UK - When Production North approached LiteStructures to provide a Perspex sign and neon lettered sign suitable for touring, LiteStructures' Mark Jackson came up with the solution.

Briefed to create a signature stage piece for Westlife's recent No1s tour, it soon became apparent that neon lettering wouldn't be practical, because it's made of glass, but then Mark remembered seeing Neonflex at PLASA. Marketed by Batmink, Neonflex is a flexible PVC light tube which closely replicates real neon, but uses LEDs as a light source. Much more rugged and roadworthy than neon, it was the obvious choice. LiteStructures made up an individual Neonflex letter, which Production North and the band agreed was just what they wanted.

Although the original design, a 20x10ft Perspex signature, was intended to be invisible when not lit, it was then decided, by the band and Production North's S

Canada - Due to popular demand and the fact that some customers did not receive notice of its previous promotion in time, Cast Software recently announced a four-week extension to the Upgrade to Unlimited Channels Promotion. Effective from 15April through to 15 May, 2005, upgrades from WYSIWYG Perform 500, Perform 1000, or Perform 2000 to WYSIWYG Perform with unlimited channels bundled with a 12-month subscription, will be offered at a 50% off discount.

"The response to our upgrade promotion was tremendous! Our customers have been asking us to entertain a further promotional period. It only makes sense for us to re-introduce this promotion ", says Gil Densham, president & CEO of Cast Software. "We've made the best lighting design package in the industry and are allowing our users to upgrade for the great price of only $639 US. Plus, these upgrades include a

Europe - Arup's Rogier van der Heide has been accorded the most prestigious award for Lighting Design - the Radiance Award, given by the IALD (International Association of Lighting Designers). The award, bestowed by a panel of design peers, was given to van der Heide in recognition of his contribution to lighting design, highlighting one of his most recent projects, the Galleria West Shopping Centre in Seoul. The judges described the project as: "State-of-the-art technology and design . . . a striking effect . . . a vibrant and scenic experience at night".

Together with Ben van Berkel of UN Studio in Amsterdam, van der Heide and his team developed a lighting scheme for the building skin that changes, chameleon-like, at night, and during the day reflects the subtleties of natural light on the opalescent façade of dichroic glass discs. At night, the discs are individual

Denmark - Blackburn-based HSL Sales & Distribution - one of the HSL Productions group of companies - supplied all the pyro and special effects to Machine Shop for the opening event of HCA2005, the Hans Christian Andersen bicentennial celebrations. This massive show was staged at the Parken Stadium, Copenhagen, last weekend.

Pyro for the two-hour extravaganza titled Once Upon A Time, enjoyed in real time by 35,000 people and broadcast live on Danish TV and across Europe by the European Broadcasting Union, was designed by Paul Mann from Machine Shop. He collaborated on the task with whom HSL's Tom Owen: the two have enjoyed a long and fruitful working relationship. The overall Once Upon A Time show design team and production included some of the best names, suppliers and rental operations in the UK production industry. The special effects all had to be very big and v

UK - For three days in April the NEC in Birmingham was taken over for the Commercial Vehicle Show 2005, with exhibitors including Proton cars, who were showing the new Jumbuck range. Proton's stand was designed and installed by Embee Lighting and used 20 Pulsar ChromaCubes and 20 ChromaSpheres to decorate the back of two display vehicles.

A ground-supported truss was used to form the basis of the stand, before Lycra sails were stretched over the back wall and used as projection surfaces for the vehicle branding. Par 64s and ETC Source Fours were used to highlight the cars. Embee lighting's Mark Bailey used the cubes and spheres to attract people on to the stand. He explained: "The built-in effects were used to play random colour patterns and made a visual work of art for people to look at as they visited the show."

The feedback from Proton was extremely good, Bailey

Germany - Osram is expanding its modular SharXS lamp family with the HTI 1200 W/D7/75, which provides cold white light at a colour temperature of 7500K - meaning that the most powerful lamp in the family is now available in two colour temperatures.

Like all members of the SharXS family, the metal halide lamp is compact and double-ended. Its key features are a short arc and eXtreme Seal (XS) technology, which makes the lamps capable of withstanding thermal stress (up to 450°C). Its main areas of application, say Osram, include stage, film and television, and its improved heat handling offers benefits in terms of reduced cooling, smaller housing requirements and quieter operation in the luminaire, say Osram.

The company has also introduced a new version of the SharXS HTI 400 W/D3/75 - which now boasts 30% longer life, of up to 1000 hours.

(Lee Baldock)

China - Avolites' Diamond 4 Elite and Vision consoles were used to run lighting for the MTV Asia Awards 2005, repositioned as 'MTV Asia Aid' a global benefit concert to raise money for victims of the tsunami.

Staged at the Impact Arena in Bangkok in front of a live audience of 10,000 people and a TV audience of several million, the lighting design/direction team from the UK was headed by DOP Eugene O'Connor who also operated the key lighting console. Main stage LD was Theo Cox and Mikey Howard looked after stages B and C plus the extensive audience lighting. All were working with The Show Company from Singapore, MTV Asia's principal technical production contractor, and headed by Joseph Gan. In addition to supplying all lighting, the company also provided two Catalyst digital media servers for the video clips, and both high resolution and 'break-up' LED screens for the event.

T

UK - Technolight, a leading designer and distributor of professional lighting systems, has announced the appointment of Louise Tester to its new division, Light Planning Techniques. Tester is well known in the entertainment side of the lighting industry, having worked for 14 years as sales manager of DHA Lighting Services Ltd. She will be providing services from Light Planning Techniques as a total lighting solutions provider. At the same time, Technolight has announced the appointment of John Hannaford as sales manager for Technolight.

(Lee Baldock)

Australia - When Pete Koole, senior lighting director for Channel 10 NSW, had the job of relighting a totally new set for the channel's 5pm News and Late Night News shows, he wanted to add RGB LED changeable coloured lighting, so contacted CDA to see what was the latest available.

The set involved a lot of timber panelling which had thin perspex strips fitted into it. "I wanted the flexibility of having the RGB LEDs as I could not access these perspex strips once the set was placed together," said Koole. The perspex was lit and fitted with 600+ of CDA's Covelight 100mm RGB colour changing LED strips, running from DC-8 controllers.

Koole also used the CDA Trio 3W high powered luxeon 6° LED fixtures in yellow to high light some vertical equipment panels in the background of the Late Night News. In addition, he used CDA's Solar M100 RGB high-powered colour changers to

Denmark - Martin Professional has added a Fresnel version to its new MAC 250 Series of moving heads - the MAC 250 Wash - which joins the previously released MAC 250 Krypton and full-featured MAC 250 Entour profile spots to complete the new generation MAC 250 Series, say the company. The MAC 250 Wash has been designed for environments where powerful colour wash effects are required from a compact 250W Fresnel moving head - such as touring and special event applications, television studios, club installations, and retail and leisure environments.

Advancements include a new, more efficient reflector technology for greater output, fast and quiet movement, a variable frost filter for zoom effect and a CMY colour mixing system with a complementing colour wheel, say Martin. The company also says that a highly effective, multi-layered dichroic reflector gives the MAC 250 Wash an excepti

UK - Stockport-based LED lighting specialist Moodmaster Ltd reports that it has been inundated with requests for its LED dancefloor range. Using a Moodmaster LED Panel 600 system as its core, dancefloor contracts as large as 48 panels have recently been completed, say the company.

Moodmaster offers to dancefloor options - a four-panel module for rental and hire applications and individual floor modules for permanent venue installation.

The latest fixed installation is The Nightclub Company's brand new Bamboogy bar in Brighton, which has a 36-panel dancefloor provided by Bradford-based TMC. The Moodmaster dancefloor provides an eye-catching centrepiece for this, the first of a series of 70s-themed retro bars for the operator. Other venues using a Moodmaster LED dancefloor include two of Mitchell & Butler's latest 80s-styled Reflex bars in Preston and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, where

UK - Following a merge in the last quarter of 2004, Audiolight became TEC International. TEC International provides specialist corporate entertainments services, and are the sole dealers for the Aurora Whitelight, Emerald, Saffron and Aqua lasers, produced in the UK.

Rob Fisher, of TEC told us; "We looked at the corporate and consumer markets, and discovered that where other companies provide the mainstream sound, lighting and other associated equipment, that's really where it stops. We actually produce the whole event, from supplying the main equipment, through to high quality catering, and the final touches, such as gifts, and the exact colours for the table cloths and flowers!"

He continues; "We are focusing our attention in these market areas, because nowadays people have less and less time to spend on organizing and planning the finer details of a private (

USA - Lightfair International in New York was a great success for Martin Architectural, the company tells us. Reporting a busy booth and overall high level of interest from visitors, Martin was also pleased that its Inground 200 won the award for 'Best New Product of the Year'. Presented at an awards ceremony on 12 April, the award is considered the top accolade of the show. The Inground 200 was also granted the Best of Category accolade for Exterior Luminaires for Flood, Façade and Sports Lighting.

The Inground 200 Series is a durable range of IP 65/67-rated inground luminaires that integrates Martin's colour-changing technology into a system of buried uplights. Designed for all terrains and weather, the series offers high-performance tools for dynamic uplight illumination of facades, columns, landscapes, and interior applications. The series offers three different colour syst

Australia - When planning for GTV9's StarStruck program was underway, several misconceptions about the availability of LED product were laid to rest, say Coemar DeSisti Australia (CDA). Lighting director Rohan Thornton and set designer Mark Dyson had previously had experience with other LED products, but what they wished to achieve on StarStruck appeared to be only possible via a very costly solution.

A number of ideas included the ability to create selectable colour changing in a variety of set pieces. These included very large pieces on either side, referred to as "waffle flats" which consisted of a matrix of lycra panels with webbing in-between. At the intersection points of the webbing, they wanted a "starry light" RGB effect. Fortunately, CDA was able to offer a unique, cost-efficient solution in the form of two custom ShowLED looms manufactured with 200

Russia - The latest production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical Cats opened in Moscow's MDM Theatre on 18 March. Produced by Carmen Pavlovic with associate producer Sam Burgess, this is the first Russian language version, and has seen PRG Europe expanding its presence in the Russian capital, after recently providing the rig for We Will Rock You.

PRG Europe provided the lighting for the Madrid production of Cats, and as the show closed in January, the most practical solution for lighting the Moscow production was to use the same rig - albeit re-configured to suit the new venue. Under the direction of lighting designer Howard Eaton, the revamped rig includes 81 moving heads, a range of conventionals, six strobes, two hazers, two followspots, 72-way and 48-way Avolites dimmers and two Wholehog II control desks - one as a spare.

Alan Thomson, managing director

UK / Sri Lanka - When the devastating effects of the tsunami struck the countries around the Indian Ocean over the Christmas period, the services offered by the entertainment production industry weren't those that were immediately required as part of the disaster recovery effort. Three months on, however, as the countries work to return to normality, the UK lighting industry has been able to offer assistance to colleagues working in Sri Lanka.

Production manager Alison Ritchie heard about the damage caused to the lighting, sound and staging equipment stock of her friend Thushan Dias of Mahinda Dias Engineers. MDS has supplied lighting sound and staging services in Sri Lanka for more than 50 years, and Ritchie knew Dias having worked with him when Shared Experience toured to Colombo in the 90s. After the tsunami, she contacted him to check that he was OK, and heard that though he

UK - LightProcessor will show a variety of its core products at the A.C. Lighting North trade show next week, along with the latest innovations from sister company Lightfactor Sales -including products from Wireless Solutions, SGM and LDR.

The show will be the UK preview of the new LightProcessor Dimension 3000 dimmer, aimed at all touring applications. Available in 10 or 16A modules, it features an onboard 12-scene memory, all the standard dimming curves, individually DMX-addressable channels and many other elements. It's available in single- or three-phase versions, and has been designed practically with easy access for servicing and parts replacement, say the company. Also on show will be LightProcessor's series of DMX signal processing products, including the QDMuX, QStore, QMerge and QBuffer - the latter available in both truss and 19" rack-mounting version.

The awar

Finland - Celebrity Cruises, a subsidiary of Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, is using FogScreen in its new central attraction, The Bar at the Edge of the Earth, created exclusively for Celebrity by Cirque du Soleil. Every evening, in the top deck lounges of Constellation and Summit, guests are invited to pass through a mystical gateway - created with FogScreens - and enter a world bathed in luminescent light, pulsating sounds and mesmerizing visual effects. This whole unique entertainment experience is currently available on select Caribbean sailings aboard Constellation and Summit with additional ships in the planning stages.

The installations of FogScreens on the ships is a first for the Finnish start-up company. "We are delighted to be able to work with these entertainment industry leaders, and welcome them as our appreciated clients", says CEO Mika Herpiö. FogScreen

Germany - The new optically isolated DMX Output USB Elite hardware interface was on display at Frankfurt's ProLight+Sound exhibition recently. The Elite version has all the features of the DMX Output USB and in addition allows for continuous automatic playback of pre-programmed sequences to infinity. The development of the Elite box enables users to store up to eight dynamic sequences or lightshows, say VisualDMX. The stored sequences or lightshows are then recalled by manual selection of the push buttons.

The fluidity of each programmed sequence allows for subtle movements and colour changes: a compression technique is applied on the storage of the sequences, enabling long sequences to run smoothly and still fit in this small yet powerful hardware interface, say the company. All features of the VisualDMX software can be used in programming including all the features of Matrix M

USA - High End Systems' new Hog iPC console is making its touring debut with the band Garbage. Hog iPC is the industry's first hybrid console. It's designed to use Wholehog 3 software but is also backward compatible with the discontinued Wholehog 2 software.

Butch Allen is the production manager, lighting designer and lighting director all rolled into one so can speak from all perspectives when it comes to his specification of Hog iPC and Catalyst Pro v3.3 media server -supplied by XL Touring Video.

Says Allen: "If you know the Wholehog 2, the Hog iPC console will seem like an old friend - an old friend that 'had some work done,' so to speak. The new touch screen monitors are flawless and very responsive. I run a great deal of our show 'on the fly' and was afraid to do so before - but now, no worries. Hit a palette and it works. Cool."

Of the Hog iPC's features - i

USA - Design firm Visual Terrain wanted a high impact, cost-effective way to brighten up the Morongo Casino and Resort, having seen the visual capabilities of the Versa TILE and after consulting with Element Labs and learning more about the product, they created a concept video to show to the Morongo Casino.

Dawn Hollingsworth, managing design principal of Visual Terrain, commented: "Visual Terrain was presented with a challenging design opportunity by the architect at Morongo Casino. The architect's desire for a visual experience to draw visitors from a distance as they approached the property meant we had to think of an extraordinary approach. Element Labs' Versa TILE was the perfect blend of light and image. We were able to create a solution that literally stopped traffic on Interstate 10 (without accidents) and presented the property with a unique identity. Element Labs

Denmark - Global technology company 3M and Martin Architectural have formed a commercial cooperation that makes Martin Architectural's Exterior 600 colour changing luminaire the illuminator of choice for 3M's LPS150 (6") Light Pipe System in colour and colour changing applications worldwide.

3M Light Pipe is a transparent pipe lined with 3M Optical Lighting Film that is able to efficiently transport light up to 64 feet (20 meters) from a single point light source. The Martin Architectural Exterior 600 is an IP65 rated 575W lighting fixture with CMY colour changing technology capable of producing a nearly endless variety of colours.

3M also offers LPS50 (2.5") and LPS100 (4") Light Pipe Systems compatible with the Martin FiberSource CMY 150 and Martin Exterior 200 respectively. Additionally, the agreement makes Martin Architectural an authorized distributor of 3M

UAE - Oasis Enterprises, provider of turnkey project services for professional and broadcast audio, video and lighting systems in the UAE, has been honoured with a prestigious award during CabSat 2005, the Middle East's electronic media and communications event.

Designed to recognize exceptional quality and service levels in key areas in the Middle East's broadcast industry, the digitalstudio Industry Leadership Awards 2005 ensured complete impartiality through nominations and consultation with a panel of experts. Oasis Enterprises won Lighting Installation of the Year for its work on behalf of broadcasters such as Dubai TV, Abu Dhabi TV, Al Jazeera in Qatar and CNBC Arabia.

Suhail Ahmed has known Oasis Enterprises for four years, firstly during his time at Dubai TV and now at CNBC Arabia, where he is lighting director. "Oasis Enterprises installed the lighting grid and p

UAE - White Light will this year make its first trade show appearance in Dubai, on stand A120 at the Pro Audio Light Middle East (PALME) 2005 exhibition. PALME runs from 24-26 April at the Dubai International Exhibition Centre. White Light's representatives at the show will be sales director Peter Threadgold and sales project consultant Paul Simson, who will be working to introduce White Light's range of services to customers in the Middle East.

"White Light has the capacity to supply the most comprehensive range of entertainment lighting equipment, at the most competitive price, to any size of company or project in the Middle East," comments Threadgold. "We have been supplying the UK entertainment lighting industry for over thirty years, with a reputation of choice, quality and value for money. It is our intention to extend this service and this reputation to the

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