This was the first time at PLASA for Network Lighting Designs which has taken on a new product - Holographic Film - made by Holo-Wall. The company has been making illuminated dancefloors for 15 years - including LED ones - and think the Holo Wall products will be great for clubs as well as for architectural applications. It's a plastic film with a reflective surface that interacts equally well with sunlight and natural lighting as well as artificial light to create all colours in the spectrum. Holo Wall featured on Coldplay's Twisted Logic tour (see L&SI September 2005).

Not an easy show for any service company, but Bandit Lites always manages to attract a crowd. This busy lighting rental company will in the next few months be servicing tours by McFly, Michael Bolton, Dream Theatre, and Donny Osmond, while in the US it will see The Kings of Leon, Mudvayne, Hillary Duff, Brian Wilson, and the Moody Blues on the road. Company director Richard Willis commented: "Maxxedia from Martin has gone really well for us recently, we've had a lot of our guys trained in its operation." Confirming the ever-blurring line 'twixt video and lighting in the realms of concert world . . .

Wybron showed off the production prototype of a fixture that has been used in a custom form for a number of years by designers Doug Brand and Justin Collie - better known as Artfag. This fixture, The Light Pod, is a nine-light blinder that can have either one or two Martin Atomic 3000 strobes added to it and comes complete with a CXI colour scroller.

On the top deck, French optical manufacturer Sovis Optique, whose products are used by ADB and Robert Juliat, was meeting and greeting with buyers of optical lenses, optical coatings and molded optics.

In addition to hosting ELC Lighting and Robert Juliat, White Light was also showing off a number of other products, including the new White Light / ETC Smart Touring Rack, a successor to the long-established White Light/Arri 48-way touring rack. Also on display was White Light's award-winning Digital Festoon - which is now shipping.

On display from Italian manufacturer Coemar was the company's new iSpot 1200W moving head fixture with electronic ballast as well as its new iWash Halo, a halogen version of its popular wash light. Adding to the LED frenzy, Coemar also showed the Panorama LED RGB architectural fixture.

Sharing a stand with E:Cue Lighting Control, Schnick Schnack Systems added to the vast ranks of LED lighting products with its LED-Paneel and LED-Kachel. LED-Paneel is a road-tested plug-and-play square panel with 400 individually controllable LEDs and a number of diffusion options. LED-Kachel is a circuit board of 16 LEDs capable of illuminating an area of 200mm x 200mm.

From Clay Paky, visitors to PLASA could see four new moving head fixtures. The Alpha Wash TH is a version of its 575W Alpha Wash fixture with a 'top hat' to control stray light and an indexable 'ovalizer'. The Alpha Wash Halo is a 1000W halogen version of the standard Alpha Wash fixture. The unusual-looking Alpha Spot 700 effects projector features a 15-40° zoom, CMY colour mixing and 14 gobos, along with an animation disc. Finally from Clay Paky was the new Alpha Spot HPE 1200, which is similar in appearance to the new 700 and tops off what has become a significant range of fixtures.

The Tube - one of the most eye-catching displays at the show - is an extension of the G-Lec LED video screen concept. Essentially, these are free-hanging tubes of RGB LEDs, double sided, with a maximum length of 6m, which users can cut to any desired length to create, for example, a forest of hanging tubes through which you can stream video. The tubes are also relatively flexible and can be bowed by approximately 30°. A tool for set designers and probably also destined for the windows of elegant department stores.

The Universal Effects stand featured the company's huge range of special effects devices. International sales manager Eric Metreaud was keen to show off the latest fan and CO2-powered confetti blowers, which will fire up to 30kg of confetti up to 30m. The company's giant 5m silk flame was a real eye-catcher, as was the range of inflatable cones, tubes and figures lit from inside with LED colour changers. Snow, bubble, foam and smoke machines are also UE specialities.

Alongside its fiendishly clever, PLASA Award-winning Visual Patch, Artistic Licence also showed the Pixi-Web. Pixi-Web is essentially a reconfigurable and transparent LED drape. Made of a grid of webbing, with an RGB LED source placed at each intersection, Pixi-Web can be reconfigured using the snap connectors on each horizontal and vertical section. Not only does this make Pixi-Web able to fit into any space or shape, but it also allows it to virtually disappear on stage when not in use.

Another Italian manufacturer, DTS added to the LED fray with its new Delta R LED moving head fixture. This IP65-rated RGB fixture has interchangeable optical units to vary the beam angle from 25-40°.

Three brand new products were showcased by Swisson. Top of the bill was the XSD - an affordable, rack-mount sine wave dimmer in three versions which feature 12 x 2.5kw or 6 x 5kW dimming channels, 32 scenes and software upgradeability via a USB port. The X-MD-20 is a rugged, single-channel digital dimmer which comes in 16, 20 and 25A versions, while the X-MG-51 is a high-speed 5:1 DMX merger, which allows up to five lighting desks to be connected to one DMX-512 line.

ADB's ISIS Light Tablet is a tablet PC running the ISIS software, which can then remotely control any of ADB's ISIS compatible Phoenix/XT or Mentor lighting control systems. The luxurious operating environment of the tablet PC is seen as an antidote to standard remote or Pocket PC remote systems.

Lee Filters launched a number of new diffusion filters which are now added to its growing range - Soft Frost, Half Soft Frost, Highlight, Half Highlight and Quiet Frost are the new additions. How soothing.

Kupo went to great lengths to show visitors on its stand the new Digi-Check DMX512 tester. The CNC aluminium housing was impressive, and its simple display - as well as a built-in torch - would make it a useful device for most tool boxes.

JTE commented at PLASA that its trussing range is to be streamlined to help clarify the product range, and although its product line was at the show in force, it was obvious that the company's focus was on its LED products - PixelRange - of which a number of new products were on display. The Pixel Brick is a small, 22-LED fixture available as an indoor or outdoor (IP65) version with either a white, black or silver finish as standard.The Pixel Eight RGB is an LED version of the classic Thomas 8-light blinder. With 72 Luxeon LEDs and onboard processing, the Pixel Eight can be controlled by 3, 6, 12 or 24 DMX512 channels.

Projected Image Digital used PLASA to showcase its recent projects using the products the company represents - Catalyst, PixelMad and Element Labs. Of note on the stand was Projected Image Digital's work on the Lake of Dreams at the Wynn Las Vegas casino (see L&SI September 2005), and its recent installations at a number of O2 stores around London.

Nicolaudie showed new additions to the Sunlite suite for 2006. An Ethernet DMX512 interface of Nicolaudie's "Easy Stand Alone" replay module called IP, allows designers to control a lighting system over a network or over the Internet using any computer. Also new was a new visualizer - Magic 3D Easy View - which accepts signals either via Ethernet or via a USB DMXIN interface.

The ever popular Kino-Flo soft light range for camera work now has a DMX controllable dimmer. The Zip from Kino is small unit with a pair of 55W tubes inside, ideal to add some professional lighting to your Board member's face when making that all-important conference call. These products are offered by Cirro-Lite which is well known for the giant Lightning Strikes series of high-power strobes. Also shown by Cirro-Lite was a new 200W HMI lamp from Dedolight, a tiny lamp with a remarkably clean, even beam. Variable focus, the lamp goes from flood to very tight beam.

Lycian launched two new followspots at the show. A new version of its successful Midget - the Midget II - was the first of these and features a 575/750W halogen lamp and a new dichroic glass reflector. The second new followspot is a wide-beamed, short-throw 3k spot nick-named 'Stubby'. The 1292 3K-ST includes a centre-mounted, six-colour boomerang, a two-position dichroic colour changer and a single-lever trombone that intensifies the beam as the diameter is reduced.

South America - A Jands Vista T4 lighting console was chosen for tribute band The Australian Pink Floyd Show's first visit to South America by touring LD and console programmer Phil White. Lighting designer Dave Hill chose fixtures to suit the very demanding technical needs of shows, which feature a lot of instant changes and quick movements. To re-create the classic look and feel of the band's light shows, the rig features a circle of light suspended from an outer box truss goalpost behind the band to illuminate the stage in a spectacular wall of light.

Due to a smaller production budget for the band's first visit to South America, and the logistics of shipping the band's tour rig between venues in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and Malta, the production team decided to source the lighting rig equipment locally in each region. However, owing to the very cue-intensive nature of the t

Zap Technology from Paris highlighted its DMX controlled 'Biglite 4.5' searchlight. This literally very big light consumes 13 DMX channels and moves extremely fast. Integral to the design are the three-colour scroll wheel across the front of the housing for CMY mixing facilities. It also has an electronic strobe and is very accessible and easy to fix or maintain. The lightsource is a 5kW Xenon bulb and the unit has an electronic ballast.

Not content with the 2,000+ products it currently sells, Equipson launched a few more at PLASA, including the Arcdim 610 - a six-channel, 10A per channel dimmer for installation, complemented by the Scan-1000 lighting controller, which features 192 DMX channels for the control of moving lights.

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