Midnight Design has recently opened a new design and sales office next to Euston Station in London. The office, now home to 15 members of the Midnight team, the permanent lighting design and Logistics crew, plus the entire sales and senior management contingent, features a substantial presentation suite and state-of-the-art CAD facilities. It will also meet the needs of Midnight's ever-increasing number of projects, both in the UK and internationally. "Every office desk is permanently linked via high-speed Intranet to our warehouse in Croydon," explains business development manager Damian Dowling. "From there we can access the wider resources and international equipment inventory of our parent company PRG."

Strand Lighting and Futurist are holding an exclusive VIP product showcase on Tuesday 13 June at the Bradford Alhambra Studio Theatre, intended to bring stage, studio and architectural lighting personnel up to date with the latest Strand products. The main feature of the show will be the new Strand 300 series of consoles. Invitations can be obtained by contacting Futurist on +44 1924 468183 or sales@futurist.co.uk

South Korea's LG Corporation recently built a state-of-the-art performing arts centre to enhance its corporate headquarters in Seoul, based around ETC lighting, dimming and control equipment. The Centre is run by the non-profit arm of the $73b LG Business Group, which makes and sells almost everything, from electronics to fashions and financial services. Inside the high rise glass walls of the Centre is a 1,100-seat auditorium, a large rehearsal space and three exhibition halls, as well as dressing rooms and office space. LG Arts installed an Obsession II 1500 Double Processor console, 10 Sensor dimmer racks with a total of 831 dimmers, a custom Unison architectural lighting system and over 400 Source Four and Source Four Zoom spotlights.

Martin Professional's Exterior 600 luminaires are being used to provide colourful illumination on one of England's finest windmills - the Cranbrook Union Windmill in Kent. Built in 1814, the windmill is now owned by Kent County Council. Following the award of a National Lottery grant for refurbishment of the windmill, the Council chose the Exterior 600s after a successful trial in April.

Imagination provided a remarkable lighting display to launch Tate Modern. From dusk on the evening of May 11th, state of the art lamp and laser technology began to pick out architectural features on the north facade. A gradual building of light and lasers culminated in a light show at 10.30pm. Full report June L&SI.

Lee Frankcom has joined the Coe-Tech sales team. Frankcom, one of the rock and roll industry's most colourful characters, originally launched his lighting career at the immortal Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. Since then he's made his way made through a plethora of top lighting rental and production companies before becoming concert touring guru at Vari-Lite Europe/VLPS. Recent Coe-Tech projects have included the supply of Coemar lighting fixtures, via Lumenation to NMEC Lighting for the Millennium Dome and to top UK rental house Neg Earth Lights for the acclaimed Ben Harper European Tour. Soon to be available in the UK are the much talked about Coemar CF7 HE and WZ spot and wash zoom lighting fixtures.

Australian company LSC Lighting Systems has just announced the release of the iPRO dimmer , following on from the launches of their ePAK, ePRO, and e24 dimmers in recent months. The iPRO features 12 amps per channel, 100% duty cycle rated operation, hard-firing of the dimmer channel and temperature-dependent fan speed. With the same core structure as the ePRO, the iPRO incorporates a unique mounting system which allows the iPRO to be bolted to a solid wall or a 19" rack frame or resting on flat surfaces such as benches, floors or table tops. Utilising the same user interface as other LSC dimmers, the iPRO dimmer provides quick set up of the DMX512 address, individual drive control over any channel, scene storage and a choice of a six fade curves per dimmer channel. Five models are available offering a choice between 12 channels of 12 Amps, 6 channels of 25 Amps and a choice of outpu

ETC Europe held a series of technical training seminars for ETC dealers in early May, covering Unison and Sensor dimmers, and Light Manager and Unison Control products. This was the second in a series of ETC Focus 2000 certification courses allowig dealers to update product and installation knowledge, enabling them to work alongside ETC as the company's services and product range continue to grow. 22 dealers from the UK, denmark, South Africa, Turkey, Iceland, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Ireland attended the three-day course at Heathrow, which was coordinated by ETC's Liz Cecil.

Chris West has joined Avolites as training manager. The position was created to capitalise on the potential of product training and support, both on-site and at Avolites HQ - in the last two years alone, Avolites has trained over 2,500 people. West will be co-ordinating all training schedules as well as overseeing the demo room in Park Royal, West London. He has just completed a BA Honours degree in Theatre Studies (Stage Management option) at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.

London's Royal Albert Hall is undergoing its first comprehensive building development since it opened in 1871. Scheduled to complete in 2003, the £66.3m programme originally began in 1995. AC Lighting's Special Projects division has completed the upgrade of part of the lighting cabling and control system at the venue. The RAH's deputy technical show manager, Mark Jones, designed and specified the system. AC has upgraded the circle rail with new power and control wiring for the front of house circuits. All existing trunking panels were replaced with customised 2m front panel sections, each containing 12 16Amp sockets for six dimming channels, along with two independent power circuits for moving lights and colour scrollers. 12 DMX connectors, covering two DMX 512 universes, were also installed around the circle rail for additional DMX fixtures. On stage, AC installed three six-way stage b

OmniSistem Lights & Effects has been appointed the exclusive worldwide distributor of LPD laser products. The agreement adds to the company's already extensive line up of products which includes Programmi & Sistem Luce lighting & effects products, COEF intelligent lighting and moving yokes, Amabilia DJ cases and fibre optics. LPD, a pioneer in the development of laser projectors, is the name behind the Q beam laser and for the past five years it has also built components and systems for many laser show companies. Jim Hardaway, formerly national sales manager at LPD, has been recruited by OmniSistem to head its laser division.

Vari-Lite Inc has relocated its Las Vegas office recently after the operation outgrew its former 5,600sq.ft facility on McLeod Drive. The new Las Vegas office, on E Maule Avenue, has tripled the location's warehouse space.

Jimmy 'JR' Chai has been promoted to regional sales manager for High End Systems Singapore. JR will continue to be based out of the Singapore office and be in charge of all sales and marketing activities throughout Asia. He was formerly account manager at High End Systems Singapore for selected Asian regions. In related news, Adrian Oh is leaving his role as general manager of High End Systems Singapore to seek other employment opportunities outside of the lighting industry.

Mike Lowe, managing director of ETC Europe, has announced strategic changes in the management team. After nearly three years of commuting between his home in Copenhagen and ETC's European headquarters in North Acton, Tim Stokholm is returning to live permanently in Denmark. He will assume the role of manager, Northern Region, with responsibility for territories north of and including Belgium, Germany, Austria and Slovenia, while Fulvio Cotogni continues as manager, Southern Region, including South Africa and Middle East. Erik Larsen, previously sales manager for Northern Europe, becomes product manager for ETC Europe, a new role designed to provide two-way communication between ETC Europe and its customers for both existing and future products. Finally, Peter Ed now formally assumes responsibility for marketing as marketing director, ETC Europe.

The International Association of Lighting Designers (IALD) has awarded seven lighting projects with Lighting Design Awards of Merit. These went to The Albert Memorial in London designed by Graham Phoenix and Michael Sampson of London-based Lighting Design Partnership; New York's Radio City Music Hall Restoration designed by Paul Marantz and Scott Hershman of New York-based Fisher Marantz Stone Inc; New York Public Library's Rose Main Reading Room, designed by Barry Citrin and Richard Renfro while based at Fisher Marantz Renfro Stone Inc. Samsung's Rodin Museum in Seoul, South Korea, by Thomas Thompson, Christine Sciulli, Jonathan Plumpton and Russ Burns of New York-based Thompson & Sears Inc; Northeastern University Multi-Faith Spiritual Centre in Boston, designed by Paul Zaferiou and Glenn Heinmiller of US-based Lam Partners Inc; Zollverein Kokerei in Essen, Germany, designed by the Lig

WWG's Peter Wynne Willson is providing some stunning liquid lighting effects for the second leg of Roger Waters' 'In the Flesh' US tour, which opens at the Ice Palace in Tampa, Florida. Wynne Willson's relationship with Waters goes back to the early days of Pink Floyd, and has now gone full circle between the 250 Watt QI projected effects of the Floyd Shows of the Sixties, with the 6kW HMI TeleProjector, from French company Chameleon that will be used for effects projection on this millennium year tour. Wynne Willson has created a 'Fried Slide' system with small bubbles and immiscible liquids to make coloured liquids 'boil' across a giant screen behind Waters during his performance. To ensure some consistency of appearance, WWG has provided a semi-automated system to enable a competent operator to manage the delivery of the images at showtime. Lighting designer for the tour is Simon Sidi

UV Light Technology's UV400 ultra violet special effects floodlight received its official launch recently. Prototypes of the UV400, developed by UV in co-operation with Temple Decor, were put through their paces at Glastonbury last year and on-location findings led to further refinements of the effect. The floodlight features a 400W lamp, uniform UVA distribution and a 90 degree beam angle. The company behind the product - UV Light Technology - is relatively new to the market, although MD Paul Jackson has over 15 years experience in ultra violet technology. To complement the floodlight, UV also offer a backdrop design and painting service, including 3D and dual image options.

Martin Professional's Florida-based US subsidiary, Martin Professional Inc, has announced plans to move into a new facility early in the year 2001. The new office will be built in the Sawgrass International Corporate Park in Sunrise, Florida, just a short drive from the existing building. It will give Martin US personnel twice as much working space with a 3,106sq.m warehouse, 200sq.m showroom, and nearly 900sq.m of office space and other facilities. Completion date for the new building is expected to be just after the start of the new year.

Production Resource Group has restructured, combining the PRG Lighting Group and Audio Group into a single operating unit, the Lighting/Audio Group. The two divisions will continue to be branded separately in their individual markets, but will be managed by a single group of senior PRG management. Some of the key elements of the new organisational structure include the appointment of Don Knezovic as the chief operating officer of the Lighting/Audio Group, whilst Steve Terry becomes President of Lighting Systems. Nick Jackson continues as president of Light & Sound Design (LSD) with Jeff Senkovich promoted to the new position of vice-president of Lighting/Audio. Don Stern, chairman of the Lighting/Audio Group, is assuming responsibility for Production Arts' rental sales and operations.

Total Audio Solutions reports a record number of bookings for its location and mobile recording facilities. Music channel VH1's 'Storytellers' required full carry-in production talkback and timecode distribution facilities. Another project involved the digital recording of a show featuring Pete Townsend of The Who. The six-camera shoot involved a 50-user PMR system, plus Total Audio's Ambient Lockit system, which was needed to synchronise master and multitrack recorders with the digital slates and Beta reference tapes. Rick Wakeman's forthcoming double CD/DVD was tracked at Marlborough College using Total Audio Solutions' 24-track mobile, while Hugh Cornwell (ex of the Stranglers) hired the company to record his band's new live album at The Robin II R&B Club in Dudley, West Midlands. The booking followed Cornwell's 1998 live album, which was also tracked by the TAS team.

Barry Rackover has joined PRG as vice president of Lighting, Michigan, and will oversee all operations in business development, sales management, production and customer service. He brings with him over 20 years of production and sales experience, having worked with an impressive number of clients and supervised production for automobile shows and dealer announcements around the world. Prior to that, he worked extensively on live shows with such notables as Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Madonna, Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead.

Ivan Myles has been appointed general manager of UK Trading at Strand Lighting. He will report to Horst Eickmann, general manager of European Trading. Myles has been with Strand for many years and his knowledge and experience will allow the company to concentrate on sales in the UK, whilst co-ordinating European service and training operations.

Newquay-based PSD Electronics has completed a sound and lighting installation as part of a £500,000 makeover at the Twilight Zone nightclub in Redruth. The new lighting rig features four of Sagitter's compact Infinity MSZ1200 (Multi Step Zoom) units, which project down onto the minimalist ground floor dance area, as well as onto the sailcloth surrounding the eight moving arms of the flown mechanism. Sagitter Digiflash Pro strobes also feature in the rig. All of the Sagitter lighting was supplied by Multifom Technology. PSD's Dave Charman said that the fittings were "incredibly bright and powerful - they look amazing in this installation."

TMB Associates has appointed Stephanie Algarin to the newly-created position of marketing administrator. Stephanie will be working with TMB's marketing director, David Downey, to further promote TMB's products and services. For the past six years, Stephanie has been manager of Decasource Inc, a studio lighting rental, manufacturing and software company based in Hollywood. She was responsible for all operational and marketing aspects of the company.

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