Lighting

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UK - The latest Maximo Park tour was the first in the UK to feature one of MA Lighting's new grandMA2 consoles - a grandMA2 light - which was specified and programmed by Glen Johnson to run the lighting rig which was designed by the band's LD, Stevie Marr. The console ran the new grandMA2 software - the first touring show to do so.

Johnson operated the show for the first part of the tour while Marr completed his work commitments with Die Toten Hosen, after which he took over running the Maximo tour. All lighting equipment including the grandMA2 light was supplied by Blackburn-based Lite Alternative, having just invested in two of the new grandMA2 consoles.

Johnson says, "As soon as I touched the grandMA2 I liked the feel of it. It's neat and compact and the faders are just fantastic. They far surpass any previous motorised faders and in fact, you don't even notice that th

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UK - Artistic Licence has introduced Art-Switch PoE4 - developed in response to customer feedback, it can be used to connect together up to four Art-Net nodes, such as Art-Lynx, providing both data and power for the unit and eliminating the need for external power supplies for each node, the company says.

As the number of Art-Net nodes being used in control systems increases, so too does the requirement to power each node. Art-Switch PoE4 uses a more efficient method than powering each node with an individual power supply, by feeding the voltage needed down the same cable as the data from the Ethernet Switch. This method is known as Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). Since Art-Net installations already require an Ethernet switch to carry data, why not include the power in the same unit?

Art-Switch PoE4 provides five 10/100BaseT Ethernet ports, four of which support Power-over-Ethernet

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Spain - FC Barcelona is the first football club in Spain to attain the coveted treble: National League Cup, Kings Cup and UEFA Champions League Cup.

Martin Professional was chosen to share in a special Three Cups celebration for FC Barcelona at Nou Camp Stadium in Barcelona before nearly 100,000 spectators.

Supplier Serveis de l'Espectacle Focus, S.A. provided a Martin package that included MAC 2000 series moving heads, Stagebar 54 LED battens, Jem ZR33 Hi-Mass fog machines and AF-1 fans, together with a large number of followspots, lasers and other special effects for the event. All Martin lighting gear was supplied through Martin's Spanish distributor Ecler. Lighting designer for the event was by Xavier Costas.

(Jim Evans)

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UK - MilTec (UK) again joined forces with the South West Group to supply PR Lighting automated fixtures and LED effects for this year's Park and BBC Introducing stages at Glastonbury.

SWG have been involved in the evolution of the Park Stage since its launch three years ago and as a result of their co-operation with MilTec (UK) have been able to keep up to date with the developing catalogue of products from the Chinese lighting manufacturers.

Said SWG operations manager, Mark Bott, "Last year the PR Lighting moving heads were really bright and functional, but the true test for a hire company is how those lights bear up in a live situation. These endured a raft of conditions and we didn't have a single fault, so we were more than happy with them and were pleased to be using them again."

This year the presentation was beefed up for acts which headlined Animal Collect

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UK - Blackburn- based HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to the recent Lemar UK theatre tour. It was HSL's first tour with producers Production North, on which project manager Mike Oates comments: "It was great pleasure to work with Steve Levitt, Iain Whitehead and their team and on the road with production manager Sarah Hollis. Production values on all their tours, whatever size, are always at the top of the agenda."

Lighting, set and production design was created by Dave Lee, working to an initial brief from Lemar's management who requested a dark and moody ambience for the performance.

Lee also wanted to ensure continuity in that it fitted in to all the venues on the itinerary, so he based the rig on three straight trusses and a serious amount of floor kit, which is "always good for more subtle visual effects like silhouetting and back lighting".

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Spain - SGM has announced the opening of a new sales office in Spain and the appointment of Rafael Gonzalez to the SGM team.

Rafael Gonzalez is a professional with specific experience in the lighting industry and has been appointed sales manager for Spain.

Thanks to this new set-up, the SGM sales organization will be able to strengthen its relationships with current clients, increase the presence of its products in the region and dynamically develop new corporate strategies, says the company.

(Jim Evans)

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USA - Elation Professional's new lightweight, transparent IP65-rated LED video panels have been designed for creating vibrant video screens, curtains and backdrops. The panels are available in three versions: medium-resolution SMD Tri-Color, EVLED 1024SMD (20mm pixel pitch); medium-resolution RGB Discrete LED, EVLED 1024 (18.75mm pixel pitch); and low-resolution RGB Discrete LED, EVLED 256 (37.5 mm pixel pitch).

Suitable for concerts, stages, touring productions and special events, the EVLED panels feature an integrated rigging/hanging system that allows users to easily assemble any size LED video screen, large or small. Up to 16 pieces can be linked on one AC circuit, and as many as 1,000 pieces can be run from one Ethernet video output using Elation's ELED VSC driver (sold separately), which can run two outputs to two screens simultaneously.

With brightness up to 5,500 nits,

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UK - The Greenwich + Docklands International Festival returned during the weekend with a spectacular water-themed programme for 2009. The four-day free event featured performances by UK and international artists using water-based interpretations to reflect the identity of Greenwich and East London.

On Saturday evening, the historic Royal Arsenal in Woolwich on the banks of the Thames was transformed by Dutch company Close Act as they performed their Pi-Leau. Pi-Leau was set in a fictional Woolwich submerged by water, following rising sea levels. Part fairytale and part apocalyptic vision, giant structures and stilt performers combined with pyrotechnics to create an experience in which Waterworld collided with The Little Mermaid.

Stage Electrics provided City Colours outdoor architectural floodlights, six towers of 12 PAR cans which lit the main performance area,

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USA - Element Labs' Stealth LED technology is playing a prominent role on the current Britney Spears tour.

The Stealth displays, supplied by Solotech, are used in two separate circular screens: one screen above centre stage and a smaller circular screen around the elevator. The main circular Stealth screen totals 1,300 panels with a height of 4m and a circumference of 58m. The rigging for the impressive screens was custom-made by Tait.

The Stealth screen is used to show custom-made content developed by Franco Dragone's team under the guidance of Dirk Decloedt. The screen shows animated and stylized images created specifically for each song, which add brightly colourful content enhancing the Circus experience that themes the tour.

Barbara Nelson of Element Labs says: "Stealth has proven itself to be an absolutely fantastic LED product for the concert touring industry. I

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Germany - The new Mamba 2.0 laser show software has been released. Mamba 2.0 has been "drastically changed in the internal code, but stays the same in the user interface, for full downwards compatibility". Many code segments have been rewritten and replaced by new and fast code. Many new powerful features have been added, including an entirely new look to the multiple user interface skins. The user has the ability to chose from more than 50 predefined skins, while the basic layout of Mamba stays the same.

The new DMX features allows the user to place unlimited events on the timeline. Each event controls up to 16 DMX channels at the same time, each timeline holds maximum of 512 channels, and can be routed to any MediaLas USB interface that is connected to the computer. This means 512 channels PER interface.

DRC will check your show for any inconsistancy, collisions of

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Belgium - The ADB Svoboda Batten, best known for its role in theatre, opera and live music productions, has had a major role in the production of a new psychological thriller from film director Anthony Waller.

Nine Miles Down, set for release next year, is set in an experimental deep-crust drilling station in a remote and sandstorm-blown region of the Sahara Desert, the movie opens with Thomas 'Jack' Jackman (Adrian Paul), a security patrolman, battling through the storm to discover why all contact with the station has been lost.

A disused champagne factory in Budapest provided a suitably atmospheric location for filming, but wasn't without its challenges, as director of photography Roger Simonsz explains: "We were going to shoot all the interiors in studios in Hungary, but there were a lot of other shoots going on there at the same time, so we settled for the fact

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UK - The prestigious V&A Museum in London has been chosen to host the launch of the first edition of the International Festival of Scenic Arts, an international event celebrating contemporary stage, set and costume design. The world's largest museum of design and decorative arts will play host to a series of talks and presentations by world-class design practitioners of stage design, costume design, video design and 3D animation, scenography and lighting design.

The world's largest museum of design and decorative arts plays host to a series of talks and presentations by world-class design practitioners the calibre of William Dudley, British stage designer, costume designer, video designer and 3D animator, who has most recently designed the sets and costumes for the Broadway musical The Woman in White, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. He is joined by lighting designer Rick

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UK - A grandMA full-size is controlling moving lights and LED elements for the London West End production of Sister Act. The show, produced by Stage Entertainment and Whoopi Goldberg, has just opened at the London Palladium.

Natasha Katz is the lighting designer. When she asked Stuart Porter to programme the show for her - the two have previously worked together on Beauty & The Beast - Porter wanted to use a grandMA system, a decision Katz was happy to support. Porter has increased his specification of the grandMA, and on this show he uses a grandMA full-size, a grandMA light for backup and four MA NSPs. A tablet PC running grandMA remote software is also used to run the lights from stage.

The rig contained over 100 moving lights - a mix of 62 Vari*Lite VL3500Qs, 60 VL2500s and 18 VL500s, all supplied by White Light. The many LED elements are ensconced in the set

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UK - A massive Anolis architectural LED lighting installation has been completed by A.C. Special Projects at London's iconic Somerset House venue. This was designed by Patrick Woodroffe, who was commissioned by Somerset House's director Gwyn Miles.

Woodroffe's brief was to transform the night time ambience of the Edmond J Safra Fountain Court - the hub of the neoclassical building - with a warm white illumination on the facades. Additionally, utilising RGBA fixtures, Woodroffe introduced the potential to bathe the buildings in a rich medley of colours, adding a theatrical dimension for corporate and themed events.

Somerset House hosts a wide variety of special events and a lively programme of public entertainment throughout the year - including live music concerts, ice skating, presentations, product launches and parties.

Once the contract for the supply and installation was

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UK - White Light marked its recent appointment as an approved supplier to London's Natural History Museum by creating a scheme for the venue, showing the possibilities of some of the latest visual technology, transforming a space in support of corporate events, awards ceremonies and corporate hospitality.

White Light's creative designer for this event Jason Larcombe explains: "The Natural History Museum's interior is very responsive to light, and the architecture gives it a great sense of presence. With this in mind guests will feel that they are an important part of a dramatic event."

For this event, the design made use of the new flat Fusion 672 panel in conjunction with other LED products from White Light's inventory. "While the theatrical look created by our visual products is, of course, a primary importance to an event, it is not the only consideration,&qu

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UK - PRG Europe has invested in eight of the new Novalight Nova-Flower 2K flower effects for its rental stock, which have been supplied to the Birmingham and London, UK based company by Lightfactor Sales, Novalight's exclusive UK distributor.

The deal was completed between PRG's Paul Weaver and Lightfactor's Peter Coles. It builds on PRG's previous purchases of Novalight High Grounds in 2006, for the Robbie Williams Close Encounters world tour, followed by their original 1.2K Nova-Flowers, supplied by Lightfactor in 2007.

The Nova-Flower 2K offers all the features and functionality of the 1.2K version with substantially more power and punch, says the company.

Nova-Flower is the first fully programmable moving yoke 'flower effect' with DMX controllable pan, tilt, colour and shutter, plus other standard features. It has CMY mixing, a rotating reflector (in both directio

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Michael Jackson - Concert promoter Randy Phillips says Michael Jackson's death will not spell the end of his company, AEG Live. "People have speculated that this is going to bankrupt our company," the businessman told Billboard magazine. "The truth is, it isn't." Phillips said insurance was in place to cover Jackson's advance, although insurers may not pay out if the star's death turns out to be drug-related. He added that money could be recouped from footage of the tour rehearsals.

AEG will have to refund up to $85m (£52m) to fans who purchased tickets for Jackson's 50-date residency at London's O2 arena. It is also believed to have spent $23-25m (£14-15m) on production costs. Phillips said those "hard costs" were covered by insurance, although profits were not. Phillips admitted the biggest problem facing AEG at the moment was w

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UK - Due to popular demand and the increasing quantities of impression and impression XL fixtures appearing in the British market, GLP recently held a service seminar at the Richard Martin Lighting facilities in London.

Since the original training day became fully booked almost as soon as it was announced, Michael Müller, GLP director of customer support, decided to extend the seminar to a second day.

Around 30 technicians from some of the UK's leading sales and rental companies attended the event. During some relaxed training sessions, conducted by Joachim Kraft, Head of the GLP workshop department, they received detailed knowledge about the impression range and also gained new perspectives on LED lighting technology in general.

"The information gained was very valuable and is now being shared with all our employees globally," said James Prince of Bandit Lites.

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Czech Republic - Morava is the latest new club to open in the university town of Zlin in the north of the Czech Republic, complete with a Robe moving light rig, specified by locally based PowerDance, who undertook the technical design and installation of all sound and lighting in the 300 capacity venue.

There has been a club on this centre of town site for about 20 years, but Morava is a new concept under independent ownership, with much attention paid to presentation detail and creating a trendy urban chic vibe.

PowerDance has used Robe products for at least 40 other club installations over the last few years says Šiška Zdenek, who worked closely with the club's lighting operator, Miroslav Werunsky on this project.

Morava is an intimate space and headroom is limited, so they wanted low profile unobtrusive fixtures, and decided on four Robe ClubSpot 160 CTs and four ClubRo

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UK - The musical Sister Act, based on the hit film of the same name has opened at the London Palladium. Produced by Whoopi Goldberg, who starred in the film, along with Stage Entertainments, the show features a new score Alan Menken, the man behind such hit shows as Little Shop of Horrors, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and many others.

Directed by Peter Schneider, one of the driving forces behind the revitalisation of animation at Disney and the creation of Disney Theatrical, the show is being designed by Klara Zieglerova with lighting by multiple Tony-award winner Natasha Katz.

The equipment to realise Katz's design has been supplied by White Light. The rig includes a wide selection of conventional, automated and LED lighting equipment, including over 400 ETC Source Fours, over 250 Wybron Coloram II scrollers, over 60 Vari-Lite VL3500Q S

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UK - Richard Martin Lighting has added Chroma-Q Color Block 2 and GLP Impression XL's in chrome to its hire stock.

The Chroma-Q Color Block 2 was introduced by AC technologies and has been used by several LD's on their shows, Lee Allen on Blue Peter, John Ford for Dave Davey on Paul O'Grady, Roger Williams on Know It All and Chris Kempton on Jonathan Ross.

RML took the decision to purchase the fixtures and hire them out as kits which consist of five individual blocks which can be joined to form a 1.2m strip if required. The product offers modularity and versatility with new single colour RGBA optics, 530 lumens output (almost double the original model) and theatrical grade dimming.

IN response to demand, RML has also purchased a number of GLP Chromed Impression XL's. Following the success of the exclusive six month deal RML had with GLP, purchasin

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Denmark - Martin Professional has strengthened its customer care department further by hiring Pernille Høgsberg and Andrea Heinz as new customer care coordinators, as well as Katrine Bøje as project manager & customer care coordinator.

Located at Martin's headquarter office in Aarhus, Denmark, the new coordinators' primary responsibility will be all manner of customer service, as well as to implement Martin's new e-commerce platform, Martin E-Shop.

Pernille Høgsberg comes to Martin from Nordisk Tekstil A/S where she was responsible for German market exports. She has also worked as an official translator. Andrea Heinz joins Martin directly from a similar customer service position at TC Electronic. Katrine Bøje joins the company from the Niels Brock business school in Copenhagen where she studied marketing management. She has also worked in retail and

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UK - Simon Phillips, GE Lighting's European commercial director has announced that GE is ready for the phase out of incandescent lamps under the European Union Energy-using-Products (EuP) Directive.

In accordance with the European Union Directive to improve the efficiency of some energy-using products, incandescent lamps will be phased out across Europe between 2009 and 2012, and replaced with more energy efficient alternatives. With the first stage in the implementation of the Directive on 1 September 2009, GE says it is confident it has the range and capacity to provide sufficient energy saving alternatives to meet demand.

Speaking about the phase out, Simon Phillips says: "GE's technology and product development have been driven by our GE Ecomagination business initiative, which was designed to help meet customers' demand for more energy-efficient products. Thro

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UK - grandPA has kicked off a busy summer with the arrival of its latest investment - an MA2 Lite. This new arrival to the fleet was whisked away on the same day it arrived by lighting company Siyan for a four week tour with the Killers starting at Hyde Park.

The company also reports that it has added a further grandMA series 1 full-size and a grandMA lite to the hire inventory for this busy summer period.

"Demand for MA consoles is at a peak this summer and we have tried to invest where possible even under this stormy financial period, we are proud to have consoles currently on tour with Madonna, The Killers and down on the ever-running Big Brother," says Tim Routledge co-founder of grandpa.

The company's agency wing, grandPA - Programming Associates, is also busy this summer with its programmers working on shows including the Take That Circus Live D

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