Lighting

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UK - Bristol-based Utopium undertook design and installation of the stage and production lighting in the 2000 capacity main room and 400 capacity Carling Academy 2 Newcastle. The stage and dancefloor lighting rigs were designed by Angus Chinn, his fifth Academy project for the Group after Bristol, Liverpool, Islington and Glasgow. Avolites consoles are also used for lighting control in all these other Academy venues.

"We have worked with Utopium on a number of installations at AMG venues and as a group we invest heavily in both our PA and lighting equipment. We set high production values so that all AMG sites can offer the same high quality, in-house production as standard to not only international touring acts, but also talent on the way up," says Group property & development manager, Archie McIntosh.

It was integral that the lighting for Newcastle was designed to c

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Australia - Australian lighting control manufacturer, LSC Lighting Systems, has appointed Martin Professional (H.K.) Ltd as the Hong Kong and China distributor for its full range of products.

Martin Professional will be responsible for the importation, distribution and technical support of LSC's lighting control desks, DMX network products and the complete range of portable and installation dimming systems.

LSC's managing director Gary Pritchard commented: "Everyone is aware of the large potential of the China market and we have been searching for a suitable partner that can support our broad range of professional control desks and dimming equipment. We are very happy to have found a strong partner in Martin Professional. As a subsidiary of the Danish parent company, Martin Hong Kong and the Martin brand name are both already well known in the industry and we are happy to

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USA - City Theatrical's new PDS-50 is a power/data supply designed for Color Kinetics ColorBlast, ColorBurst, and iColorCove LED lighting fixtures. Its breakthrough technology combines both WDS wireless DMX data and either battery or mains operation, giving it the ability to be a totally wireless DMX controlled LED lighting fixture.

The low power consumption of LEDs and the reliability of City Theatrical's WDS Wireless Data System give designers and users the ability for the first time to light with: No AC power or generators; No power distribution to hook up; No power cables to run; No dimmers; No data cables to run; A setup time of minutes; Built in colour mixing; Low heat; No dimmer noise; 20 hours of battery life on a rolling fade or seven hours of battery life at full output (mixing white light) when using a City Theatrical Battery Base.

The PDS-375TR is a six circuit ver

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UK - Lighting rental house HSL Productions has invested in 150sq.m of Main Light Industry's Soft-LED LED drape. This is going straight out on Fremantle Media's new X-Factor series, being recorded at Fountain Studios and broadcast on ITV, say the company.

"There's no other product like it out there right now," enthuses HSL's Mike Oates. "It's a drape that doubles as a video wall and can be rigged by lampies - surely that's every production and lighting company's dream!"

SoftLED is a flexible high-resolution surface that is billed as being suitable for full colour graphics, text and high resolution video effects of all types. The modules can be used in all types of venues and situations from hotel rooms to concert venues and arenas.

In addition to the 6 Soft-LED cloths, HSL has also purchased 180+ I-Colour tiles made by Color Kinetics. These tiles ar

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UK - ETC now offers its comprehensive product catalogue in Russian. Addressing the growing market demand in entertainment and architectural lighting technologies in Eurasia and other Russian-speaking regions, ETC has responded with this new catalogue version, available on CD-Rom.

ETC catalogues are also available in hard-copy print versions in American English, British English, French, German, and Spanish, with an additional CD-Rom version in Italian.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - The new PixelEight fixture from James Thomas Engineering is the first in a new series of contemporary versions of classic lighting instruments. Traditionally called a 'blinder' or '8-lite' this LED version allows the exploration of innovative design ideas using the latest technology, say the company.

Ideal for audience and stage/studio illumination, the fixture offers long-throw capability and a 6° beam. The independent control of each LED cell allows creative programming opportunities and the powerful internal effects engine produces colour strobing and colour scrolling effects. There is no heat projected by the unit, allowing it to be positioned in close proximity to performers, stage sets, screens or drapes. It can also be hung vertically or horizontally for further flexibility. It is robustly designed for touring and boasts extremely low power consumption. Black powder

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UK - Staging, lighting and sound company Stagecraft has reported a record Summer for its Hire Department. Based in Salisbury, the hire team from Stagecraft has travelled throughout the country, with hire projects in Edinburgh, Reading, Southampton, Winchester and Windsor.

"We have been delighted to work with so many festivals, concerts and parties this Summer and are hoping to build on this success in 2006," says technical director Mike Naish. "Not only have we been involved in short hire projects this year, but also long-running events such as the Edinburgh Festival and locally at the Salisbury Festival. Some of our staging even made its TV debut on the set of Channel 5 programme, The Farm, and we have thoroughly enjoyed working on such a variety of different projects."

One of the largest projects for the company this Summer has been its work with t

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Germany - Everything Flows was the motto of September's Drinktec exhibition in Munich, Germany, where G-LEC installed its biggest LED PhantomFrame system ever.

International market leaders in the field of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle production and labelling, Krones AG, took over an entire hall at the popular exhibition, central to which was a striking and dynamic two storey construction known as the Think Tower. Used as a meeting and business centre, the tower was clad with 288 1m x 1m PhantomFrames, creating almost 300sq.m of video and moving graphics.

The video content comprised a combination of solid colours flowing through to graphics and video footage, ensuring that the activity going on inside the tower was complimented by the liveliness of the images on its fascia.

G-LEC provided six of its own trained technicians to construct the T

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UK - HSL supplied lighting and sound for all main performance areas at the Isle of Wight's Bestival festival. The event, produced by Loud Music, was enjoyed by over 25,000 people across three days of music. This is the second year that Lancashire-based HSL has supplied Bestival. In addition to the main stage, HSL provided lighting and sound for the Big Top, the Bollywood Bar, The Hidden Disco and the JD Lounge. It was co-ordinated for HSL by Mike Oates and followed hot on the heels of HSL supplying the majority of the sound and all the lighting production to Creamfields 2005.

The HSL site crew consisted of 15 lighting and sound technicians, crew chiefed by Ian Stevens. The event was production and site managed by Lee Charteris and Jo MacKay for Loud Music. Bestival 2005 was headlined by Magic Numbers, Mylo, Royksopp, Soulwax, Howard Marks and the Super Furry Animals.

"The

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UK - Ali Baba is a major new creation to the tableaux this year at Blackpool Illuminations. Designed by Graham Ogden and the Blackpool Illuminations team, eleven James Thomas Engineering PixelPar 90s saturate the feature in continuous colour.

The all-weather PixelPars are rigged facing the construction, animating the characters via complex programming sequences - bringing the busy seafront traffic to a halt.

The huge complex scene features moving illusions, authentic sound effects and a giant illuminated waterfall. Housed deep in the water, a submersible IP68 PixelPar 90 provides the radiance to light up the waterfall.

Illuminations manager, Richard Ryan enthuses: "The PixelPars were selected for this project due to their outstanding build quality and technical flexibility. Blackpool promenade is an extreme environment and to be frank only high quality well desig

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Austria - dBLuX has been appointed the Austrian distributor for LSC Lighting. Following the appointment, Thorsten Sattler of dBLux visited the LSC Melbourne headquarters to undertake three days of intensive training on the LSC range of lighting equipment.

"It was great to see inside the company and to meet all the people who work there," said Sattler. "Now I understand what will happen inside the company when I send my orders through to them. Richie Mickan spent a lot of time with me and he has showed me so much - products, people and anything else I was interested in.

"It was a great start for both of us. I have had the chance to get to know the guys more than I can do over phone. We had many discussions on what we can do together in the future and I am looking forward to a long term partnership."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - Digital media specialist Projected Image Digital has supplied the Hard Rock Café London with a bespoke Element Labs VersaTILE installation for their newly refurbished Basement Bar. Hard Rock Café London, the first and most famous venue of this landmark brand, has just reopened after extensive renovations. Its interior was designed by Paula Reason of Cadmium Design, a London-based designer involved in creating many of the Hard Rock Café interiors worldwide.

Reason wanted a central light feature in the bar to continue an ongoing theme of using light to interact 'live' with the people within specific Hard Rock spaces. This had been started at previous Hard Rock projects and has taken many different formats. However for the new-look London venue she wanted something completely different.

Reason became aware of PID, and the VersaTILE product, and contacted

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UK / USA - White Light's Digital Festoon System, launched at the 2004 PLASA Show where it won a PLASA Award for Innovation, found its way onto a number of UK lighting projects this summer, and is now on its way to the ETS-LDI Show in Orlando, Florida.

A radical re-think of traditional festoon lighting, the Digital Festoon System offers users the ability to individually control the level of each bulb along a length of festoon, while still being formed from a traditional two-core festoon cable.

The first to use the system in a real-world project was lighting designer Gary Collins, on a large outdoor event for VS Creative. "VS Creative had asked me to come up with an efficient and cost-effective way to light a 400m path through the woodland grounds of the venue, allowing guests to return to the car park after dark," Collins explains. "Light levels had to be generou

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Norway - i-Vision has supplied Norwegian lighting design and installation company Oslo Lysdesign with a mixture of their Lumos LED products for several high profile hotel projects, including the conference rooms at the newly refurbished Royal Christiana Hotel in Oslo.

Oslo Lysdesign's Gier Ove Langlo was asked to design and specify a new scheme for the conference spaces by hotel group Choice Hotels, of which the Christiana is a new flagship venue.The main conference space is a large area with sliding room dividers that break it down into three smaller spaces as required.Langlo illuminated the paths of these dividing walls from below with Lumos in-ground Spots. Around the sides of the whole room, he chose to light from the top down, using 58 of i-Vision's Lumos 3 fittings as down-lighters. In the foyer outside, he installed 26 Lumos 1200 mm LED strip fixtures into the roof soffit

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UK - Leading London nightclub Pacha has recently upgraded its entire effects lighting system three years after opening. All apart from their Avolites Azure 2000 lighting console that is! Foresight and intuition in 2002 meant that no updating was necessary in the control department, as one of the reasons the Azure was originally specified was because it had more than enough headroom for future expansion.

The Azure 2000 console was chosen when the club opened by house lighting designer and technician Brian Kell. He chose it because it's "absolutely my favourite lighting console. It's perfect for club work, giving extremely quick access to lots of playbacks. It's also great for improvising and working 'live' - which is essential for any club environment." Kell knew at the time of the initial installation that the club would upgrade the lighting at some point in the near f

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UK - Northampton-based sound and lighting installer Fabtronic has completed an extensive and flexible ElectroVoice sound system installation in the Barratts Club in Northampton, where a large sports bar and snooker hall have been created out of a former shoe factory.

Barratts' owners, the MacManus Group briefed Fabtronic designers to come up with a sound system that would fit in and around the multiple plasma TV screens that form the core identity of the sports bar. The objective was to have six discrete audio zones, allowing different sports to be shown in different areas of the bar.

Using Electro-Voice's EViD compact loudspeakers, Fabtronic has provided a system that is capable of far more than just background music replay. Powered and processed by Electro-Voice, with 8x 12.1 subwoofers in support, the EViDs are powerful enough to handle live bands, DJs and karaoke entertain

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USA - Color Kinetics Inc has published its results of operations for the third quarter of 2005. Revenues were a record $14.1 million, a 27% increase from the $11.1 million reported in the third quarter of 2004. Net income rose to $1.3 million, up 47% from the $853,000 reported in the third quarter of 2004.

"We are very pleased with our strong third quarter performance, which reflects a broad and growing base of customers worldwide," said Bill Sims, president and CEO. "Once again we achieved record revenues across both business units, driven in part by market adoption of new RGB systems, increased traction for the IntelliWhite series, and escalating licensing activity."

He continued, "As LED technology progresses, fuelling adoption in both new and existing markets, we believe that Color Kinetics is well-equipped to advance the intelligent solid-state li

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Azerbaijan - PRG Europe has supplied lighting solutions for the grand opening of the $3.6 billion BTC oil pipeline linking Baku in Azerbaijan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, via Georgia, in its first collaboration with oil company event specialist Neos Creative.

At the 'first oil' event, hosted by the Government of Azerbaijan and the pipeline's major shareholder BP, production manager and lighting director Steve Nolan actually worked on four events: one at the oil terminal at Sangachal 40km south of the Azerbaijan capital Baku and three in the city centre at the presidential Gulistan Palace. Neos Creative sent 12 40ft truckloads of equipment to the event, which included two full of lighting equipment from PRG Europe's facility in Greenford, west London.

At Sangachal Terminal on the shores of the Caspian Sea, the first oil event was marked with a ceremonial valve turn which set

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UK - Joint directors Paul Butler and Ian Robson have completed the successful purchase of Northampton-based full service AV company Mushroom Event Services.

"Mushroom has always ticked along quite nicely and we already had a very solid client base," explains Butler. "However, Ian and I realised that to progress things, it was necessary for us to have full control of the company."

The first contract for the new regime at Mushroom was the Marriott Global Pursuits Event, held at London's Grosvenor House Hotel, where they supplied all the lighting and technical facilities for the in-house client based exhibition. "We colour themed the room, supplied the sound system and specialist lighting, which was mainly LED, as well as a colour changing wall and a boat that was used for a feature area," comments Butler.

This was followed by the PLASA Show

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USA - Martin Professional has announced that Brian Friborg is to take on the role of president of Martin Professional Inc. Friborg, a Dane with a wealth of industry experience, has been with Martin for six years as managing director of Martin Professional Scandinavia A/S. More recently he has also held the interim position of managing director for Martin Professional Italy S.p.a.

Friborg will work closely with Martin US vice-president of sales and marketing Eric Loader in establishing and overseeing execution of the strategic plan for Martin US, as well as promoting key business relationships. He looks forward to meeting Martin's US partners and customers at the upcoming LDI trade show in Orlando.

Martin's statement says: "Troels Volver has decided to seek new challenges outside of the company and resigns his post as CEO of Martin Professional Inc".

Christian Engst

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USA - Australian production engineer Phil Markey, and his company Kaos Lighting, has joined forces with US-based American DJ to create a new DMX-controlled centerpiece effect called the Streamer. Combining fibre optics with LED technology and RGB colour mixing, the Streamer produces thread-like beams, and will debut at the ETS-LDI show in Orlando next week.

"The Streamer is totally different than any other special effects light out there," said Scott Davies, general manager of the American DJ Group of Companies. "With its fiber-like beams, it's a truly unique visual phenomenon. Plus, it offers so many other features - from DMX control to LED technology to custom color mixing - that its applications are virtually limitless."

Markey first used fiber optic technology on a much more basic fixture called the Mirrorlight, powered simply by a small halogen light b

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USA - Smart-e's SmartNet-X video and audio switching and distribution equipment is being used in the Broadway production of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Woman In White when it opens in New York this month.

The SmartNet-X system, which is a true matrix switcher designed to connect multiple inputs to a myriad of remote displays, distributes high quality video and audio signals up to 300m over Cat 5 UTP cabling, say the company. The Smart-e equipment is being supplied by video production company XL Video, to project backdrop scenery and images with which the actors interact throughout this stage production adapted from Wilkie Collins' well-known Victorian thriller.

XL Video and video consultants Mesmer chose to use the Smart-e equipment for the New York production because it is an efficient and cost-effective solution to the problem of distributing high quality video an

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UK - The life-like animatronics effects in the Natural History Museum's Dinosaur Gallery have been given a new realism with the addition of low-lying fog, triggered by the prehistoric animal's computer. The Museum's contractors, North Devon-based JP Leisure, evolved the solution based on products from Antari, distributed in the UK by Lighting Effects Distribution.

Jon Powell's company have been main dealers for the full Antari range of fog, smoke, snow, bubble and haze machines for some time, and he maintains that Antari business has increased 20-fold. "Their reliability is good, as is their service and spares, and we are now shifting between 300-400 Antari items per year, which represents a huge growth."

For Health & Safety and extended duty cycle issues the Museum was reluctant to use conventional CO2 Dry Ice and so JP Leisure recommended the upgraded DNG-100 Fog C

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Sweden / USA - Swedish manufacturer Wireless Solutions Sweden AB announced they will launch their W-DMX product range in the US at this year's ETS-LDI show in Orlando, Florida. Designed for theatre, corporate events, theme parks and architectural applications, Wireless Solutions' W-DMX product is a plug-and-play system "that easily outclasses Wi-Fi-based arrangements" the manufacturer claims.

The first prototypes of the W-DMX product range were shown in 2004 - winning a PLASA Award for Innovation for its W-DMX transceiver by "taking wireless data to new levels," according to the judges. "We are really excited to be showing our product line in the US for the first time," says Wireless Solutions' international product manager, Niclas Arvidsson. "We are proud of what we have achieved with W-DMX and feel that it offers unparalleled reliability and

  1. Elation introduces Pocket Partner
  2. Trafalgar celebrations with Innovision
  3. Light beer with Martin Pro
  4. Pulsar strengthens support for the Americas
  5. Absolute adds LED to Viper Lounge
  6. LSC appoints Acoustic Control for India
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