Stage Electrics has just become the largest stockist of Martin Professional lighting equipment for hire within the UK. The £17m turnover company, with branches in Bristol, Birmingham, Exeter and Plymouth, has just completed a purchase from Martin UK that swells its stock of MAC 600, 500, 300 and 250 moving heads to an impressive 500 units.

Stephen Lakin, chairman of newly formed Production Technology, has acquired Vari-Lite Production Services, Dubai. The acquistion of Vari-Lite's entire Dubai operation gives Lakin access to the largest array of automated lighting in the region. He confirmed that this was the first in a series of regional acquisitions and stated an intended policy of expansion into full service facilities.Industry veterans James Rock, Adrian Bell and Nick Chapman head up Lakin's new management team.

ETC dealer LT projects has been awarded the major dimming contract for the Millennium Dome. In what is believed to be the largest single installation of the system in Europe, LT projects is installing 3,000 channels of high density ETC Sensor dimmers.

Selecon has parted company with former distributors AJS and ELX and set up Selecon UK Ltd. The operation is headed by Graham Eales, Selecon's international sales and marketing manager, assisted by Andy Trevett as sales manager. The essential logistics support, customer help line and stock holdings will be managed by Zero 88 Lighting Ltd from their South Wales base.

Derek Gilbert, former managing director of Glantre Engineering, is to join Northern Light as overseas sales manager. He will become responsible for Northern Light's overseas development. Other former members of Glantre are also transferring to Northern Light, including Graham Fisher who will join the Estimating and Proposals section, Richard Passman, senior AV project engineer and Graham Lawton who will be located in Riyadh.

Bert de Haes has left Vari-Lite. In his place Vari-Lite has welcomed back Jimmy Barnett who is the new general manager for European operations for VLPS. Barnett, well known within the Vari-Lite community, will oversee the growing network of VLPS offices that he was instrumental in expanding during his earlier stint within the company (1984-1990). Working under Barnett will be the general managers of the regional VLPS offices: Ed Pagett (VLPS London), Jan Van Malder (VLPS Brussels/EML and VLPS Amsterdam), Jan Lambrecht (VLPS Paris) Adrian Bell (VLPS Dubai) and Sonia Sward (VLPS Stockholm and VLPS Madrid).

CAST Lighting, the creator of WYSIWYG, has created a new program for lighting console manufactures - the WYSIWYG Developers Program. The intention is to create a dialog between CAST and console manufacturers, and the goal is to develop a more useful electronic connection between WYSIWYG and other devices. The current list of developers includes ETC, Strand Lighting, Flying Pig Systems, Compulite, Rosco ET, and AVAB/Transtechnik.

Griven has launched the Kaleido MSD 575W into the ever-growing architectural lighting marketplace. The Kaleido features a mart CYM subtractiove colour mixing system to give even colour change, as well as anew patented wide-angled optical system. The product is distributed in the UK by Multiform.

A new company has been launched to enhance Denmark's position in the lighting and truss manufacturing market. SeeLite merges together the activities of three companies - Paradise Tour Production Aps, Pan & Tilt A/S and Gøgler Lys Udlejning A/S and has been set up by Søren Nørgaard, Jens Lind, Frank Paulsen, Viggo Ladekjær, Leif Hellberg, Lars Nissen and Martin Corneliussen.

Richard Castillo has joined the expanding Lightfactor Sales team as Southern Area sales executive. His assorted work experiences include grooving as a club light jockey for two years, working for a sales and rental company and two years as a freelance lighting designer.

Multiform Electronics has enlisted Ian Rose as UK and Export sales manager. Rose has a degree in European Business Studies and is a member of the Institute of Export; his role will be to build closer relations not only with Multiform's UK distributors, but also with the company's distibutors throughout Europe.

High End Systems Inc and Flying Pig Systems have released two new controllers in the Wholehog II family - the Hog 1000 and Hog 500 consoles. The Hog 500 and Hog 1000 include fewer control channels than the Wholehog II consoles, but feature the industry standard Wholehog II operating system, making them perfect for smaller professional applications.

At PLASA 99, the White Light Group launched Colourhouse Technical Presentations, its new specialist conference and exhibition lighting company. Formed to meet the increasingly demanding requirements of corporate and exhibition clients, the new operation is headed by Steve Bartlett, familiar to many in the conference trade from his time at TIS. He is joined by former TIS colleague Cliff Williams. Though Colourhouse was officially launched at PLASA, the team were busy prior to the show having already completed a corporate event for Blitz Vision at the Pyramids in Cairo.

Strand Lighting has expanded their SL series to include an architectural version. The new SL Architectural line includes fixed spotlight with beam angles to match their incandescent range of fixed and zoom spotlights. Utilising the new Phillips 150W CDM lamp, the Architectural version provides high light output, cool operation, sharp focus, and pattern projection. Since the introduction of the SL range in April 1999, Strand Lighting has already sold and shipped 15,000 units. The addition of the architectural version will increase the various applications of the SL range.

High End Systems formed a new architectural division using the Lightwave Research brand. As a result, the High End brand will be used with entertainment lighting products and the Lightwave Research brand will be used for products developed specifically for the architectural lighting market. The promotion of High End's Charlie Hulme to Architectural Sales Manager for Lightwave products is the company's first appointment to the new division. Hulme will oversee sales and distribution, as well as design support of Lightwave products through High End Systems' worldwide network of manufacturer's reps, dealers and distributors.

High End Systems has promoted several key sales representatives. HES Canadian sales representative Patrick Bouchard, who has been involved in the Canadian lighting market for many years, has been named High End's Regional Manager in Canada. In another strategic move, the company promoted Charlie Hulme to a new position as sales manager for Lightwave Research Architectural Products. Hulme will oversee sales and distribution, as well as design support of these products through High End's worldwide network.

The PRG Lighting Group has made three changes to its sales and marketing team. Bill Groener and Zoe Paine move to expanded roles at Production Arts, while Patrick Eagleton has new responsibilities with the PRG Lighting Group. Groener becomes vice president of system sales for Production Arts, whilst Paine has been appointed director of rentals and production sales for the company. Meanwhile, Eagleton has accepted the position of marketing support manager for the newly formed marketing group at the (PRG) Lighting Group. Most recently, he was product manager for the Robert Juliat product line.

The autumn season is proving busy for Stage Light Design, the exhibition and conference creative lighting design specialists. The company is providing equipment, crew and lighting design services for no less than four stands at the massive Geneva Telecom quadrennial at the PalExpo. All stands have creative lighting designed by a collaboration between John Rinaldi and Alastair Crooks. In Geneva, Stage Light Design lit two shows for Intel, one in Paris and the other in Milan. These were re-runs of their highly successful imaginative lighting for Intel stands at the Networks show in Birmingham earlier in the year.

Royal Festival Hall, London's famous South Bank complex, has recently added to its existing range of Jem products. The world famous live venue has just purchased a Jem Heavy Fog 2500 complete with a full range of ducting accessories. RFH has also purchased a special customised version of the Jem Club Smoke System modified for the theatre environment. The new Jem products are the latest purchases in are re-equipment programme that also included a comprehensive Martin Professional lighting package. On a separate note, Jem also announced the sale of two Roadie smoke machines to London's newest landmark the Millennium Dome.

Lighting director Victor Fable used a new Virtuoso lighting control console from Vari-Lite for September's MTV Video Music Awards, which took place in New York. Using a Virtuoso for just the second time, Fable worked closely with lighting designer Allen Branton and lighting directors Tom Beck and Michael Goodwin for the live broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera House. With a rig of moving lights including VL4, VL7, VL7B, VL5B, VL6 and VL6B luminaires, Fable found that the Virtuoso made his job easier. "It actually made doing a large show much easier than if I had used an Artisan console. I would have had to put the show on two separate Artisan desks and run them both, whereas Virtuoso handled 440 channels easily and managed it all quite well."He continued: "Virtuoso allowed me to load up many more chases and break up the show much more effectively and quickly. The ability

A trio of popular Welsh theatres have all completed new lighting installations, courtesy of Cardiff-based Theatre Vision, who specified a wide range of Strand products in each case. Theatr y Werin in Aberystwyth were happy to replace their old Strand kit with a new stateof the art system. Their entire complement of lanterns now comprises a combination of both fixed and zoom Strand SL luminaires and 34 Cantata Fresnels, alongside a new 530i desk loaded with Tracker, Networker and CommuniquePro and driven from 108 channels of Strand EC90 dimmer packs. Presently Theatre Vision are on site at Theatr Elli in Llanelli in a contract worth around £64,000, which is being supported by an Arts Council National Lottery grant. Again the company is providing an assortment of lanterns including 12 Alto Profile 14/32s, as well as a 520i control console and five LD90s. Further recent sales of Strand con

AC Lighting has appointed Lisa Young to join the busy export administration department at the company's headquarters in High Wycombe. Young is new to the lighting industry, but brings with her a wealth of experience from her previous work. She will work alongside Jo Young, assisting the export sales staff with the processing and despatch of orders.

Vari-Lite International is embarking on what it describes as "an inventory consolidation strategy". According to a recent statement issued by the company, the Dallas and Atlanta offices are to close and product and personnel from these is to be relocated to other offices within the VLPS regional network. The statement doesn't give any indication of timing, but it is anticipated that the offices will close shortly.

Armin Kloss has taken on the job of building up transtechnik's business in professional lighting equipment in Eastern Europe. He was head of the technical systems department at the Friedrichstadtpalast in Berlin for nine years and was also divisional manager of Studiotechnik GmbH and project sales manager for Strand Lighting GmbH. The move into Eastern Europe is the next stage in transtechnik's worldwide expansion of its sales organisation.

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