Lighting

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UK - HSL's new Robe ColorSpot and ColorWash 700 ATs were delivered from the Czech Republic, unpacked from their boxes, tested and cased up to go on tour with New York indie rockers Brand New.

Lighting designer Sarah Landau was initially recommended to HSL by Mainlight Industries at the end of 2006, when seeking a video based solution to realise her design for the band's upcoming UK tour - their biggest production outing to date.

Further research revealed that HSL carried a large stock of ColorKinetics iColor Tiles, and Landau thought they would be the hire company for her.

HSL's Mike Oates says: "We're all very excited to be working with Brand New and Sarah - there's a real buzz about the band, and Sarah is extremely talented and has a great career ahead."

Landau says: "Mike and HSL have done everything possible to make the tour smooth, efficient and enjoyab

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UK - For the fourth successive year, Hawthorns were contracted by the East Midlands Conference Centre (EMCC), based on the Nottingham University Campus, to provide the technical solution for the Xerox Annual Year Start Conference. The Conference took place over four days and attracted 1700 delegates.

"This year, Xerox and the EMCC were looking to do something completely different and less corporate, whilst maintaining the Xerox Corporate Brand and the ability to use their standard PowerPoint presentation content," said Hawthorn's project manager, Oliver Moores.

The Hawthorn solution in the main auditorium was to provide a 24m x 7m cyc white backdrop as a massive projection screen, utilising a triple projection system driven by Barco's encore system. This gave the ability to use many creative and interesting backgrounds, both static and animated, with an infinite numb

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Denmark - Dansk Supermarked A/S chose local firm Aarhus Arkitekterne to design an expansion and modernisation of one of their premiere retail properties, Storcenter Nord shopping mall in Aarhus, Denmark. The project consisted of a large expansion of the retail area together with a new plaza and main entrance atrium meant to jettison the company's slightly outmoded image.

Besides re-imaging the centre in the minds of customers, there was also a need to do something more dramatic in order to draw customers to the area which essentially lies outside the city centre. "Storcenter Nord is a key part of a larger residential and business area that is experiencing dramatic growth," comments Architect Mogens Kristensen of Aarhus Arkitekterne. "The expansion gives the centre a new identity and the possibility to re-evaluate its relationship to its surroundings."

A key

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UK - Northern Light recently played a big part in the £360,000 improvements at Buxton Opera House. During the theatre's six week dark period - which ended on 16 February 2007 - Northern Light was responsible for managing an overhaul of the dimmer system and performance lighting circuits.

The Derbyshire venue is one of Britain's leading receiving theatres, presenting around 350 performances every year. Originally opened in 1903, Buxton Opera House was lovingly restored to its former glory in 2001 and this most recent improvement to the 938 seat theatre will ensure that the latest technology helps make each performance one to remember.

Northern Light's scope of work focused mainly in the backstage area and included the installation of a brand new ETC Sensor dimmer system - incorporating a total of 192 ways of dimming - and rewiring of all the performance lighting circuits.

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Australia - LSC Lighting Systems, the Australian designer and manufacturer of lighting control equipment, has just released its Houston Software, a PC-based application that allows for remote monitoring of your venue's dimmer systems.

Houston can diagnose any operational fault, such as a phase failure, loss of DMX, over temperature etc. When a fault occurs in any given device, a message is sent to one or more of the PCs running the Houston software. This immediately notifies the user of a fault, and the normally Green status indicator starts flashing Red. A quick glance at the screen then gives detailed information about the device failure and the nature of the fault. "Essentially, Houston provides an early warning system, so your show can run as smoothly as possible," the company says. Houston also keeps a permanent log of all lighting system events for later viewing

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Germany - Clay Paky will present several products at ProLight + Sound, Frankfurt, on stand B59, Hall 9.0, 28 - 31 March.

Clay Paky's Alpha Profile 1200 is the professional beam shaper which combines the technology of the Alpha projectors with an exclusive framing system, designed and patented by Clay Paky. Alpha Profile 1200 has a wide range zoom 10° - 30°, a Total Colour System, 14 special dichroic gobos, and an animation effect, a prism.

Ultra-luminous, extremely silent, with high-tech electronics and software, Alpha Profile 1200 is a precious resource for Lighting Designers who work in top professional environments, says the company.

Alpha Wash 1200 is the most powerful washlight in the Alpha family.The optical system uses uniform CMY colour mixing that, together with a fixed colour wheel, with linear CTO and with a CTB filter, allows every chromatic combination t

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Australia - Australian lighting control manufacturer LSC Lighting Systems has appointed Greg Hughes as sales consultant. The company says this appointment is another strategic step in LSC's plan for growth, enabling increased levels of service for the growing customer base in Northern Australia and Queensland.

Hughes comes to LSC with an extensive background. In his early days he played piano and guitar in several bands whilst also working at the AMP in Sydney. In 1976 he "realised his musical talents were less than ordinary", so he moved on to successfully road-manage bands, often working as their front-of-house sound technician.

After moving to Queensland in the late 70s, Hughes worked with Wickety Wak, DSA Concert Systems and at Her Majesty's Theatre. In 1982, Greg Hughes Concert Lighting came into play and in 1984 (with the addition of partners) East Coast Lighti

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Norway - Norwegian Cruise Line's (NCL) newest Freestyle Cruising ship, Norwegian Pearl, is a sister ship to Norwegian Jewel and the latest in a string of innovative Jewel class ships. Norwegian Pearl has an abundance of automated, colour-changing lighting from Martin Professional.

Built at Germany's Meyer shipyard, the 2,400-guest capacity vessel boasts an industry first - a four-lane bowling alley; and two NCL firsts - a rock-climbing wall and two Deluxe Owner's Suites. Norwegian Pearl features all the elements of NCL's dynamic modern Freestyle Cruising fleet including multiple restaurants, bars and lounges, boutiques, luxurious accommodations, family friendly areas and the latest in relaxation and fitness.

Guests enter the foyer with its glimmering icicled motif. In the lobby, across from the reception area is a vast, ceiling-to-floor LED screen - the second largest installa

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Slovakia - Slovakia's top lighting designer Martin Kubanka has once again chosen Robe moving lights as the main workhorses of his design for Hviezdy na Láde(Stars on Ice), Slovakia's version of top live TV production Dancing On Ice. All lighting equipment is being supplied by leading rental house Q-99, who are also supplying a Bose sound system for the series.

The show is a roll out of the Dancing On Ice series that took the UK's ITV by storm. A celebrity and a professional skater pair up and hone their dancing skills on the ice, with 14 hopeful couples starting the series. There's a studio-based judging panel to offer their professional opinion, but the winners are actually voted for by the public via SMS. The Slovakian show is staged at the Koliba Studios in Bratislava, directed by TomᚠEibner.

Kubanka, a designer of many high profile Slovak T

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UK - The Palace Exchange is a brand new retail development in the centre of Enfield, which has attracted several new retailers to the town, as well as existing stores extending their shops. A key feature of the 160,000sq.ft area is the Enfield Word Wall, which - measuring at approximately 120m - imposes over the northern side of the development and features passages of conversations from the town past and present.

Hoare Lea specified the lighting, with the concept of backlighting the wall behind the large text, whilst simultaneously illuminating the wall with LED projectors from across the street. Specialists Architen Landrell were drawn in to carry out the entire installation.

A total of over 100 Tryka Strip Module Optic IP67 in a variety of lengths were used on the project, with 27 Tryka IDS-4s - the Intelligent Drive System capable of running large numbers of LED fixtures w

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UK - Fuzion plc have taken over the UK distriibution of Compulite digital lighting control desks, dimmers (and associated lighting products) with immediate effect. Under Stagetec Distribution, the Israel-based company's penetration of the UK market has gone from strength to strength over the past few years, claiming hundreds of installations in theatres, TV studios, schools and colleges up and down the country. It has been particularly successful with the Vector range of consoles, the company reports, which are currently used on major TV productions such as Big Brother, X-Factor, Dancing on Ice and many more.

Andrew Stone from Stagetec Distribution, the Compulite UK distributor for the past 11 years, comments: "After many years of distributing the Compulite range in the UK we have been looking for some time into ways of increasing sales in the UK market. After carefu

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Germany - Avolites takes its new Pearl Expert lighting console to Frankfurt for the first time. With over 200 units on order since the console went into production, this is going to be another major selling product from Avo, and will be the main highlighted product on the stand of German Distributor Trendco.

Pearl Expert is a high performance version of one the industry's most popular consoles - with more Submasters, more flash buttons, more power - and optimised for use on larger and more demanding shows and events.

Pearl Expert is based on the Pearl 2004 operating system, retaining the user-friendliness and accessibility of Avolites Pearl consoles. It's powered by the new Intel CoreDuo Processor giving an exceptionally high speed button response which is particularly useful for 'Take Over', and busking with Timed Palettes.

An additional five sub master playbacks make a tot

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Australia - The Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) has recently installed a dimMA system into their Concert Hall. This is one of the largest theatrical dimMA installations worldwide. Show Technology Australia, who realised the project, opened an office in Brisbane to assure local support.

The installation consists of seven MA Digital Dimmer Racks, each with 72 circuits, distributed throughout the Concert Hall. This rack distribution went away from the traditional central dimmer room design. A large saving was made with the cabling infrastructure, as the racks are now closer to the outlets. There are four racks with four Network dimmer Processors (NDP's) in the ceiling, two behind the side lighting positions each with a back up NDP and one in the basement with a back up NDP. Each rack has a redundant processor capable of controlling 144 dimmer circuits.

QPAC's lighting ma

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UK - Pyrotechnics specialist company Pyrojunkies reports that it has been flat out since November last year with a number of high-profile tours and events including McFly, the World Music Awards, Pussy Cat Dolls, Shayne Ward, X Factor and Westlife.

Since purchasing Wells Fireworks, the company is now also manufacturing and using Wells Pyrotechnics on all its tours, as well as distributing the Wells range worldwide. The company is looking for more distribution partners around the globe - any enquiries should be directed to the company via the web address below.

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Six Alpha One Falcon 3k Flowers will be used to enhance the forthcoming 79th Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2006, presented at the Kodak Theatre at the Hollywood & Highland Center, and televised live by the ABC Television Network on February 25.

Debuting in the US this year, the Falcon has already featured in high profile events such as the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards, and now, the Oscars. Alpha One of Oyten, Germany, designs, constructs and produces a range of professional high power lighting, specializing in xenon, metal halide and LED products. TMB is the worldwide distributor for Falcon and other Alpha One products.

(Lee Baldock)

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South Africa - Stage Audio Works has been appointed as the Southern African distributor of Rubber Box products. Stage Audio Works is based in Port Elizabeth South Africa supplying turnkey entertainment and architainment technology solutions in Southern Africa.

Stage Audio Works will be stocking standard pre-built boxes and splitters, custom solutions are also possible. Stage Audio Works will also provide technical support, spare parts and training for Rubber Box products in Southern Africa. The new Powercase from Rubberbox offers industry professionals in Southern Africa a revolutionary design in 19" racking systems.

Stage Audio Works will be showing all the Rubber Box products at the Mediatech Africa tradeshow in Johannesburg in June this year.

Gustav Barnard for Stage Audio Works says: "Rubber Box's products offer revolutionary and high quality power distribution

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Sweden - Leisuretec Distribution has supplied Pulsar Chroma LED fittings for a unique interactive exhibition stand for Swedish automotive company Trelleborg.

Traditionally used in bar, club and hotel installations, Design Company KXK, used the fittings to build a high-tech interactive stand using Pulsar Chroma's & Pulsar control - a unique application opening up design opportunities to the exhibition industry.

The brief from Trelleborg, a World-wide industrial manufacturing company producing thousands of components for the automotive and aerospace industries, was to showcase their range of products in a way that people hadn't seen before.

The stand was revealed at Trelleborg's Investors AGM in Stockholm. The key was to be interactive, using LED and innovative technology to bring the stand to life in colour. Eight boxes each containing real products were constructed using tec

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UK - The University of Derby Students Union Graduation Ball 2007 was held on Saturday 20 January. The Snowball" as it is known is renowned for providing a quality evening for graduating students and partners a great venue with some fantastic entertainment. Last year's event was enjoyed by nearly 3000 students and their guests and included entertainment which in the past has included establishes acts such as Colin Murray, Jools Holland, Happy Mondays and Edith Bowman.

Panda Hire Ltd provided and installed the various Martin products that were used to light the event, and included MAC 500s, MAC 600s, MAC 250 Entours, MAC 250 Washes, MX-10s, Atomics Strobes and two Jem smoke machines.

Peter Davies from Panda Hire Ltd, was the lighting designer for the event, he says: "The MAC 500 and MAC 600 units were ideal for the stage lighting for this event and as such were

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UK - Recolight chief executive Eddie Taylor has today announced receipt of its Compliance Scheme Operator approval from the Environment Agency. "We are very pleased that the Environment Agency has approved the Recolight compliance scheme," says Taylor, "we can now focus on the implementation phase of our proposals, starting with the formal registration of our members."

Recolight is a not-for-profit company set up by the lamps industry to operate a scheme designed to meet the specific and in some respects, unique requirements of Gas Discharge Lamps under the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Regulations. The Scheme already has over 20 producers who have made firm commitments by pre-registering and this is now expected to grow quickly following the formal approval of the Scheme. The deadline for producers to register via a Scheme is 15 March 2007

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Germany - GLP (German Light Products) GmbH of Karlsbad, will be showing several products new products at Frankfurt's ProLight+Sound exhibition. The Creation lighting console from GLP is now shipping and will be presented on Stand D79, Hall 9.0.

The console is armed with a 533 MHz CPU and runs under an embedded Linux operating system developed by GLP. The new desk is capable of controlling up to 2,048 DMX channels, and these can be divided freely between moving and conventional lights with each function in 16-bit resolution.

For the programming and execution of a light show, ten fader units, a master fader, 64 multi-function keys, four encoder wheels and four LCD displays are among the control elements available. The keys are equipped with a blue LED backlight. All important data is displayed on the integrated 6" touch screen.

A powerful effect generator makes programmin

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UK - The latest Take That music video, Shine, is one of the first designs to feature the Chroma-Q Color Web125, a new higher resolution version of the multi-purpose LED web visual effects system.

The video is the second single from the band's number one, million selling album Beautiful World, and sees them performing in an 1920's style musical featuring top hats and tails, and a host of showgirls.

Production design was by Lisa Hall, with direction by Justin Dickel of Streetlight Films. When Hall wanted a unique visual element to provide a 'big look' for the song's uplifting finale, she contacted entertainment technology distributor A.C. Lighting. After reviewing a number of LED solutions at A.C.'s head office, the production team were convinced that the Chroma-Q Color Web 125 offered them the most powerful solution for their creative vision.

With only a single

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UK - Yorkshire's historic Scarborough Spa Complex has unveiled the first phase of its £3.75 million pound renovation programme, with a team from Fagan Electrical heading a massive technical refurbishment designed to place the venue firmly on the touring map. The project is headed by Fagan Electrical, lead contractors for the entire technical refurbishment programme, with the audio system design and installation carried out in close co-operation with Lo Humm Audio.

This major undertaking was funded by Scarborough Borough Council, the Yorkshire Forward regional development agency and the European Regional Development Fund. The 1,924 capacity Grand Hall, at the heart of the Spa Complex, has already reopened for business with brand new production lighting, audio and video systems.

Aside from the new, installed lighting rigs, most of the new production systems have been fligh

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UK - In late December at London's Royal Albert Hall the modern Son-et-Lumiere known as Classical Spectacular celebrated its 200th show beneath a large MAC rig. Lighting designer Durham Marenghi is again at the helm.

"We strive to give the audience a visual accompaniment to the music to which they listen," says Marenghi. "The lighting shifts from subtle beautification of the Royal Albert Hall architecture to dramatic impact driven by the mood of the piece. Classical music purists might decry the use of such technology but the music in the programme was often originally written for firework displays, large scale military events or grand royal and civic occasions, all of which had an important visual element. We seek to replace this with lighting to entertain our audience.

"The core principle of the show is absolute synchronicity and sympathy with the score -

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UK - In an effort to cut fixed costs, The English National Opera (ENO) has announced it is to cut 10% of its staff - around 45 jobs - which will include both performers and technical staff. BECTU, the union representing those working in broadcast, film, theatre, entertainment and leisure, has said it will "strongly" fight any cuts, and representatives will shortly be meeting with ENO management.

ENO says it fears reduced funding if government money to the Arts Council does not increase. ENO chief executive, Loretta Tomasi, was quoted on the BBC News website as saying: "Many options have been considered to achieve increased flexibility and a decrease in these 'fixed' costs and, whilst we believe it is vital that ENO retains a strong core of staff, the contractual overhaul includes the potential loss of around 45 jobs across the company."

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