Lighting

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UK - Southampton Guildhall has recently upgraded its lighting control system with the purchase of a Chamsys MQ100 console, playback wing, and Capture design/visualisation software.

The console went straight into use, servicing a wide range of events including student balls, graduation ceremonies, corporate dinner dances, concerts and comedy shows, controlling the in house Avolites Art 4000 dimmers, with a mixture of in house and sub hired equipment including Pars, ETC Source Fours, ACLs, blinders, strobes, hazers, Martin Professional and Robe automated spots, and Colorblock LED fixtures.

"The desk gives us full control of the existing house rig, with much greater flexibility than we've had before, along with the capacity to cope with pretty much every show we get thrown at us with its 12 universes, and on board features for LED fixtures," says a Guildhall spokesman.<

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USA - Wybron has announced several management team additions and promotions as part of its aim to actively expand customer support solutions. The management team already has launched Wybron's award-winning InfoTrace control and management system, which allows users to remotely manage, monitor and predict failures.

Led by CEO Larry Turner, the team also includes Miles Dudgeon, director of marketing; Ken Fasen, director of technical support; Brian Grover, VP of manufacturing; Chae Knotts, comptroller; and Lee Schlais, VP of engineering.

Miles Dudgeon started at Wybron in May 2006 as a regional sales manager, responsible for sales efforts to Broadway productions and customers across the north-eastern US. In January 2007, he was promoted to director of marketing, heading product management and marketing. Prior to joining Wybron, he was a product manager at Rosco Laboratories, wher

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USA - At Color Kinetics, Keith Gillum has been promoted to director of entertainment sales. Previously serving as the manager of sales for the Los Angeles region, Gillum will now drive national sales programs for entertainment dealer and rental companies, and continue to foster Color Kinetics' reach in key development areas such as television, video, theatrical design and theme operations. Gillum joined Color Kinetics in 2004 and has worked on many high-profile projects in his tenure, including the Hollywood Bowl, the set of Deal or No Deal, the LAX Pylons and Super Bowl XLI. His extensive industry background includes senior sales roles at Osram, Lee Colortran and Hollywood Rentals, among others.

Succeeding Gillum is Richard Lund, who joined the company in February. Lund has broad experience in the lighting industry, bringing over 20 years of expertise to the Color Kineti

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USA - American DJ has introduced two new compact high-performance scanners that "will goose up your gig, whether you are a DJ who uses DMX or not". The Dynasty Ray and Dynasty Scan DMX are both 150W fixtures that, the company says, rival much larger and more expensive 250W scanners in output because of their superior optics.

The Dynasty Scan offers DMX compatibility for fast and accurate user control on the fly. The Dynasty Ray is a sound-active plug-and-play unit that "grooves on its own to built-in programmes".

"We came out with two models of our new Dynasty series scanner - one for DMX users, and one for entertainers who prefer the ease of plug-and-play effects," said Scott Davies, general manager of the American DJ Group of Companies. "We wanted to make this new high-tech, optically superior scanner accessible to all types of users."

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Russia - The 2006 installation of over 150 Selecon luminaires on to the lighting rigs of the prestigious and historically significant Maly Theatre in Moscow made it a most apt venue choice for Sistema to host a recent Selecon seminar attended by over one hundred Russian lighting designers and theatre technicians.

The event was co-presented by Vladimir Lukasevich, resident lighting designer for the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg and Rainer Weggen, Selecon's market manager for Germany, Austria & Switzerland using a mix of presentational techniques and hands-on experiences with Selecon luminaires.

Alexey Kapustin from Selecon dealer, Sistema, was responsible for the organisation of the event and he was delighted with the interest shown by the attendees and the professional and capable manner in which the presentations were handled.

Rainer Weggen commented, "The respons

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Portugal - An Avolites Diamond 4 Elite was specified to control over 100 moving fixtures and a host of digital lighting and effects for the Portuguese 4th channel, TVI's 14th anniversary gala event. The special live broadcast was staged in the Black & Silver saloon at Estoril Casino just outside Lisbon, with full lighting and video production supplied by locally based rental company Backlight - run by the charismatic Luis Pedro.

Lighting designer was Mario Bastos and the moving and digital lights were programmed and operated by Mario Rui. The show featured performances by Portugal's top entertainers, musicians, singers and comedians. Rui and Bastos and executive producer Rita Carrelo all worked closely with the team from Backlight to realise the event's technical production in the very tight timeframe.

Avolites Diamond 4 Vision and Elites are the consoles of choice for Rui, wh

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South Africa - Lighting designer Tim Dunn used two grandMA full-size, one grandMA light, two NSPs and two grandMA mediaPC with grandMA video to illuminate the Miss South Africa spectacular in Sun City, while Kabelo, Unathi, The Bala Brothers, Hi 5 and Brandon October added some musical extravaganza to the event.

"After working on the Whole Hog platform for ten years, discovering the grandMA control system was a revelation for us," related Dunn, "The features of the desk not only make lighting programming faster and more productive but the cues are restructured and look totally different. Being able to personalise the desk to create a completely comfortable control system to work with is also a great feature"

Together with the NSPs one grandMA full-size controlled the conventionals and moving lights. The other one was used to operate the two mediaPC which de

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UK - Element Labs, the award-winning manufacturer of LED video technology, has opened a London office to better serve its growing customer base in the UK.

Located at Perseverance Works in London's Shoreditch design district, Element Labs' neighbours include architectural, design, and other creative firms. The new office is conveniently located to provide demonstration, project management, and technical support services to London and the broader UK market, as well as continental Europe.

"Expanding our presence in Europe beyond our Germany office is essential as our international business continues to grow," says Nils Thorjussen, president and CEO of Element Labs. "The opening of our London office demonstrates our ongoing commitment to our extremely important UK customers."

The new office includes an extensive demo facility loaded with the full-range of Ele

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USA - Branson, Missouri-based Theatreworks recently supplied 10 Robe ColorSpot 575AT moving lights for the Palm Springs Pavilion Theatre in Palm Springs, California.

"Robe was selected for its price and quality," stated Bob Finical, senior manager of Theatreworks, which has over 30 years' experience in production design, covering all areas of the professional entertainment industry.

The fixtures were supplied to Theatreworks by Robe America's West Coast office who, Finical explains "really excelled themselves in organising a demo at our shop in Branson, showing us first hand all the great features and functionality of the CS 575."

The Palm Springs Pavilion Theatre is a concept of Dick Taylor Productions, designed to provide live, family entertainment on a year-round basis. It is located in the heart of downtown Palm Springs on Tahquitz Canyon Way directly

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UK - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light was reunited with long-time collaborators The Admirable Crichton and Private Drama for Party Under Construction, a showcase for the best in the events industry that took place at Number One Piccadilly, London.

Overlooking Piccadilly Circus, with spectacular views down onto Eros, the Under Construction theme of the party came from the venue itself still being a building site! Nonetheless, it was transformed to host a spectacular party for over 600 guests, who enjoyed performances from the casts of Chicago and Tap Dogs and by Private Drama, food and party design by The Admirable Crichton, sound by Delta and event lighting courtesy of White Light.

White Light's lighting designer Jason Larcombe used a comprehensive range of equipment from White Light's diverse hire stock to create lighting that highlighte

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Russia - Arena Club In the town of Severomorsk near Murmansk in northern Russia recently emerged from the site of an old cinema, outfitted in the latest lighting technology from Martin Professional, and has quickly become the region's most popular entertainment venue.

Martin distributor A&T Trade was commissioned to create a club atmosphere for the multifunctional space, one that included dynamic as well as static lighting. "Use of the installation depends on the type of event," says Denis Bessonov, director of the company MasterMedia. "The fixtures support the work of the professional artists as well as creating different lighting effects on the dance floor. They are used to reflect the mood of the various musical styles."

Arena is housed in a two-story building with a ceiling height of 12m. The original plan called for lighting fixtures to be fixed on the

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UK - Adlib Lighting supplied equipment and crew to Mika's recent tour. Adlib designer Ian Tomlinson was brought onboard by tour manager Jamie Butterworth - the two have previously worked together on Mylo.

Adlib's head of lighting Pete Abraham says: "It's exciting to be working with such an amazing breakthrough artist as Mika. There's a massive buzz about him and he's a great live performer. Ian came up with a highly adaptable and dynamic rig that fitted a variety of venue sizes." These ranged from the Birmingham Barfly to Koko in London.

Tomlinson started with floor-based trussing to build a structural outline for the stage. To give it a quirky flavour - matching Mika's interesting performance style - he chose a semi circle of truss that rested on the floor at the back creating an arched effect, flanked by two quarter circles, which also appeared as arches.

Onstage

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Germany - Midas will be displaying a grand total of five XL8 live performance systems at Prolight + Sound 2007, Frankfurt. One of the systems can be found on the PADCO stand and another, a full flight cased touring system, on the Bosch Communications Systems, EVI Audio stand.

For those who want to hear a XL8 through a large PA system, two more will be performing front of house duties for all three stages at the Agora Tent, handling a range of live performances throughout the day and into the night, while the fifth XL8 will be installed in a private VIP room where Midas will host hands-on demos for the duration of the show.

XL8 is the first of a new generation of open-architecture, cross-platform, integrated audio control and distribution systems, which brings control of not only audio, but other aspects of live performance to a single, intuitive control centre. XL8 represents

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UK - HSL supplied a 12-way Kinesys automation system, 220 ChromaQ ColorBlock DB4s and 4 Robe DigitalSpot DT5000s to LD Rob Sinclair for the latest leg of Keane's Under The Iron Sea world tour, which featured a series of sold-out UK arena shows.

The lighting supply was a joint production between HSL and its Blackburn neighbours Lite Alternative. This combination worked well on the recent Human League tour which Sinclair also directed.

HSL's Mike Oates says: "It's great to be working with Rob again. He has a unique vision and creative direction, and is always coming up with new and innovative ideas and presenting us with new challenges."

Sinclair wanted his lighting design to be flexible enough to give the band plenty of space when they needed it, whilst also to being able to close the show right in at more intimate moments. He chose to do this using pantograp

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UK - Bandit Lites is once again supplying lighting equipment and crew to the X-Factor Live arena tour, which is playing a record number of shows over six weeks around the UK. This is Lighting Designer, Matt Jensen's first tour with X-Factor, which is production-managed by Sarah Hollis for Production North and project-managed by Bandit's Lester Cobrin.

Jensen's design is big and 'televisual' in keeping with the environment from which the show originated, and it is also what "the majority of the audience would expect," he explains.

The set was designed by Production North's, Iain Whitehead and includes a central staircase walkway and a series of hydraulic lifts from below the stage, which gives the show an epic feel. There are three upstage LED screens with the central screen splitting to form a stage entrance.

With ten artists on the bill, the other aesthetic

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UK - To celebrate the rebranding of the company and the launch of its new website, Northern Light is running a competition to find a name for the character illustrated in the logo. As part of the continuing brand strategy development - which started with a revamp of the logo in June 2006 - work began on completely redesigning and repopulating the corporate website last year.

The new look site has a much more contemporary look and feel and will evolve over the next few months to incorporate e-commerce capabilities such as an online shop and hire booking system, says the company.

Lois Ferguson, marketing manager at Northern Light, said: "As it stands, the relaunched website is very much in phase one of our redevelopment plans. We have updated the information on our services - aimed at our very diverse client base - and brought the overall look of the site into the 21st cent

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USA - Sarasota County Fairgrounds, a multipurpose venue with a seating capacity of 4,000, was the venue for a bout between local China Smith aka 'The Dragon' and an unknown, where Smith punished his opponent with a 'knock out' in the first round.

The 72kW PAR Can show was controlled using an LSC maXim XXLP, provided by Piston Sound. The owner of Piston Sound, Leon Pitts purchased the maXim more than 12 months ago, and has used the console on a number of productions including large and small concerts, fashion shows and now boxing matches throughout the Florida region. The maXim's powerful features and user-friendly design made controlling the lights simple and a blessing for the production crew, he says.

The maXim is available in six models, from 24 faders to 120 faders, and the optional PaTPad moving light controller further extends its capabilities by adding features like pal

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Europe - Lighting&Sound International magazine is making an unprecedented special offer to European industry professionals at the forthcoming ProLight&Sound exhibition in Frankfurt (28-31 March).

For the first time ever, L&SI is offering full-time professionals on the European mainland the chance to sign up for one year's FREE subscription to L&SI magazine - a subscription that would usually cost around 75 euros (£50). Visitors to the show can sign up for this great offer by visiting the PLASA/L&SI stand at the Hall 8.0 Walkway, stand J80. (Look for the VPLT, ESTA & PLASA signs).

(Lee Baldock)

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USA - Wicked, the hit musical about the witches of Oz, has returned to the Pantages Theatre in Los Angeles for an open run, with three grandMAs and one grandMA light controlling lighting and video projections. Wicked previously played in LA during the summer of 2005.

The four grandMAs are networked together for the musical. The main console is utilised by Warren Flynn, associate lighting designer and programmer for automated lights. A second grandMA is used by video programmer Hillary Knox to programme projections; another is dedicated to focusing and work calls. The grandMA light is a slave for conventional lights.

Flynn's grandMA controls six Martin 3k Atomic Strobes and 36 Vari*Lite 2k Spots, 26 2k Washes and 21 3k Spots. "We have three separate cue lists; the conventional cue list triggers moving lights and moving lights trigger projection," he says

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Germany - For the third year in succession Visual Productions from the Netherlands will be exhibiting at Prolight&Sound in Frankfurt. Visual Productions is the company behind the lighting control software VisualDMX. This software is aimed primarily at light jockeys, live events, clubs and bars for both live and pre-programmed control for Intelligent and conventional fixtures. "The hardware interfaces that we produce make the software applicable for both freelancers and installation projects to consider," says a company spokesman.

"VisualDMX will be controlling the lights on our stand, using the latest software release, demonstrating new features and highlighting the intuitiveness of VisualTouch, our touch screen interface."

Alongside demonstrations of the latest version of its current software, Visual Productions will be launching a software lighting contro

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UK - Seven years after its Frog series was originally introduced, Zero 88 has updated its popular console range with a much-anticipated new series - Leap Frog 48 and Leap Frog 96. Developed using feed back from operators of our current Frog consoles the new Leap Frog range maintains Zero 88's philosophy of providing "great value feature packed products", the company says.

Current Frog users will find a familiar ergonomic hardware platform but the hardware set has been expanded considerably: the new desks feature two DMX universes as standard, USB storage, external touch screen support, multiple onboard LCD displays, multifunctional keys and the desk supplied in a custom flightcase.

The key change however is in the software platform. Consistency of operation with the existing desks is maintained but the new software allows users to achieve more. Up to 200 fixtures can

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Qatar - MTFX played a major role in the Opening Ceremony of the 15th Asian Games at the Khalifa Stadium in Doha in December, following more than nine months of planning.

MTFX was approached in April 2006 and asked to develop a very large low fog effect to fill the entire stadium floor in order to represent the sea as a ship passed across the stadium. After the development of several prototypes, the effect was achieved and the whole system manufactured and tested just two weeks before the shipping date.

The company also provided CO2 jets and a series of Sequenced Flame effects. As these were being built on to the top of 10m high structures which represented the City of the Future, each flame effect had to be custom-built on to each unique piece. Despite the adverse weather conditions, with the worst storm the country has seen for 25 years, the long months of planning and develo

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USA - Red-haired zany comedian Carrot Top (Scott Thompson) is headlining at the Luxor in Las Vegas with the aid of Elation Professional Design Spot 250 moving head fixtures. Twelve of the automated 250W fixtures were recently installed at the Luxor venue, where Carrot Top is currently giving 280 performances a year, to provide "a new element to the show," said Dan O'Leary, production and tour manager for Carrot Top. "There were already 120 automated lights in the room, but we wanted something that would add a whole new dimension and give a completely different look," explained O'Leary.

"However, with so much lighting and trussing and a big video screen filling the stage area, space was at a premium. There are only a couple inches' clearance on either side of our video truss when you fly it up. We needed a fixture that would fit into our limited stage spa

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New Zealand - With the release of the third and final model in the 'standard setting' Selecon Performer series of followspots, the range is now complete. Attendees of the ProLight&Sound show in Frankfurt (28-31 March) will be amongst the first in the world to check out the long-throw Toru 4°-8° followspot during its official debut.

Toru (the Maori word for 'three') delivers the same lift in efficiency, performance and operator features that were first realised in the wider angle Rua (9°-16°) and Tahi (18°-24°) models which were launched last year.

Delivering 1000 lux at 90m - 4° and 1000 lux at 53m - 8°, Toru provides the output to cut through the brightest outdoor or large venue entertainment lighting rig, near the output of Xenon units yet costing much, much less and only requiring a domestic outlet to power the unit, says Selecon.

Four Perf

  1. Paradigma opens joint venture Bucharest HQ
  2. ADB Lighting relaunches website
  3. Bandit on the road with Bryan Ferry
  4. Micros make technicolor debut with Mika
  5. Banking with grandMA video in Turin
  6. City Theatrical's Stackers - tapered top hats
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