Lighting

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UK - In early March, Stage Electrics was the first supplier of lighting, sound and rigging at the BT Convention Centre in Liverpool. Stage Electrics was contracted by Steve Burrell at LXFX on behalf of the Social Enterprise Coalition.

The BT Convention Centre is a purpose built meeting facility that consists of three auditoriums, 18 breakout rooms and a 3,725sq.m multi-purpose hall.

The centre hosted the Social Enterprise Coalition's VOICE08 Conference with Stage Electrics responsible for the provision of two 30m truss structures along with lighting and sound systems. The project was overseen by Stage Electrics' project manager David Wicks, account manager Chris Philpott, with sound by Rob McNeil and lighting by Tim Massey.

Production manager Steve Burrell from LXFX in East Sussex commented: "I was very pleased with the way Stage Electrics dealt with this project

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USA - Altman Lighting shares the news that Victoria Altman, the wife of Robert Altman, passed away on Sunday, 17 February 2008. Vickie was 53 years old and had been privately fighting ovarian cancer for several months with the support of her immediate family.

A company statement says: "Vickie always had a warm smile and an easy laugh to share with all of us when we would meet on occasions such as LDI or other industry events. Vickie saw the employees at Altman Lighting and its customers as family and friends. She enjoyed talking about the history of the industry and always had a story to share having spent many years working with Charlie and Alice Altman learning the business.

"Vickie met Bob when she was just 15 years old and he was only 16. Together for 38 years, they ran Altman Lighting and raised a family. Vickie was always generous of heart and was particularly

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USA - Acclaim Lighting has appointed Montreal-based Rite Lites as its Canadian distributor-partner. Under the agreement, Rite Lites has been granted exclusive distribution rights for Acclaim's line of interior and exterior LED lighting and control products throughout Canada.

"We are very excited to welcome Rite Lites to our team," commented Eric Loader, director of sales for Acclaim Lighting. "We feel this move will greatly expand our Canadian presence and open new markets for our products. Rite Lites shares our vision of the huge upside potential for LED lighting in a variety of industries and applications, and they have the expertise, creative thinking and dedication to carry this out."

Founded by lighting rental/production veteran Mark Etcovitch, Rite Lites is focused on providing energy efficient lighting solutions to the commercial/industrial, landscap

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UK - HSL supplied moving lights, LED elements and set for the launch of theatre producer Bill Kenwright's new boyband and their debut of the Dream On album made by seven finalists from the recent hit BBC TV series Any Dream Will Do. The show was staged at the London Palladium theatre.

HSL supplies many of Kenwright's theatre shows and tours, but what clinched this one for them as suppliers was that they came up with a unique set and lighting concept that could also be integrated with the existing lighting rig servicing the Palladium's current resident production, The Sound of Music

Project manager, HSL's Mike Oates reports, "The brief included creating a design for the show that resembled the TV series in some ways, but that also had a bit of rock 'n' roll attitude and individuality of its own. It also had to be got in and out and rigged in a day.&quo

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USA - Live sound and lighting production company On Cue Systems of Phoenix, AZ recently provided the sound reinforcement system for a Barack Obama presidential campaign rally at Phoenix Veterans Memorial Stadium in Arizona. The Stand For Change rally drew more than 13,000 supporters and included appearances by Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano and Caroline Kennedy.

On Cue Systems deployed a Vertec line array system consisting of a left/right arrangement of 12 VT4889 full-size line array elements per side, with 10 VT4880 full-size arrayable subwoofers per side. Additionally, On Cue Systems set up six VT4889 line array elements each for two out-fill side hangs.

According to Dan Myers, system technician for On Cue Systems, the event drew larger crowds than expected. "The campaign staff was only expecting five or six thousand people to show up, so it was amazing to see

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UK - Through dealer White Light, lighting manufacturer ETC has installed lighting at London's Arcola Theatre in Hackney. But the installation was the easy bit for the theatre. The difficult bit was keeping the show's peak power consumption below 4.5kW. And the reason why they had to do that was because the venue has recently had a hydrogen fuel cell installed, as part of its bid to become the world's first carbon neutral theatre.

ETC's technical director Adam Bennette, who happens to live just a couple of streets from the theatre, assisted with the installation, which includes nine 375W ETC Source Fours and a SmartFade ML control desk - which is also able to control the LED and fluorescent lighting on the show. "I have a pet hate of West End shows which are over lit and can even end up dazzling the audience," explains Bennette. "So it was nice to be able to work o

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UK - For the third consecutive year, Stage Electrics supplied staging and lighting for the Laurence Olivier Awards, presented annually by the Society of London Theatre.

Stage Electrics provided crew together with 36 Source 4 lanterns, four MAC 250 Entours, 12 MAC 300s, 10 MAC 500s, six MAC 700s and 14 MAC 600s for the awards held on Sunday 8 March. Lighting design was by Matt Evered, the awards were project managed by Stage Electrics' Andrew Loveday.

Production Manager Andrew Loveday said, "This is Stage Electrics' third night in a row in the Great Room. We provided equipment for Revolution Awards, Variety Club Awards and the Oliviers."

(Jim Evans)

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UK - PRG Europe has supplied lighting for the relit Tosca at London's Royal Albert Hall, which ran until Sunday 9 March. It was lit by Andy Bridge, who says, "Although this is a reproduction and relighting, it needed a lot of refining. A lot of the equipment we used nine years ago is no longer in normal use, so we had to go to PRG Europe's demo studio with the show file and lighting plots, and compare old with new - a mammoth task."

Bridge, who worked with assistant Mike Odam, is using Vari-Lite luminaires, as well as some 200 ETC Source Fours with Wybron colour scrollers, on the show. The moving light programming was by John Harris on a PRG Europe-supplied Wholehog II, while static lighting is by Dan Last on a Strand 520.

"Nine years ago," continues Andy, "we still preferred not to rely on moving lighting, but now we can be more confident about

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Germany - ADB Lighting Technologies will preview its new flagship in dimming technology, Euyrodim Twin Tech, at Pro Light + Sound this week. Eurodim Twin Tech allows Sine Wave dimmer modules to be freely mixed with cost-efficient Thyristor dimmer modules in a single cabinet.

Mixable in any proportion up to 128 x 3 kW or 96 x 5 kW channels, divided into 32 plug-in modules, each module has a 63A supply protection for optimum safety. ADB's R&D team made this possible through the development of an Assisted Ventilation system that provides high efficiency cooling and ensures continuous and reliable operation up to the nominal power of 600A per cabinet, says the company.

Eurodim Twin Tech also incorporates new remote operation facilities which provide both multi-user remote dimmer channel assignment via wi-fi PDA's, and remote dimmer diagnostics over IP.

Also on display will be a

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Germany - The A.C. Lighting stand at Prolight & Sound 2008 is featuring the recently launched Jands Vista I3 lighting console and a selection of other leading entertainment technologies distributed by the company.

Also on show is the new Chroma-Q Color Punch, a compact LED washlight with a 1350 lumens output. The fixture is also IP65 rated, features convection cooling for silent operation, a built-in power supply and standalone mode for ease of setup, and a choice of RGB, RGBI and HSI control modes, making it suitable for a wide range of indoor and temporary outdoor applications.

(Jim Evans)

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Germany - Philips Electronics will present its latest innovations in entertainment lighting technology at Prolight & Sound 2008 this week.

In addition to the successful Philips FastFit lamps, Philips has extended the FastFit product range with the Philips MSR Gold 300/2 FastFit and Philips MSR Gold 2000(/2) FastFit. The base and lamp holder design allow changing lamps in a matter of seconds. On top of that the FastFit system reduces the overall length of the lamp, which means lighter and more compact fixture designs are possible, says the company. The total FastFit range will be displayed at the Philips booth.

Recently, Philips acquired Lighting Technologies International (LTI), a US manufacturer of high-power Xenon lamps for the entertainment industry. The Philips Helios Xenon lamps will be shown.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - BDP Lighting won the special projects category and had a further entry short-listed in the workplace category in this year's Lighting Design Awards. The awards were presented at the London Hilton on 6 March. BDP's Guerilla Lighting events in London and Manchester won in the special projects category and Westminster Academy, London was short-listed in the workplace category.

The concept of Guerrilla Lighting was created by Martin Lupton, director of BDP's lighting group, to promote lighting design and create a platform to discuss key issues such as professional design, waste and sustainability. The power behind the exercise was the participation and collaboration, which was what particularly impressed the judges.

Under the guidance of a team leader, the teams created transient lighting designs by using high powered torches, battery powered LED projectors, luminous dot ligh

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Germany - LSI Online can exclusively reveal the launch at Frankfurt's ProLight&Sound exhibition today, of MA Lighting's brand new grandMA2 series lighting control system.

With the introduction of grandMA2 series, MA Lighting has made a significant development of its successful grandMA system. grandMA2 comes with completely newly designed hardware supporting the grandMA software as well as all current and proposed lighting control standards.

Listening closely to the market, MA Lighting has kept the intuitive grandMA control philosophy, including the same command line and syntax. However, the company has cleaned up, improved and extended the software, and optimized the colours and views. The advanced networking architecture is even more powerful and allows full upward compatibility from the "old" grandMAs, while a 'Series 1' mode also allows for full downward compatibi

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USA - City Theatrical says it has completed the first ever 16 universe test of wireless DMX documented under real world conditions. Using CTI's wireless technology, SHoW DMX (Synchronized Hopping of Wireless DMX), CTI created an outdoor testing facility in which the data fidelity of the wireless DMX could be monitored and measured.

CTI's president, Gary Fails commented, "Our testing has allowed us to confirm for the first time what the data fidelity levels are in a very saturated radio environment. In a range of tests at a distance of over 700'/213m at optimum power output settings, the maximum packet loss was in the low 20% range with many universes showing packet loss in the 10% range.

"Packet loss in the low 20% range has a minimal effect on performance of moving lights, although it may be occasionally noticeable. You may not ever operate 16 full universes of SHoW

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USA - Spectra, is one of two art pieces commissioned during the construction of the Lynnwood Convention Centre north of Seattle. It is a 35ft outdoor sculpture created by Seattle artist Doug Hansen. The tower is made of steel fitted with fused colour glass panels, reflecting light from PixelArc C LED fixtures uplighting from the base.

Director of operations Mohnie Mangat explains: "We looked at a lot of fixtures before choosing PixelArc. It was the perfect choice for our needs: simple, easy to use, low energy and very powerful."

When the existing fixtures specified by the construction architect were found to be insufficient and the intended water feature did not work - the Lynnwood PFD who own the building, asked the Center's management company SMG to look at ways to make the sculpture more dynamic.

SMG's Mohnie Mangat has a lighting design and theatrical backgroun

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UK - XL Video UK supplied MiTrix screens to Mark Ronson's LD Matt Arthur for the latest UK leg of the Brit Award winning star's tour. XL worked closely with lighting suppliers Lite Alternative, who supplied the Catalyst digital media server and suggested using media server tech Stevie Marr to look after both elements of the video.

Upstage were five 'fingers' of MiTrix, each 1.5m wide with a 4.5m drop, rigged with six 250Kg CM Prostar motors (two for the centre panel and one each for the others) suspended inside an upstage truss. These fingers were each constructed from 54 panels of MiTrix and spread out into a 1960's style fan, as Ronson was particularly keen on a retro look for the stage.

There were several risers spread across the stage, including a downstage section for people and dancers, accessed via two sets of stairs. All the riser fronts were bordered by MiTrix panels,

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UK - MA Lighting UK has announced the expansion of its UK sales team. Paul Young and Olivia Yan are the two new members joining the company to further develop the UK market.

As sales and general manager of MA Lighting UK, Paul Young has lengthy sales and technical experience. Leaving education, he joined James Thomas Engineering where and worked in various positions, in design, then sales to eventually become project manger. Having spent almost 10 years at JTE and wanting a new challenge he moved on to set up a successful business importing specialist lamps for UK distribution. Now he is looking forward to bringing to MA a wealth of experience, knowledge and the contacts he has built from his previous employment, plus the enthusiasm to enhance the current team in the UK, the company says.

Olivia Yan, who assists the MA UK team in sales and marketing, comes straight from univer

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Oman - The visual effects for the opening of the new Lexus showroom in Oman were created by Tim Riley, video designer from XL Video. The opening took place outside the new showrooms with grandstand seating for around 500 and the Lexus building as a backdrop.

Running the full length of the showroom are eight metre high windows which allow the passers-by, or in this case the audience, to look into the floor and view the array of new, cars. But around dusk, this all changed when a large section of the windows came to life. They were lined with 72 Martin LC2140 LED panels covering a total of 144 sq.m.As the LC panels moved through colourful stages of intensity, beginning with images gently floating on glass, the cars inside the showroom slowly disappeared and the focus became the staged area outside.

"I had been looking at several other LED products, but when I saw the LC2140

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Germany - Barco has announced the European launch of the DML-1200, the first moving digital luminaire which can be used as both a super bright, moving light source and a high quality video projector. It is being shown for the first time to the European market at ProLight+Sound in Frankfurt.

In lighting mode, the DML-1200 produces a circular light beam with a light output equivalent to that of a 1200W hard edged moving light - 12.000 field lumens and three times as bright as any other digital light on the market today, says the company.

In video mode, the DML-1200 delivers a light output of 10,000 ANSI lumens in a rectangular format. The DML-1200 also features a fully sealed DLP engine which delivers full colour DLP quality video with SXGA+ (1400 x 1050 pixel) resolution. An internal optical dimming mechanism provides smooth, accurate intensity control from 0 to 100% ensuring t

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South Africa - The first Avolites Tiger console in South Africa was delivered by distributors DWR to Pretoria-based lighting rental company, Stage Effects.

The Tiger's first gig in the country was Gospel Times, a show broadcast from the South African Broadcasting Association (SABC) Studios, Johannesburg. From there it went directly on to Tempo's, a Johannesburg venue where Stage Effects runs moving and generic lighting. "It's smaller than the Pearl but just as powerful," enthuses Stage Effects' Theo Papenfus. "On many of these shows where you are just adding moving lights to a studio generic rig, you don't need a large console."

The Tiger joined the two Pearls already owned by Stage Effects, which works across all industry sectors, but specialising in lighting for live concerts and broadcast applications.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - GE Global Research, the centralised research organisation of General Electric and GE Consumer & Industrial, reports the successful demonstration of the world's first roll-to-roll manufactured organic light-emitting diode (OLED) lighting devices. This demonstration is a key step toward making OLEDs and other high performance organic electronics products at dramatically lower costs than what is possible today, says the company.

"Researchers have long dreamed of making OLEDs using a newspaper-printing like roll-to-roll process," said Anil Duggal, manager of GE's Advanced Technology Programme in Organic Electronics. "Now we've shown that it is possible. Commercial applications in lighting require low manufacturing costs, and this demonstration is a major milestone on our way to developing low cost OLED lighting devices."

Duggal continued, "Beyond OLE

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UK - Wandsworth's Cancer Resource Centre offers a pioneering model for the future, according to world-renowned cancer doctor Professor Karol Sikora of Imperial College. His appointment as President of the Centre was announced at the Centre's 25th anniversary celebration on 27 February at Battersea Power Station, attended by stars and users and supporters of the centre - and accompanied by a rare lighting up of the chimneys of the power station.

Martin Professional contributed to the evening's celebration by creating an atmosphere in light over Battersea Power Station. Martin products used to illuminate this event were eight Exterior 600 washlights, which were placed on the flat roof of the power station to light the side face of two of the large chimneys.

Peter Western at Martin Professional commented, "We were approached to offer some lighting for this event and were hap

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The latest AMG venue, Carling Academy Sheffield, opens next month and is a welcome addition to the UK live music circuit. And the complete refurbishment of the venue has provided great opportunities for installers and manufacturers to showcase their products and services.

As one venue opens, another closes...Just a week after the news broke that the Marquee Club had closed, another long-standing London venue, The Astoria in Charing Cross Road, looks certain to close. London's mayor, Ken Livingston told The Times that it would be demolished to make way for the Cross Rail project which has finally been given the green light. An Internet-based petition to save The Astoria has attracted some big name signatures, but it's probably too late.

Looking on the bright side, though, the Cross Rail project should offer great opportunities for the installation sectors of our industry to get a slic

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UK - The Mission's recent farewell tour brought much of its own to the stage, but it also gave many nods to some of the highlights of the band's touring past. The rig was structurally reminiscent of some of the first tours they did, with a custom Pre Rigged Truss Arch from the 80s containing a backdrop with an album's cover art on it. The only problem was however, that the original canvas backdrop no longer existed. So instead lighting director Adam Stevenson from Entec turned to Martin's LC2140 for the solution.

"We really wanted to have the album artwork in the arch, and we thought about projecting it, but there were some limitations for projections, especially with the shape of the arch we used. So we thought; how about a screen instead?

"The LC screens were perfect and the audience and band loved it. For the last four nights we used the first four albums, so one

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  5. Bandit lunches with the Governor
  6. HSL supplies Roisin Murphy
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