USA - Lighting Designer Carlos Colina turned to a Martin lighting rig that included BigLite 4.5 and SuperBig 7K fixtures for Univision Network's Nuestra Navidad presented by Target. Aired on December 8, 2006 on Univision, America's leading Spanish-language network, and produced by Emilio Estefan and Univision, the show featured an array of the most popular holiday classics and current chart toppers performed by an all-star line-up of Latin performers including Mexican superstar recording artists Pepe Aguilar and Joan Sebastian.

"The concept behind the lighting design was to help expand the set beyond its borders," comments Carlos Colina. "The audience and starfield was the only set, so I created a symmetrical look with two circular trusses with ten spokes coming out extending towards the starfield. I finished it off with 20" box trussing connecting between th

Sweden - Dalhalla, a natural amphitheatre by picturesque Lake Siljan, hosts an annual summer programme of opera, classical, jazz, and rock concerts. The open-air design makes it impractical to maintain permanent audio and lighting installations. As a result, Dalhalla requires an AV installation each May. That task is the responsibility of Park Brothers (Bröderna Park AB), a full-service production company with headquarters in Insjön. Managing director Bengt Park notes that the annual installation consists entirely of sound and lights. "We don't use much video," he says. "Because the environment is so bright, video is not often used." What is often used is the venue's system of Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeakers.

Diana Krall's FOH engineer, Dave Lawler, was impressed with what he found at the facility when the jazz pianist and vocalist played at Dalhalla

UK - Tryka L.E.D. will show its entire range of LED luminaires and drivers at the forthcoming ARC '07 exhibition (Business Design Centre, London, 12-13 February). The new Strip Module system will be shown for the first time at the architectural show. Featuring the powerful K2 Luxeon LEDs, the new system offers a variety of Strip Modules in a choice of lengths and optional optics. Thanks to the unique airtight clip system all models in the range are sealed to a guaranteed IP65 rating, making them suitable for all interior and exterior applications.

The extended family of Intelligent Drive Systems will also be on show, as well as being used to drive all luminaires on the stand, showing its wealth of built-in functions. Each IDS-4 and IDS-12 can run up to 144 LEDs, with the complementary IDS Wall Control DMX offering remote recall of all functions stored on the Drivers and dimming

UK - All are invited to High End Systems' Open House of new products on Wednesday 28 February and Thursday 1 March in London, UK. The company will be offering drinks and refreshments all day (11.00-18.00) with a complimentary lunch buffet available from 12.30-14.30 each day. The day will include demonstrations of the company's DL.2s and its new software features, Wholehog 3 and Hog iPC consoles, all three models of Studio Command (700W, 1200W and Halogen), and Catalyst and Axon Media Servers.

The location is at the Red Stage at Dukes Island Studios on Dukes Road, Western Avenue, London W3 0SL. Those interested in attending should RSVP to the e-mail address below, noting 'London' in the subject field.

Germany - This year the Berlin microphone manufacturer will once again offer an extensive program of workshops at its trade fair stand (C 30, Hall 4.1). There will be more than 30 short seminars covering a wide range of topics, including the practical application of studio and stage microphones, voice training and professional stage performance, the recording of electrical and acoustic guitar, and the selection of the right near-field monitor for a home recording studio.

The seminars are 30 to 45 minutes long, and are free of charge. It is advisable to arrive early, since there will be a limited number of headphones available for participants.

The moderators include guitarist Markus Wienstroer, members of the 'Flying Pickets' a cappella group, vocal trainer Billi Myer, and Andrew Goldberg, a product specialist of the speaker manufacturer Klein + Hummel. The complete seminar pr

India - India's leading lighting designer Atul Sonpal wowed the crowds at the 2007 Hero Honda Star Screen Awards using Clay Paky Alpha Spot and Wash fixtures.

Sonpal's company, Mumbai-based Jagmag Electric, also lighting contractors for the event, is the newly appointed Clay Paky dealer for western India. Clay Paky shipped extra units out to Jagmag in time for the event.

The Star Screen Awards is the highest profile Indian film awards ceremony of the season, and this year was staged at the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai. Now in its 14 year. Winners are selected by a panel of industry professionals and the winning criteria is professional excellence.

Sonpal's clients were the Indian Express newspaper and Cineyug Entertainment, and the show was attended by a host of celebrities, dignitaries and VIPs including Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh. The show was also recorded

UK - The huge educational technology show BETT, the world's leading educational information & communications technologies (ICT) event, attracted 600 educational suppliers and over 28,000 visitors to Olympia for four days of innovation and inspiration.

Organised by EMAP, this year's event saw a significant trend towards live demonstrations and presentations on stands, according to Lauren Steadman, manager of PSL Exhibitions, the approved supplier of all audio-visual services for the event. "In the field of business-to-business (B2B) exhibitions, this is one of the busiest shows on our calendar. However, this year, we saw a significant rise in the number of sound systems and plasma screens we were providing for live events on the stands."

In addition to providing full AV facilities for more than 50 exhibitors, including Adobe, LEGO and Tomi, PSL serviced the four prese

Germany - At the forthcoming ProLight&Sound exhibition (Frankfurt, 28-31 March), Axxent will introduce its new constant voltage audio amplifier with 2 x 500W of continuous power in a constant voltage line of 100V.

All features of the AX-2500T are targeted at professional audio installations, say the company: front gain controls are detachable and can be protected against misuse, while all other controls and in and output connectors are situated on the back panel for maximum protection.

Input connectors are XLR-type and each input is slaved through an XLR male connector. The power connector is an IEC type and is detachable also. The 100V output connectors are touch-proof binding posts. DIP switches provide limiting function per channel, 40/80Hz subsonic filters, stereo or parallel operation mode. Safe operating temperature is provided by a controlled low-noise fan. Axxent is al

UK - London's first festival of light, 'Switched On London', will be switched on at the Pool of London tomorrow night at 6pm and will continue until 16 February in conjunction with The ARC Show (Business Design Centre, London, 12-13 February).

Members of the lighting design and architecture community from all over the world are being invited to attend the festival to examine the relationship between light, architecture and the city consisting of temporary lighting installations and a series of light related events with an overall concept theme of 'theatre'.

The Pool of London is a natural amphitheatre within the city, encompassing the River Thames, bordered by Tower Bridge and London Bridge and including many famous landmarks. A number of iconic landmarks in the area including The Tower of London, Tower Bridge, HMS Belfast and City Hall will be temporarily and spectacularly li

UK - March once again brings the RSAMD (Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama) Graduate Exhibition and Trade Show (21-22 March, 10.00am - 5.00pm). For two days, final year students of the Technical and Production Arts Course will be exhibiting a broad range of work from their three years of study in the Chandler Studio Theatre.

At the same time, the Academy's main theatre, the New Athenaeum, will become an exhibition space for the Technical and Production Arts Programme's sponsors and suppliers, enabling them to demonstrate and discuss their most recent equipment and products with prospective clients and visitors to the Academy. Companies such as Black Light, Stage Technologies, ETC, MA Lighting, Green Hippo, Selecon, Martin Professional and White Light will be taking part.Alongside this, a range of seminars will also be taking place over the two days, lead by Bernie Davies

UK - The 2007 edition of the Total Production International Awards was staged at the Novotel London West in Hammersmith, west London on Monday 5 February. Hosted by Suggs, the frontman of Madness, the TPi Awards drew a record-breaking audience of almost 1,200 people from across the live music production industry, and included special guest presentations by Sir George Martin, Queen guitar legend Brian May, Feargal Sharkey, Jeff Wayne of The War Of The Worlds fame and The Smiths' Andy Rourke.

During the 'Swinging Sixties'-themed ceremony, TPi Awards creative director Mark Cunningham announced that the event is set to grow even bigger in 2008, to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Total Production International magazine. Details will be officially announced by Mondiale Publishing later this year.

This year's winners were:

Production Manager of the Year (sponsored by R

UK - Entertainment lighting supplier White Light will be at ARC 07, the architectural, retail and commercial lighting show, which takes place at the Business Design Centre in Islington, North London from February 12-13. White Light will be on the Enliten Architectural Lighting stand, M35, demonstrating a range of products for which they are the exclusive UK distributors.

Those looking to control lighting remotely without the need cables will be interested in the W-DMX wireless DMX system from Wireless Solutions in Sweden, currently in use on the Light Elements project in Maidstone.

Designers looking for cost-effective playback of pre-programmed lighting will be interested in the showSTORE and miniSTORE DMX playback systems from ELC which record and playback DMX data from shows created on full-featured lighting controllers and then play it back triggered by conditions such as c

France - This year marks the 25th anniversary of the SIEL exhibition and d&baudiotechnik will be exhibiting with their expanded Remote network includingthe latest ROPE C Version 2.0.7 software.

This exhibition for the live entertainment and events industry will be staged at thethe Paris Expo, Porte de Versailles and will be held from 11-14 February. Also on show will be d&b's J-Series line array system, which was launched at last year's SIEL. The recently introduced M4 stage monitor will also be exhibited as well as d&b's Q-Series loudspeaker range.

All these products will be presented by d&b's French office along with theirregional partners, who will be available to provide any technicalinformation or answer any questions on stand number K005.

(Chris Henry)

France - ETC, through its French partner ATF - Avab Transtechnik France - will onceagain be showing off its newest and latest products at SIEL, including Congoand its little brother Congo jr, which has been a runaway success in Franceand across Europe.

The Congo console was designed " to be the most complete platform forcontrol of any device - whether that happens to be conventional dimming,automated luminaires or media servers - without losing the feel of a classiclighting control system," says Avab software developer Anders Ekvall. Otherteam members included Avab Transtechnik France's Jean-Louis Pernette andChristian Rezgui, who were instrumental in directing product development.

Just a year later, ETC introduced the Congo jr, with the same functionalityof Congo but with a smaller footprint and smaller price tag - aimed at venues like rehearsal halls or black-box t

New Zealand - Selecon and Philips hosted a seminar in Taiwan that highlighted the supply chain from lamp manufacturer to end user. "We had a challenging situation" says Phil Sargent, regional market manager for Selecon, "you can do a nice presentation together with product demonstrations but it really doesn't do justice to the whole background story behind the optical system development and thousands of hours of R&D time."

Normally the partnership between the luminaire and lamp manufacturer's R&D teams is glossed over and presenters move on to more product specific areas, and this leaves the story of the collaboration untold.

"Philips and Selecon have the same dealer in Taiwan, and when Mr. Anthony Wu, managing director of Ming Li approached us with his idea of a joint seminar, we were delighted to be involved" says Sargent. "After discussin

World - Lighting designer Bryan Leitch has specified Avolites to control lighting for Justin Timberlake's extensive Future Sex/Love 2007 world tour which kicked off in San Diego in January and hits the UK and Europe in April and May.

As soon as Leitch won the design contract, his company Siyan immediately purchased two additional Diamond 4s from Avo. Siyan's three existing D4 consoles were already committed and spec'd onto other tours running during the same period.

Leitch co-designed and developed the Future Sex/Love show with programmer Nick Whitehouse. The two had worked together on Coldplay's 2003/04 Rush of Blood To The Head tour which also utilised a D4.

Fixture-wise, the D4 is controlling over 120 Vari*Lites - a mix of VL4s and VL3000 spots and washes plus 12 VL1000s; 120 ColorKinetics ColorBlasts; 20 Syncrolites - eight 1Ks and twelve 3ks; 40 Ato

Europe - i-Pix' new Satellite LED fixtures are being used to illuminate the elaborate stage set for R 'n' B diva Rhianna's current A Girl Like Me tour. dates includes a high-profile opening slot for the Pussycat Dolls' ongoing UK and European arena tour.

Rhianna's stage set - along with her lighting - was designed by Alex Skowron and was built by Lite Structures, On the road, the lighting is being looked after and operated by Dallas-based Bruce Dare who also works with the Black Eyed Peas.

Rhianna is touring her full set for the PCD tour. She plays for 45 minutes, and her show also features a complete lighting rig of 'specials'. These are supplied by Neg Earth and include the 18 Satellite fixtures and a WholeHog II console. Additionally, they're 'borrowing' some moving lights from the main Pussycat Dolls' rig which is supplied by Bandit Lites UK.

The Satellites are po

USA - The ESTA Foundation's Behind The Scenes has announced The Challenge Grant Programme, an opportunity for donors to see contributions double in value while providing help to peers in their time of need. Established challenge grant slots are currently available for the Behind the Scenes / Long Reach Long Riders 2007 USITT Raffle, March 15 - 17 in Phoenix, Arizona (six openings) and The Long Reach Long Riders 2007 New England Charity Ride, July 29 - August 6 (two openings).

"Our industry's history is full of strong partnerships that have led to technological advances, artistic reaches, and goals we continually strive to achieve," says Behind the Scenes committee chair Rick Rudolph of the new initiative. "Many of these partnerships have also led to lasting friendships that are at the foundation of our industry. We hope that the relationships and partners we work

UK - PLASA Events Ltd, the new wholly-owned events division of the Professional Lighting and Sound Association (PLASA), has revealed the first details of the PLASA07 Show at Earls Court - including a new layout that extends the show over one floor into both Earls Court 1 and Earls Court 2.

A host of innovations, based on exhibitor and visitor research, are designed to build on the show's reputation as the premier international new product showcase and PLASA Events anticipates a record number of new product launches this September.

The most radical development is the new show floor layout, which sees PLASA07 transformed into a two-hall, single-level show by expanding into the adjacent Earls Court 2. Essentially, this re-draw will secure premium exhibition space for the future growth and expansion of the show, whilst addressing industry and exhibitor demands.

The show design t

UK / The Netherlands - The Ampco Flashlight Group won the Total Production International Award for 'Favourite International Production Company' in the recent TPi Awards 2007 ceremony at the Novotel hotel, London.

The award, which was voted for by readers of Total Production International (TPi) magazine, reflects the group's strength on the international concert production scene and its reputation for combining top quality service and equipment with constant innovation.

Ampco / Flashlight Group rental companies, both independently and jointly, have provided a wide variety of audio, lighting, rigging and motion control systems for major tours in the past 12 months including Madonna, Black Eyed Peas, Blue Man Group, Coldplay, Lenny Kravitz, Paul McCartney, Rammstein, Mariah Carey, Riverdance and Lionel Richie, and hundreds of festivals including North Sea Jazz, Lowlands and WOMAD

UK - XL Video has won its fourth Total Production International Award (TPi) for 'Favourite Video Services Company' of the Year. The 2007 TPi Awards - which recognise the industry's most innovative and ambitious technical, creative and production achievements - were presented at a ceremony in west London on 5 February.

The award was collected by members of the XL Video UK team. XL Video also won this coveted award in 2002, 2003 and 2005. XL UK's Chris Mounsor says: "Winning the 2007 Award means a huge amount to us, particularly as its voted on by our peers, giving it even more credibility and significance.

"The imaginative use of LED technologies has definitely stepped up a notch during 2006," says Mounsor, adding, "I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank all our crews and those out there representing us on the 'frontline', on tours, events and festiv

USA - The Long Reach Long Riders and The ESTA Foundation have announced their annual raffle to benefit Behind the Scenes at the USITT conference. This popular event will be held on 17 March at the Sapsis Rigging/ESG/Behind the Scenes booth (#525-625) on the trade show floor of the USITT conference in Phoenix. Tickets, which are $5 each or five for $20, may be purchased at the booth throughout the show.

Every dollar raised will be tripled thanks to challenge grants sponsored by I. Weiss and Sapsis Rigging. The list of twelve terrific raffle prizes, which have been donated by industry companies, can be viewed at www.lrlr.org/LRLRsponsors.html or www.estafoundation.org/bts/events_USITT.htm

All proceeds of the raffle go directly to The ESTA Foundation's Behind the Scenes programme, which provides entertainment technology industry members with grants for emergency situations, such

France - DMX pioneers dAFTdATA have designed a new range of DMX distribution products that are launched at the SIEL trade show in Paris this week.

dAFTdATA's patented mDMX system works by modulating the DMX data over the mains power cable - removing the need for data cabling - providing a competitively priced multi purpose solution. The system, which won a PLASA 2006 Award for Innovation, can now be configured to work either as a DMX to Ethernet convertor, or a DMX to mDMX convertor.

Each unit works as a transceiver, and so can be either an encoder from DMX to Ethernet/mDMX or a decoder from Ethernet/mDMX back to DMX. In Ethernet mode the system works with either ARTNET or WENDI protocols. In mDMX mode, a network of multiple nodes up to 400m away can be set up extremely simply. mDMX is now available in a green annodised aluminium housing and has an RRP of £400 or

UAE - The announcement of the fourth all-star annual Dubai Desert Rock Festival at the 30,000-capacity Dubai Country Club in March, is having a profound effect on interest for May's Event 360 expo, an integral part of PALME Middle East.

According to Jonathan Gadalla, project manager for the vertically-integrated show, interest in live music is running at an all-time high in the desert, with international legends such as Iron Maiden, The Prodigy and Incubus heading a Festival line-up that will appear on one of the largest stages in the region. Also included are Junkyard Groove, the winners of SHAMAL (a competition for unsigned rock bands in the region).

Gadalla believes that the world is starting to take notice now that the Middle East is not only attracting leading names in the world of rock, but will also stage a second F1 Grand Prix (in Abu Dhabi) in 2009 - which will

Latest Issue. . .

Save
Cookies user preferences
We use cookies to ensure you to get the best experience on our website. If you decline the use of cookies, this website may not function as expected.
Accept all
Decline all
Analytics
Tools used to analyze the data to measure the effectiveness of a website and to understand how it works.
Google Analytics
Accept
Decline
Advertisement
If you accept, the ads on the page will be adapted to your preferences.
Google Ad
Accept
Decline