Based in Blackburn, Lancashire, rental specialists HSL announce a fair expansion of their inventory with the addition of 350 units of Robe moving heads, and are also expanding their range of LED products, which already include Color Kinetics, Chroma-Q Color Block, and PixelLine. They currently have equipment out with Massive Attack and Snow Patrol, as well as with several TV shows, not least X Factor and earlier with Dancing on Ice.

Sunlite showed their USB interfaced PC lighting controllers, including the Easy Stand Alone range plus a new stand-alone Ethernet DMX512 interface (IP version) - through which the programmer can work locally or via the Internet. They have two ranges using two different variations on the software - one for clubs and live control, and the other for architectural and installed schemes . . .

According to Robert Juliat, 'Only RJ can do better than RJ'. In the case of its new followspot projector - the Lancelot, the company might be right. This high-power spot, unveiled on the White Light stand, features 4k of whacking brightness, an extremely flat beam and is the first truly modular long-throw effects projector. A wide range of accessories including a 100% closing iris, two rotating gobo wheels, animation disk with integrated gobo holder, smooth four-blade dimming shutter and a Chromix cassette, can be manually or motor operated, locally or remotely from any DMX console.

City Theatrical launched two new products from its award-winning WDS Wireless Data System product line. The WDS Four Port Opto-Receiver receives a universe of DMX data via wireless broadcast and converts it into four optically isolated five-pin XLR outlets - external power supply allows for either mains or battery operation. The WDS Candle Adapter allows the City Theatrical Candle Lite electronic flicker candles to be controlled or dimmed through WDS Dimmers.

USA - The Assembly of God's Christ Chapel is housed in a 130,000sq.ft sports facility (it was once an actual professional football team's practice facility) in Macon, Georgia where it holds regular Sunday and Wednesday worship services and sports ministries. Its TV ministry, consisting of Pastor John Wood's sermon from Sunday services, airs locally on Cox Cable and CTN Cable. Entire Sunday morning and evening services are streamed live on the internet; college, youth and children's ministries will soon stream live on the Web as well.

Macon-based Total Systems Audio, Video, and Consulting have supplied vast amounts of technical equipment to the Church; no coincidence as their managing director is also the Church's technical director.

Recently the Church took delivery of a LSC Lighting Systems maXim LP console and are getting ready to purchase a maXim XXLP through LSC's USA dist

UK - Adlib Lighting supplied equipment for Maximo Park's latest UK tour, which culminated in an incendiary performance at London's Brixton Academy. This concluded the final leg of their extensive A Certain Trigger tour.

Lighting designer Stevie Marr has worked with the band for two years, and uses Adlib as his lighting supplier because, he says: "The service is excellent, they have the right attitude and the crew are always great - it's crew that really make a tour at the end of the day!"

For this stretch of the tour, he wanted all lighting sources to be at a low level, to give an edgy look that reflected the band's increasingly raw and harsh style of playing and their relentless energy. He also wanted them to be seen at all times, and so opted for an 'almost-floor' based rig, with a front truss used solely to provide key lighting positions.

The visually dom

USA - Speed metal band Slayer brought along four other heavy metal bands for its brand-new touring production, Slayer: The Unholy Alliance. The line-up featured Lamb of God, Mastodon, Children of Bodom, and Thine Eyes Bleed - and Clay Paky Alpha Spots to shed light on the spectacle onstage.

Lighting designer/director Jason Cain (who also handled video operation duties) specified 20 Alpha Spot HPE 1200 luminaries for his lighting rig. "I chose the Alpha Line because of their light weight and bright output," Cain explains. "It was also nice to have two rotating gobo wheels, and the fixed wheel as well. I was able to achieve multi-layering of the gobos to produce different lighting effects."

The Clay Paky Alpha Spots were put into a moving light pre-rig that was built by Xtreme Structures. Any concerns Cain had about the lights' magnetic wheels holding

UK - Lighting rental specialists HSL supplied LD Nick Jevons and Electric Fly Productions with their new A&O Falcon Beam 3Kw searchlights, Martin MAC moving lights, LED fixtures and strobes for Mogwai's show at London's Royal Albert Hall.

HSL's production manager Mike Oates comments: "We've been looking at serious high powered search lights for some time now, and both myself and Howard Dean have watched the A&O Lighting brand develop in Europe with interest. When Nick first mentioned he wanted to use them on the tour I was straight on to Marco Niedermeier [MD of A&O] to see if the units where available, which luckily they were! It was a pleasure to work with Nick, Phil and Neil from Electric Fly on this tour - from a suppliers point of view, they makes things very simple."

The influential Glasgow "post rock" band have been on a world tour since the start of

UK - Mastermind, originally ran from 1972 - 1997 with presenter Magnus Magnusson. Due to popular demand the show was brought back in 2003 and since then there have been numerous specials and celebrity editions. The latest will be shown in the middle of October, with John Humphrey's as the presenter.

Lighting designer James Campbell was given the task of lighting the new series: "The brief was to recognise and produce the traditional Mastermind look, with a suggestion of different architecture, like the different locations they used in the original series."

The Lighting rig is made up of 20 MAC 500s and one Stage Zoom 1200.

"The central image to the show is the iconic chair, where I use an intense arrangement of moving lights (the MAC 500s). The background is kept black with the multi-dimensional beams in striking shades of blue."

By Campbell's own admis

UK - Dialight Lumidrives, the UK based LED technology provider, has appointed SimonAldred as sales manager. Aldred, 35, joins Dialight Lumidrives with over 10 years experience in the lighting and electronics industry. He joins having spent the previous five years selling high power LED technology in the UK and Europe in his role as Lumileds' UK supplier development manager. Aldred will be responsible for increasing significantly Dialight Lumidrive's sales in Europe over the next three years.

Gordon Routledge, managing director at Dialight Lumidrives says: "We areentering a period of rapid growth thanks to an increasing number of customersrecognising our wide ranging LED expertise. Simon's role is to help us managethis demand and continue to widen our customer base."

Aldred adds: "Joining Dialight Lumidrives is a fantastic opportunity for me, asthe company is wel

USA - US-based manufacturer Lycian Stage Lighting has announced more of its followspots have received CE approval. The 1279 Superstar 2.5 and M2 are both available for use in all countries where CE standards must be met. This brings to five the total number of followspots from Lycian meeting the strict CE requirements. The M2, with either magnetic or electronic power supplies and the Superstar 2.5 join the Lycian Midget II, 1290 XLT and 1294 SuperArc 4K as CE approved.

"Lycian Stage Lighting is demonstrating its commitment to growing its international presence by submitting its products for CE. We will continue to put more product through the process," said Steve Lerman, director of sales.

"We can offer Halogen, HMI and Xenon followspots to the European entertainment industry that are brilliant, reliable, and durable. A broader choice benefits everyone. We're co

UK - One of London's leading conference and meeting venues, The Brewery in Chiswell Street, has commissioned PSL to implement an extensive refurbishment of its sound and lighting facilities. Managing director Claire Lawson says that the £500K spend will help The Brewery to extend its advantage over rival City venues.

Having been a preferred supplier of audio-visual services to the award-winning Brewery for the past seven years, the London event services company PSL was the ideal candidate to handle the design and installation of new production facilities. "PSL is familiar with the building, and we're very comfortable with PSL," says Lawson. "They've led the design process throughout but we've been closely involved, especially when it came to the replacement of the sound system."

The Brewery has worked closely with PSL and the Corporation of London on

USA - Production Resource Group, supplier of entertainment technology, today released the latest version of software for their Emmy award-winning Virtuoso lighting console. Software version 5.5 provides new features for the popular desk and enhances the functionality of existing features, the company reports.

Attendees at the LDI tradeshow October 20-22 can get a personal introduction to the Virtuoso console and the new software at booth 1331 in the Las Vegas Convention Center.

New features in the v5.5 software include: new add/solo and go on fader playback modes, submaster priorities, redesigned cue data and live status displays, patch improvements, data conversion between fixture types, and trackball control for pan/tilt.

"Innovation is at the heart of who we are as a company. Our R & D team is skilled at staying ahead of our customers' needs and providing high-qualit

UK - Martin Professional's new tungsten automated wash fixture, the MAC TW1, has been chosen by the UK's National Theatre for its touring production of The History Boys after which they will be permanently installed in the National's Lyttelton Theatre in London.

The History Boys, a multi award winning play by English playwright Alan Bennett, originally opened two years ago at the Lyttelton. After touring the UK, and then internationally, it enjoyed a successful run on Broadway earlier this year. Another UK tour kicked off this past August - this time with Martin's tungsten halogen wash as an important element of the rig. The History Boys will play at Wyndham's Theatre in the West End before the TW1s settle into the Lyttelton.

Simon Fraulo, chief lighting technician at the National Theatre, reproduced the lighting for the tour, making adjustments to lightin

Singapore - Megachurches are becoming more popular in many regions of the world. Two of these outstanding buildings, the City Harvest Church and the Grace Assembly Church in Singapore, are employing MA Lighting control technology as part of their suitably impressive lighting systems. The City Harvest Church uses a grandMA full-size console, while the Grace Assembly Church a grandMA micro.

The consoles were applied to control conventional fixtures as well as moving lights and are ready to integrate video at a later stage. William Ng of City Harvest church points out: "I got to know grandMA in the US. The possibilities and the powerful performance were very impressive. Back home the recommendation of Desisti Asia, which offered comprehensive project support, and their after-sales service convinced us to invest in MA technology."

City Harvest Church serves as the centre

USA - The A.C. Lighting booth (455) at LDI 2006 will feature a host of new entertainment technology products. The Chroma-Q range of lighting fixtures and accessories on display will include the US tradeshow launch of the new Color Web 125, a higher resolution version of the modular, transparent LED webbing product.

Each Color Web 125 panel consists of 64 individually addressable colour mixing LED cells with a pitch of 125mm / 5", providing double the resolution per square metre compared to the original 250mm / 10" version launched last year.

The choice of panel resolutions makes Color Web suitable for more demanding visual effects applications and provides customers with a choice of products to suit their budget and display requirements.

Also on display will be the latest range of Chroma-Q Color Block LED accessories, including eight new colour options designed for

USA - High End Systems announces the release of version 2.0 software for the Wholehog 3 operating system. This software enhances and improves the popular platform, allowing users to connect Wholehog 3, Hog iPC and/or Hog 3PCs on the same network for total networking compatibility.

The new Wholehog 3 version 2.0 software allows the entire Wholehog 3 family of lighting control products to operate with the same level of functionality, DMX output capabilities and networking abilities. All platforms are now able to connect to each other and/or to DMX Processors (DP2000) and Timecode Processors (IOP). With this connectivity, the Hog iPC and Hog 3PC are now capable of unlimited DMX universes.

Version 2.0 software has undergone extensive testing through the High End Systems Software Testing Programme. Beta testers have been instrumental with this release as they have been able to test

Switzerland / Sweden - ELC have announced that Spectra Stage & Event Technologies AB has been appointed as their exclusive distributor for Sweden.

Mikael Uddh is the ELC product manager, and the full sales team are available for enquiries, from the four point of sales and distribution: in Stockholm, Malmö, Gothenburg and Gävle.

ELC Lighting say that they are "fully confident in the re-organisation of this sales structure,and we will be fully supporting Spectra Stage & Event Technologies AB in their activities".

(Chris Henry)

France - Nearly fifty years after the film Ben Hur, starring Charlton Heston and winner of eleven Oscars, the epic story of the Jewish Prince has been brought back to life with a spectacular show at the Stade de France in Paris last month. The World Cup stadium at the gates of hosted 400 actors and extras who recreated the naval battle, the gladiatorial combats and the famous chariot race.

The main challenge for lighting designers Christian Bréan and Jacques Rouveyrollis was to cover with light the 11,000 m2 of surface area of the stadium - which was covered in compacted red clay.

"The lighting for this mega-spectacular required detailed study of the placing of the projectors around the entire oval that covers the Stade de France" - the two lighting designers explained. "It needed at least a year's work to plan and implement the lighting design.&qu

Germany - For its regular live coverage of the German Football League , the Arena channel's Make It Real team use some of the best technology available. 24 Vari-Lite VL500 80V Wash are attached in the mobile studio. Lighting control is done by a grandMA full-size, three MA Digital Dimmer 12 x 2,3 kVA and one NSP.

Seventy tons of equipment are transported every week from one town to another. "Our team consists of 40 people. They need two days to build up the studio," explains Jörg Privsek of Make It Real. "We want to get as close to the people as possible, therefore our system has to be mobile. Our set designer Jürgen Harsler arranges the seats around the studio stage to produce a stadium feeling. The lighting rig with its four pylons also reminds the spectators of this."

Lighting Designer Manuel da Costa adds, "Important for my choice o

Italy/USA - Coemar is showing a range of new products at this year's LDI show including Infinity Wash, PinLite Led, and StripLite Led.

Infinity Wash XL has an innovative new LCD display which can be charged from an external battery in the new Philips fast-fit lamp with variable power from 800 to 1450 W. At narrow angles, it can get up to 30 times brighter than competitors, becoming the most powerful Wash on the market, claims Coemar.

StripLite Led is billed as "the perfect substitute for the popular halogen ribalte". It offers multicolour and white (3200°K) leds that guarantee infinite colours generation, plus the possibility to obtain warm white; the body is light and solid, and the electrical consumption is extremely reduced in spite of the elevated brightness.

PinLite Led comprises 12 multicolour leds designed to provide infinite colour generation, strobo ef

UK - Northern Stage Services has announced the appointment of David Cusworth as marketing and sales manager. Cusworth has over thirty years experience in the industry with Strand Lighting. When working for Strand he originally managed the Stage Equipment, and Drapes, Department, before being responsible for sales of lighting to the theatre market. He has also been responsible for the design, and sales, of lighting systems to the film, and TV, industry, working with the BBC, ITV companies, and other studios.

In addition to heading up Northern's sales and marketing team Cusworth will be available to customers who require a consultancy service, be it from general advice on an existing theatre, or studio, to the design, and specification, for new installations.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Launched at the recent PLASA Show, the long-awaited, fully updated and massively expanded latest edition of White Light's Reference Guide was a huge hit, with hundreds of lighting designers and electricians leaving the show with a copy of the new guide.

For those who haven't yet obtained a 'real' copy, the Reference Guide is now available for download in PDF format from the White Light website. The downloadable Reference Guide complements the ever-growing on-line Knowledge Base which can also be found on the White Light website.

"We were overwhelmed by the demand for our new Reference Guide at PLASA," says White Light's marketing manager, Aubs Tredget. "I hadn't realised quite how much people had been coveting their old catalogues as an invaluable reference guide; hopefully we've managed to retain all of that information and fit lots of useful new informati

UK - Following the success of last year's new category - Entertainment Lighting - The Lighting Design Awards are again looking for entries from lighting designers within the entertainment sector. This includes concerts, festivals, theatrical productions, corporate events, exhibitions and also temporary or one-off lighting installations intended for an audience.

The judges will be looking for creative use of lighting which commands audience attention and which highlights, complements or is in itself the main focus of the event.

The Award, sponsored by PLASA and Lighting&Sound International, is designed to give lighting designers across the industry recognition for their creative work. Last year's winner - The Storr - provided the backdrop for a subtle and imaginative light and sound installation that the judges described as "an awesome undertaking". They also praised

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