energy, teenage neo pop-rock movement, are on their first major production tour, following a string of chart singles successes and an excellent debut album.

When it came to lighting, Prestige Management sought something like the 1980s mega rock look, made legendary by the likes of AC/DC, Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, who vied to have the biggest and best lighting show on the road. Whitehead also took the stage styles and trends of this epoch onboard with the set design, adding a twist of modernity, capitalizing on the current design penchant for silver and metallic tones. He chose silver trussing and Par cans, metal stairc

Details
UK - Dubbed as 'the topical quiz with the tropical prize', Bognor or Bust is a new game show that sees two members of the public teaming up with four celebrities to compete for the holiday of a lifetime and avoiding the consolation prize of a weekend in Bognor.

Lighting for the show is provided by lighting designer Chris Kempton, with equipment supplied by Richard Martin Lighting. The most striking feature of the set is the back wall: made up of 24 screen-printed gauze panels, each panel is individually backlit by a floor-mounted VL 1000 TS. Kempton's decision to use VL1000s came from his need to use a framing unit that would be as silent as possible. "You never know who is going to answer a question, so all seven mics need to be left open - we needed a unit that wouldn't be picked up by them."

The predominantly white background also played a role in Kempton's deci

Details
UK - Geni Electronics' new MOS Moving Scan concept is an evolved combination of the moving head and the scanner, combining the stylish design and unlimited angle rotation of the moving head with the speed of response of the scanner lens. Shown to considerable acclaim at last month's PLASA Show, both the MOS-300 (MSD 250W) and MOS-700 (HTI 700W) are now available in the UK from Lighting Effects Distribution, whose MD Ian Kirby comments: "Aside from the hybrid nature of the technology the various colour options of the outer plastic casing offer all kinds of potential for interior designers."

Features common to both products include the combination of X/Y axes of the moving head, with X/Y axes of the scanner lens, 10 dichroic colours plus 3200K colour temperature correction filter, six self-rotating gobo patterns (plus open), with glass custom options, Prism rotators, hi

Details
UK - Lighting Technology Projects (LTP) and sister company Vaughan Sound - both part of the PAI Group - collaborated to design, install and commission a complete new sound system and architectural and event lighting control at ExCeL, London's Exhibition and Conference Centre. The project involved the supply of new audio systems for ExCeL's Platinum suites and the reception areas on Levels 2 and 3 of the Centre.

The contract was managed by LTP's Jonathan Adkins: LTP handled the specification of lighting systems internally, utilizing PA Installations to assist with the signal processing and control infrastructure of the sound systems, plus all the AV, and IT / Control technologies. For sound reinforcement design, LTP called in VSI. Adkins comments: "It was a huge asset being able to offer the client a complete sound, visual and control solution. Having one company dealing wi

Details
With a fleet of five fully-equipped vehicles, Nightsky is known mainly for providing sleeper busses for bands, but is now developing towards the production market. All current buses feature plasma screens and DVD players, as well as all conveniences. On the same stand, S&H Technical Services were showing its flame effects for stage use, and bespoke starcloths. S&H is in the process of developing an LED starcloth, which it intends will be available by Christmas.

Details
High End presented three new software-only versions of Catalyst (it seems too many people already have their own G4); Express has a single layer output, DV four layers, and the Pro version gives the full standard specification. There's a new release of software V1.37 for the Hog III aimed mainly at re-establishing the brand's reputation for stability (High End was confident enough to offer a bottle of high grade vodka to any visitor who could crash the demonstration machine during the show). The new Hog IPC is an integrated PC Windows-based system, shown in prototype.

Details
German manufacturer Smoke Factory has a full range of foggers and hazers including the Scotty II launched last year which was also this year's focus, along with the Tour Hazer.

Details
The hottest disco on the Champs Elysee, Queen, currently has the first version of Universal Effects K-Power Jet-Co2 instant smoke unit, designed to create instant, cold, smoke via large jets the units are a great hit with clubbers.

Details
Plenty of news from Projected Image Digital: a reduced feature set version of the RADlite image server, the MYRAD package, which will run on a standard PC, although for optimum performance a dual processor machine is recommended. As the preferred UK partner of Element Labs, PID had the VersaTILE LED modules on show, plus from D-TEK Industries the large screen D-TFT40W LCD display. Highlighting the company's growth in the audio/video convergence market was the D-Mix Series of video mixing and matrixing tools. PID also showed its Beacon, EpOk and Amorphous royalty-free digital content libraries.

Details
The Classic Frame from G-Lec has now been taken a step further: Light Frame is essentially a lower cost version, sacrificing individual pixel control for tile sections, but losing nothing in terms of brightness. More significantly, Phantom Frame is every set designer's dream (for LED screens); four times brighter than Classic, the structural wrapper of the frame is very slim: units weigh just 6.5kg per sq.m.

Details
Strand Lighting launched a range of new products this year including its 2.8.5 console software for the 300 and 500 series desks. Making its debut was the SLD Sinewave dimmer model suitable for any SLD series rack. The company reports it has recently signed some major US contracts for its Sinewave dimmers.

Details
CCT Lighting showed its new LED strip aluminium bar, aimed at the architectural market, available in any length or shape with a variety of beam angles. An added advantage is that additional instruments can be hung on it as well.
  1. Zero 88
  2. PLASA Shorts . . .
  3. Coolux
  4. A.C. Lighting
  5. Par Opti Projects
  6. ShowCAD Control Systems
Page 609 of 1201

Latest Issue. . .