Lighting

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UK - Compulite Vector control systems and Hippotizer media servers, all supplied via Stagetec Distribution, provided all the intelligent lighting and media control on the latest production of X Factor - Battle of the Stars on ITV, shot at Fountain TV Studios in Wembley.

A Compulite Vector Blue operated by Russell Grubiak controls the three Hippotizer Stage media servers, all running in dual output mode and a Vector Green operated by Bill Peachment controls the intelligent lighting rig consisting of 34 Vari*Lite VL3000 spots, 32 Vari*Lite VL3000 washes, 30 VL5s, 34 VL6Cs, 10 VL1000TSFrm, four High End Cyberlights, 20 James Thomas Pixel Par 90s, 46 Pixel Line 1044s and 36 Pulsar Chroma Strips - all run on eight streams of DMX transmitted via Ethernet from the Vector.

The Vector control systems were used for the previous series of X Factor, but the Hippotizer media servers

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USA - Color Kinetics Incorporated today announced that it has been awarded approximately $1.7 million by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to develop an LED-based alternative to incandescent lamps for general illumination.

Color Kinetics is one of five companies, including General Electric, Eastman Kodak, Osram Sylvania and SRI International, to be awarded a share of $7 million in this round of DOE funding for LED-based solid-state lighting. As is customary, the awards and the specific details of the proposals are still subject to final negotiation between DOE and the participants.

Color Kinetics' proposal, An Integrated Solid-State LED Luminaire for General Lighting, aims to develop replacement lamps for 60-watt incandescent light sources that, with a four-fold increase in efficacy to 80-lumens per watt, would meet or exceed the efficacy of nearly all conventional li

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UK - Leading staging company Stagecraft Theatre Services recently completed the design and installation of a new theatre system at the award-winning Mossbourne Academy in London. Mossbourne, which recently won the RIBA Award for Design Excellence, is one of the new flag-ship community academy schools in London, opened by Prime Minister Tony Blair in 2005.

"Working with the team at Mossbourne, we have created a lighting and sound system which is equal to that of many professional theatres. The lighting is rigged onto a flown truss to give the school complete flexibility and we have installed a variety of lanterns to ensure that every angle of the stage is covered. Likewise, the sound system includes sound desks which give direct access and control of the CD/DVD players, the mics and radio mics, to allow students to move around the theatre without losing sound quality,"

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As the world waits for his main tour to kick off, Robbie Williams gave fans a hint of great things to come ina series of 'warm up' shows. L&SI's Chris Henry caught up with the crew in Dubai . . .UAE - It's official, the Robbie Williams machine is rolling back into action (following a well-deserved post-Knebworth rest) and boy, is it a slick operation. As the technical teams head to Belgium for more rehearsals and test builds, following a three-week stint at Northern Studios in Wakefield, the tour proper finally kicks off on 9 June at Croke Park in Dublin.

Billed as the 'spring leg' of the tour, Robbie's three South African shows and one in Dubai, with his 'B rig' have been and gone. L&SI met up with the brains behind the scenes, and asked what treats lie in store on the main show, and how on earth do you top KnebworthΩ

Wob Roberts, production manager "It's been diff

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Dubai - The fourth annual PALME 2006 show took place on 23-25 of April in Dubai's World Trade Centre. The show's organisers claimed a 30% increase in visitor numbers after the event, so were the exhibitors' palms crossed with goldΩ

The exhibition comprised three individual sector shows, Install, Event 360 and MUSAC. Install unsurprisingly focussed on the installation market, Event 360 targeted those with event and production needs, and MUSAC catered for the musical instrument market. PALME's well-developed seminar programme ran alongside.

A slinky dancer projected on a FogScreen lured visitors to the company's stand. CEO Mika Koivula indicated that FogScreen were "open to options" of an office or distributors in the region.

Vicky Fairall, formerly of DHA, was the friendly face of Goboland who were launching their brand new steel gobo collection

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USA - Worldwide-automated lighting manufacturer High End Systems (HES) has announced the Collage Generator, a new software feature coming soon for the HES DL.2 Digital Light. The patent-pending software enables DL.2 fixtures to create seamless panoramic media projections controlled from a lighting console. Collage Generator allows the user to take any image, either stock or custom content, and segment it into countless images for projection through DL.2 fixtures.

Says Scott Blair, HES DL.2 product manager: "This new feature differs from the existing edge-fading feature in DL.2 in that Collage Generator allows the user to define a panorama using a selectable array of fixtures and then manipulate the panorama as if it were one single fixture. This special form of edge-blending is optimized for this fusion of images into one."

Providing an example, Blair adds: "The

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UK - White Light moves to the Lindley Hall at this year's ABTT Trade Show; products from Robert Juliat, LDDE, Wireless Solutions and others will be on show. Leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light will be exhibiting at the ABTT Trade Show once again this year (14-15 June, Royal Horticultural Halls, London). White Light has switched halls this year, to the Lindley Hall. "The Lindley has blinds on its windows," comments White Light's managing director, Bryan Raven, "which we hope might make for an atmosphere slightly more conducive to demonstrating lighting products!"

Those products will including a selection of new ranges from Robert Juliat, including the Super Korrigan and short-throw Lucy followspots plus the Lutin interchangeable PC/fresnel lantern and Espion DMX tester. Alongside these will be Look Solution's new Unique2 hazer as well as their

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The tiny town of Culdaff boasts a live music venue which is one of the Irish Tourist Board's rising stars. L&SI reports . . .

Ireland - Far up on the craggy, northernmost coast of the Republic of Ireland lies a small and pretty village with two treasures it can call its own. Culdaff (pop. 200), in Inishowen, County Donegal, boasts both one of Europe's top-rated Blue Flag beaches, a perfect golden strand, and, these past few years, one of the island of Ireland's most enterprising live music ventures, the Backroom at McGrory's.

The Backroom, whose seated capacity neatly equals the village's population, is the main reason McGrory's is one of the Irish Tourist Board's rising stars. It's complemented by a 70-covers restaurant with an enviable reputation for fresh locally-sourced cuisine, while the atmospheric main bar serves up yet more food and live music.

Culdaff's remoteness h

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USA / UK - Theatre Projects Consultants has announced that leadership and ownership of the firm has been transferred to a new generation of leaders. "For the past few years, we have been planning this ownership transition of the UK and US companies to the younger members of our team, and we feel that now is the right time for that change," said Richard Pilbrow, founder and chairman.

The transition allows key members of staff to take on both leadership and ownership of Theatre Projects Consultants and provides for ownership to extend to other members of the firm in the future, the company says.

The UK team will be led by David Staples, Alan Russell, Jerry Godden, Mark Stroomer, Marion Daehms and Andrew De Rosa. Staples comments: "Theatre Projects has been at the leading edge of theatre planning for almost 50 years. This transition allows us to build on that wealt

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UK - Over the past 20 years, Texas' rocky, bluesy style and Sharleen Spiteri's potent, souly vocals have helped carve out their special niche, cultivating a diverse fanbase.

Adlib Audio is supplying a JBL VerTec PA for the tour, which is being engineered by Andy Dockerty at FOH and Marc Peers on monitors. Dockerty has worked with Texas since 1993, and says it's the only band guaranteed to get him out of Adlib's Liverpool HQ!

New for this tour, they are running a Shure KSM9 radio mic on Spiteri's vocal, which seems to be working well, with a combination of BSS 901 frequency conscious gating, and dbx160A compression. Her vocal in the mix is the bottom line, and Dockerty says it's excellent for substantiating the rich, gritty resolution of her voice. He used a VerTec 4888 system on their 2005 theatre tour, and has gone with the VerTec 4889 system for this tour - powered by Camco

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Spain - Projected Image Digital has supplied, installed and commissioned 60 Element Labs VersaTube LED fixtures in a stunning basement bar lighting scheme at the Hard Rock Café in Barcelona.

This follows on from PID's work with Paula Reason of Cadmium Design and Steve Inwood, Hard Rock International's director of European Development at the Hard Rock Café in London. Here they supplied a customised VersaTile installation for the back wall of the basement bar.

PID's David March says: "We were delighted to working with Paula, Steve and the Hard Rock Team again - they are always up for pushing technology to new and interesting boundaries."

The award winning Barcelona site is the busiest HRC venue in Europe - situated right on the aorta of Plaça de Catalunya. Such was the success of the VersaTile installation in London, that it was decided a similar featu

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UK - Electronic ballast manufacturer Harvard Engineering has appointed LichtFocus as its sole Netherlands agent. LichtFocus is part of the specialist lighting group Lichtned and has been in business for five years. Harvard's range of electronic ballasts will complementLichtFocus' existing agencies for professional lighting brands including We-ef, Antares, Martini, Rossetti and Uni-Q.

Michael McDonnell, commercial director at Harvard Engineering says: "LichtFocusimpressed us with their technical knowledge and enthusiasm. Their sales operation combines a network of professional lighting planners with direct customer accounts, so I am confident that our range of compact, high performance, ballasts will be made available to the widest possible audience."

Rick ter Wee of Lichtfocus adds: "The Harvard brand is growing fast across Europe and I am delighted to have secu

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UK - A.C. Lighting is an official race sponsor of the Arden team for the GP2 British Grand Prix, which takes place at Silverstone this weekend (9-11 June). GP2 features cars running at speeds only a few seconds shy of F1 pace and is designed to equip every member of every team with the experience, knowledge and determination to succeed in Formula One.

Arden finished second in the overall Team Championship of the inaugural GP2 season last year. The sponsorship emphasises the natural affinity between Arden and A.C. Lighting, with both companies operating at the forefront of new technology in their industry sectors. The company believes the race will provide a dynamic environment for A.C. to network with other sponsors and countries at a business to business level to promote its products and services.

A.C. Lighting's Special Projects division also reports that it supplied a Litec

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France - Colorbank LED is the first LED-fitted strip-lighting fixture to join Chauvet's best-selling Color Bank line of wash lights. Unlike its three-halogen predecessors, this wash light is fitted with a total of 304 long life diodes housed in four pods and offers full RGB mixing capability. It is also DMX-512 programmable and produces a more concentrated, richly coloured flood, making it ideal for runway lighting effects. Like other Color Banks, it is highly portable and effectively washes walls, scenic painted drops as well as dance floors and stages.

The diodes offer the advantage of low power consumption and heat emission. Multiple units can be daisy-chained for runway lighting over a long distance. Built in colour change programs can be triggered as well as chase and fade functions through a long row of connected units via DMX and in master/slave mode. All functions, inclu

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Italy - Proel, the Italian leader company in audio/lighting systems, consumer electronics, musical instruments and accessories manufacturing, is proud to announce that Fantasy Sound International has been appointed as the exclusive distributor in Taiwan.

Under this multi-year agreement, Fantasy Sound International will sell and co-promote all of the various Proel product lines: stage equipment and accessories, sound reinforcement, lighting, trussing, Die-Hard cables and Tamburo drums.

Also included in the distributor's portfolio, is Proel Installation division, featuring audio, trussing and lighting products for large fixed installations and conferences.

Luigi Paoloni, the Proel International export manager says: "We are very excited about this new agreement. Fantasy is a highly dynamic and professional company and we strongly believe that they are the right choice as p

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UK - Avolites exhibits at ABTT 2006 which it sees as the UK's most important annual theatre exhibition.

Sales director Steve Warren, says: "It's a great chance to catch up with all our existing theatre users, and also introduces us to lots of potential new clients."

Avolites products of particular interest for theatrical applications this year are the lighting consoles - particularly the Diamond 4 Elite, and the Pearl 2004. Also prominent will be the revolutionary eDMX wireless DMX data transmission system, and the ART 2000i installation dimmer, which is the fixed installation version of Avolites' ART 2000 digital dimming series.

Standard Avolites ART2000 touring racks are also a favourite with touring theatre shows, where tight schedules and the rigours of the road demand robust, reliable and well engineered equipment.

Avolites' eDMX transfers DMX data across a

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The Netherlands - This May saw VisualDMX testing the wits of contestants vying for the big € 100,000 cash prize on the Dutch National Lottery's monthly game show: De Staatsloterij.

Producer Endemol asked Visual Productions to programme a special facility in the VisualDMX software that would enable it to control a new game based on the Labyrinth principle. Two 18 square metre platforms of MultiLEDs floor were supplied by Blue Magic rental and project house, located close to the Studio Aalsmeer used for filming the show.

Utilising the ever popular Matrix Mania software feature of VisualDMX, the software was programmed to enable a complex route of touching squares travelling from one side to the other of the LED floor, to be hidden from sight until the contestants step on the correct path. VisualDMX was linked via MIDI to a show control system; in the event of a contestan

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Hong Kong - Artistic Licence is pleased to announce the launch of Artistic Licence Hong Kong. The new office provides a sales, projects and support hub for Southeast Asia. The Hong Kong office is building a dealer network throughout the region. While the network evolves, the Hong Kong office will handle direct sales to territories not yet serviced by local dealers. The new office will also provide a very high level of support for product integration including full system design and technical support.

Managing director Wayne Howell comments: "Artistic Licence has always been strong in Southeast Asia and Asia Pacific. Setting up an office in Hong Kong is the next step and allows us to build market share by doing what we do best: supporting our customers and dealers.

The Hong Kong office will focus on dealer support and training plus project management. Large-scale project d

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UK - First-time visitors to ETC's new offices on a north Acton trading estate are in for a surprise: behind the industrial facade is one of a different kind - a Victorian theatre that threatens to out-match Matcham. Probably the first themed corporate reception area in the UK, the affectionately named 'Playhouse at Gypsy Corner' is the brainchild of ETC's CEO, Fred Foster, and follows on from the Town Square atrium at the company's US headquarters in Middleton, Wisconsin.

"The idea behind Town Square, which is based on the paintings of Edward Hopper, was to have an informal meeting place for staff and visitors that acknowledged the industry we work in - the theatre," explains Foster. "Although at Acton we have far fewer employees than in America - 25 as against 450 - I wanted the same sense of place and the same great way of presenting our products."

Using

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UK - UK lighting sales company Lightfactor will use ABTT as a platform to launch the new Synthesis Spot 700 moving light from Italian moving light manufacturer SGM.

The Synthesis Spot 700 is the first of a new generation of moving head fixtures designed and manufactured by SGM for cutting edge professional applications.

Onboard wireless DMX is fitted as standard and protection against rogue power supplies of up to 380 Volts are just two features of this fixture. The 700 Watt HTI lightsource has the potency of a 1200W light source, and there's the option of two different types of lamp for colour temperatures of either 7200°K or 5600°K. Other features include automatic hot re-strike, colour mixing, a very precise linear dimmer, animation wheel, and automatic electronic pan/tilt unlocking. There will be a hands-on demo of this product on the stand.

SGM's Giotto Spot 400

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UK - A.C. Lighting will be using the ABTT show to launch final production models of the new Chroma-Q Color Web and Jands Vista S3 lighting products to customers in the South of England.

Since its recent launch, the Chroma-Q Color Web has received an enormous amount of interest and been used by several leading rental companies on various high profile concerts, TV shows and corporate events.

Featuring a unique modular design, the 1sq.m, colour-mixing RGB LED panels provide designers with unlimited flexibility when it comes to displaying low-resolution visual effects and were developed in response to the lack of transparency and modularity in existing lighting and video systems.

The just launched Jands Vista S3 provides a fully operational Vista console when connected to a PC running the Vista software and fitted with a separately purchased software unlock key for output via et

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USA - Lighting industry veteran Steve Hoffman has announced the creation of his new company, GoboMan, the first primarily online gobo lighting distributor. GoboMan is the joint effort of Steve and Rebel L. Hoffman, both of whom previously worked for GamProducts Inc.

"GoboMan's mission is simple. We wanted to make ordering gobos as painless and simple as possible. That along with great customer service and unbeatable prices, is our blueprint," said Steve Hoffman. "We felt that there was a need for an affordable and more accessible collection of gobos made up of the designs used in everyday theatrical lighting situations," he added.

GoboMan's unique attraction is that unlike the rest of the Gobo industry, customers will not be required to or order in minimums. To keep prices economical, the Hoffmans decided not to publish a printed catalogue, but instead offe

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USA - American DJ has upgraded the performance of its popular DJ Scan 250, while maintaining its price. The newly upgraded DJ Scan 250 HP, like its predecessor, is an affordable, easy-to-use DMX scanner that gives mobile DJs the ability to take an exciting and professional-looking intelligent light show on the road, say the company. However, its major improvements include a high-quality Philips 250W lamp, selectable fast and slow built-in programs and a more lightweight plastic case design.

The improved lamp improves the performance of the unit's seven dichroic colours (plus white), increasing the level of excitement in any venue where mobile DJs work their magic.The new lamp also boosts the intensity of the DJ Scan 250 HP's 10 all-new gobo patterns (plus spot), designed by American DJ. Some of the gobos have an edgy, high-tech appearance, while others evoke softer, mellower ima

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UK - The HSL Group exhibited at ABTT for the second year, reflecting the growing importance of theatre and performing arts markets for the company, one of the busiest and fastest growing lighting rental operations in the UK. HSL highlighted its experience in the theatrical world and its wide equipment inventory.

The company says it has built its reputation on progressive thinking, the provision of innovative solutions, efficient and dedicated service, quality equipment and experienced designers, engineers and technicians to a diverse range of projects. HSL's work encompasses theatre, live events, concert tours, festivals, television productions, corporate presentations, son et lumières, spectaculars, parties and special events of all types.

The company has a comprehensive stock of the latest lighting technology from all the leading industry manufacturers and brands. Items are

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