UK - GDS has announced the appointment of two new members of its growing team. Paul Johnson has been appointed as architectural lighting consultant and Ashley Freeman as UK sales account co-ordinator.

Paul Johnson has many years' experience in the architectural field. He studied architectural technologies at Cardiff University as a mature student, graduating with a BSC with honours. After leaving university he worked for an Architectural practice, specialising in lighting design. His role will be to develop the GDS architectural brand and take it to residential and commercial markets. He will be responsible for consulting with architects and offering a customised design service.

Ashley Freeman studied sound, light and live event technology at Derby University and has been appointed in the role to support the UK sales team and to provide customer service to GDS's customer netwo

China - Barco LiveDots, a Barco company, has partnered with Beijing Fortune Investment Management Co. to embellish Beijing's Blue Island Tower with a new high-tech outdoor LED display. The 407 m2 screen is powered by the latest TF-20 outdoor display system, which "produces excellent display effects while ensuring environmental protection and safety".

The base of Blue Island Tower's LED display is a full 32m above the ground, which requires an exceptional angle of visibility to allow viewing from close range. To meet this challenge, Barco LiveDots applied "a world-exclusive LED encapsulation technology", tilting the LEDs downward towards the viewers. This technology gives the millions of LED lights a consistent downward angle of visibility and visual range, while also decreasing light pollution.

Barco LiveDots provided an integrated solution for Blue Island

USA - Acclaim Lighting's new Rebel Band 600 can scale 100' buildings with amazing ease, says the company. This powerful IP-rated LED wall wash provides lighting professionals with a solution for long throw dynamic illumination of large structures, façades and landscapes.

The biggest and brightest LED fixture introduced by Acclaim to date, the Rebel Band 600 is equipped with 104 high-power Rebel LEDs. It provides enough output and covers enough area to handle large-scale applications where LED fixtures typically haven't been used, such as washing 100' building façades.

With an IP-65 rating, the Rebel Band 600 is able to withstand rain and dust, so it can be used either indoors or outdoors. In addition to architectural applications, its precise light distribution and extremely even field make it perfect for high-impact stage scene settings, adds the company.

The Rebel Band 6

UK - Cooper Controls has announced the launch of Version 7.0 ZerOS software for the Zero 88 Leap Frog 48, Leap Frog 96, Frog 2 and ORB Series consoles.

ZerOS 7.0 is the most substantial update to the ZerOS software platform to date, says the company, incorporating over 30 new features including: a completely redesigned look and style for an enhanced, clearer user interface; colour filter lookup - match your moving lights to any Lee, Rosco or Apollo filter using on-screen palette keys or syntax; a new 'Fixture Levels' window to provide instant view and modification of tracking data for the entire cue stack, and an updated fixture library with over 2500 fixture types from 175 manufacturers.

"The launch of ZerOS 7.0 is a testament to the investment Cooper has made in Zero 88 over the last four years. During this time our software capability has been growing and growing, and

UK - Clay Paky has announced a competition in which visitors to PLASA 2011 will be able to win a free Sharpy spotlight.

The company is bringing two of its vintage, Vegas-style slot machines to the show, customised to allow players to play for one of the company's most sought-after products.

Clay Paky president Pasquale Quadri, a long-time collector of gambling paraphernalia, has had two machines from his personal collection specially refurbished in a Clay Paky theme. All guests at the Clay Paky stand (1E 36) will be entitled to a free spin of the reels, while any visitor bearing an official voucher will be able to double their chances with an additional play. The redeemable vouchers can be retrieved from the official PLASA catalogue or from the July edition of Lighting & Sound International.

The slot machines will be in operation throughout the official opening hours

UK - 2011 marks not only the fortieth anniversary of entertainment lighting specialist White Light, but also 10 years since the company moved to its expansive headquarters in Wimbledon, South-West London. Now, White Light is expanding again - spreading into a neighbouring building to increase its footprint by more than 50 percent.

To mark this expansion, it is inviting everyone along to explore the new facility during an Open Day on Thursday, 21 July.

"For those who remember it, our base in Fulham was charming but difficult to work in, particularly as more and more shows moved to HGV transport and the drivers had to back down the narrow suburban streets," comments White Light's managing director, Bryan Raven. "Moving to Wimbledon a decade ago immediately made life easier, with much more office space, much more storage and equipment preparation space, and much, m

Canada - Pop act Donny & Marie Osmond are taking their Las Vegas show to the cooler climes of Canada. Pete's Big TVs is providing equipment for the special run of high-energy Donny & Marie Live shows this month at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts in Toronto.

LD Peter Morse, who designed the duo's long-running show at The Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, designed a smaller production of the multimedia spectacular for this special two-week gig. Running the shows is lighting director Joseph Eddy, who directs the Flamingo shows for Morse as well.

"It's a fun show," Morse says. "It's a scaled down version of the Vegas show, with just three trusses of lights. There's a lot of archival content projected on the video screens, and we're adding three new songs into the repertoire from the new album."

Pete's Big TVs is supplying three LED scr

Germany - The 24-hour race on the Nürburgring ended with a victory for Porsche. The Manthey Racing team's drivers came out on top after completing 156 laps on the legendary Nordschleife.

During the race, tarm Showlaser GmbH projected large-format laser graphics on the castle ruins, under contract to the Stuttgart-based agency, Silkroad.

The Porsche logo, a silhouette of the Nürburg and animated laser effects were blazed against the night sky by a pair of full-colour, 25W lasers.

(Jim Evans)

Spain - Rosco Europe has announced that Cristian Arroyo of Rosco Iberica is to take on an expanded role within the company from 1 July 2011. Arroyo's new position is a dual role consisting of business development manager - South Europe and European textiles manager.

As business development manager - South Europe, Arroyo will be responsible for developing Rosco markets in Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Croatia, Malta, Slovenia, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo and Israel. In doing so he will be taking over the territories previously handled by Margie Heymann who steps back from 30 years of account management to focus on European colour filter production management. Arroyo and Heymann will work closely together over the next six months to ensure a smooth transition of responsibilities.

As European textiles manager, Arroyo will focus on Rosco's aim of generating signif

UK - Summer cocktails hosted by WiSE (Women in Stage Entertainment) went down a storm at the ABTT show. WiSE Industry sponsors were invited to dabble in cocktail design by inventing their own cocktails to raise money for industry charity, Light Relief.

The cocktail line up included: the Avolites Ruby Rum, Charcoalblue Cooler, White Light Wimms, Rosco Lux Sangria, Phillips Entertainment Blue Hawaii and the drink with no name from MA Lighting.

Whilst sampling the various concoctions on offer, WiSE sponsors, members, guests and the press had the chance to network, make new friends and give generously to charity. Ultimately the event raised a respectable £137 for Light Relief, all in the space of just a couple of hours.

Coral Cooper, industry veteran and Philips Vari-Lite trainer was cocktail coordinator extraordinaire and kept the

UK - Jodrell Bank Observatory, the site of the UK's iconic Lovell radio telescope, presided over the first of a potential new series of live concerts.

Manchester based dbn was asked to provide lighting by co-promoters Ear To the Ground, who were collaborating with Kendall Calling and The Warehouse Project to stage the event in this different setting, headlined by the Flaming Lips. Also on the bill was British Sea Power, OK GO and two other bands. A 5000 capacity audience attended.

dbn's project manager Nick Walton comments: "It was a fantastic opportunity to work in a very special place overlooked by one of the most amazing scientific instruments in the world. Everything went smoothly and it was a massive success all round. We hope this will be the first of more events here".

The 12m orbit stage was situated just to the right of the 76m wide revolving telescope dis

UK - Lighting designer Rob Sinclair is using a Jands Vista system running the new Vista v2 software for the current Pulp reunion tour.

So far, the European leg of the tour has seen the band play a string of high profile festival slots including the Isle of Wight Festival and headlining Sunday at the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, London - with future UK summer dates including T in The Park and Reading / Leeds Festival - as well as a host of other European dates.

Sinclair is a long term fan of the Vista platform. He purchased his first Vista S1 control surface in 2008 shortly after the model's launch, and now owns three identical systems - comprising of a laptop running the Vista software, with a Vista S1 and two Vista M1 wings - to service his own shows. Currently the other two are busy touring the US with chart topping Adele (operated by Jon Barker) and Peter Gabriel (operat

Denmark - Visual Productions is expanding its distribution network with the addition of Light Partner in Denmark.

This new partnership developed after company director Stig Meyer Jensen visited the Visual Productions' stand for a product catch-up at Prolight&Sound. Jensen comments, "The way your company is so dedicated to your products really impresses me."

Visual Productions' sales manager, Zoe Castle says: "Stig had made it clear to me that they would only take on new distribution if the product and market where right for Light Partner to make it a successful venture."

Castle continues, says: "Light Partner has done everything to live up to my expectations and better them. The Din-Rail Hardware and Cuelux stock is in place, sales started and technical knowledge acquired to support our products well on the Danish market. In particular Stig's enthusi

UK - The Arena Group supplied comprehensive temporary events overlay to the 125th Wimbledon Championship.Having successfully installed all temporary public grandstand seating around the outer courts and a wide range of design led hospitality facilities to house sponsors and guests, Arena experienced their own winning moment at this year's championships, when IMG Media awarded Arena Group an exclusive five year contract to install event infrastructure at all of their golf events in Europe and the Middle East.Ross Hallett, vice-president of IMG Golf states: "The Arena Group has consistently delivered high standards in all key areas of structures and seating engineering, safety, service and creative design that have allowed us to raise the standard of our international golf tournaments year on year. This five year deal underpins IMG's commitment to continue to deliver a truly me

UK - The XPar 390 from PR Lighting is brighter than the earlier XPar 348, while the XPar 390-W, which broadens the width of the beam, offers greater white light.

The key features of the new DMX-controllable XPar 390 are the 90 x 3W high quality LEDs (24 each of RGB and 18 white) rated at 50,000 hours. This offers full colour mixing and linear CTO, with 0-100% linearly adjustable dimmer; 1-20 fps strobe; Beam Angle of 14° (Field Angle 28°) and IP67 waterproof rating. Power Consumption is 300W@220V and the weight is just 14kg.

Contained in the same housing, the XPar 390-W offers 66 x white 3W LEDs and 24 amber, with full colour mixing and linear CTO. It comes with standard 14° lens (8° and 45° optional) and beam angle of 32° (24° and 55° optional), with 0-100% linearly adjustable dimmer. Other features include: 0.3-20 fps strobe; IP 67 waterproof

UK - GDS recently exhibited at the ABTT show for its fifth consecutive year. The event saw GDS win the ABTT Lighting Award of the Year, become the sponsor of the new Student of the Year Award for The Stage Managers Association and collect its Theatres Trust People's Choice Award which was won at PLASA 2010.

Richard Cuthbert, director of engineering comments: "This is our fifth year of exhibiting at ABTT, it is a fantastic show for us and a great opportunity to meet end users, customers and most importantly theatre consultants who have valuable input in to our product development."

The ABTT Lighting Product of the Year Award was given to GDS for ArcSystem, its new LED house-light system. The award was presented to Richard Cuthbert, director of engineering for GDS. The judges were impressed by the wireless dimming performance of ArcSystem, a bespoke fitting manufacture

Italy - Creating a celebration of light, lighting designer Paul Cocksedge has used 80 ETC Selador Classic Ice fixtures in an exhibition space as part of the Salone del Mobile home furnishing exhibition in Milan.

The project involved projecting light from the blue part of the colour spectrum from concealed Selador fixtures onto a the 25m long, curved, white wall extension of a lighting showroom in the heart of Milan's design district; when visitors viewed the wall through a red light shade, a previously hidden video of a car appeared to the viewer.

Cocksedge says: "I was very ambitious about what I was proposing; we were really pushing the boundaries of what is achievable. I wanted a lot of light, and a very certain, precise light. Only the Selador Ice unit gave that precision. When I first came up with the idea to use light in this way, I was put in touch with Adam Bennet

Turkey - Rental company Fashion Art has turned to Robert Juliat for its lighting solutions. Fashion Art focuses mainly on fashion shows, parties, launches and premiers to which it presents creative light and sound services.

Their preferred lighting system is composed of Robert Juliat 329HF 2500W and 310HF 1200W Fresnels plus 614SX 1200W and 613SX 1200W profile spots. These give broad, even coverage, precise control over direction of light and warm tungsten colour temperature that flatters the models' skin tone.

"The importance of top quality lighting on events of this calibre should not be underestimated," says Robert Juliat's sales director, Lionel Garraud. "A lot of responsibility rests on showing the work of the designers, choreographers and models to their best advantage. We are very proud that Robert Juliat lighting products have been chosen to perform this

UK - LEDHead EPW is the new multi-function LED moving head from MilTec (UK).

The LEDHead EPW uses the latest LED technology to give a moving head with true spot and wash capabilities, says the company. The 60W white LED light engine, colour wheel, two gobo wheels and rotating prism provide the spot functions.

Wash lighting is provided by 8x high powered tricolour LEDs situated at the front of the unit. This allows both functions to be used independently or simultaneously, giving many possibilities for creative lighting design.

In addition to these functions the tricolour LEDs are arranged in four zones to provide visual effect capabilities.

(Jim Evans)

UK - Clay Paky have announced the next date of the UK New Product Tour, set to take place at the Royal Shakespeare Company's base in Stratford-upon-Avon and featuring popular Clay Paky products including: Sharpy, Alpha Profile 700 and the Shotlight Wash

"We would like to invite you and your colleagues to join us for an informal demonstration and a sandwich lunch," says the company. Details of the event are as follows:

Tuesday 19th July - Royal Shakespeare Company, Swan Theatre. 2pm - 5pm.

An optional tour of the theatre will take place at 3.30pm

Drinks and a sandwich lunch will be provided.

"Everyone is welcome, all we ask is for you to RSVP to janemonk@monkey.biz with a guest list."

(Claire Beeson)

Italy - Over 350sq.m of Pixled LED screen is being used to spectacular effect on the latest sold-out stadium tour by Italian superstar Vasco Rossi - Live Kom '011 - specified by lighting and visuals designer, Giovanni Pinna.

The Pixled F-25 and F-37L surfaces were purchased by Milan based AV Rental company Event Management specially for the tour, and supplied to them from Pixled Europe's HQ in Belgium. It's Event Management's first investment in the Pixled brand - although the company has used it on shows in the past.

For the Rossi tour, 14 columns of Pixled F-37L are positioned in two sections of seven either side of the stage at the back. These are on a Cyberhoist automation system that moves them between level 1 (the stage) and level 2 of the set. They can also move apart into seven individual segments or be run as one large surface per side.

Two horizontal strips

Ireland - Robe moving lights proved themselves to be a robust and reliable choice of moving light for any festival situation, with over 100 used on the main stage plus many more around the site at the 2011 Oxegen Festival in County Kildare.

True to form, the skies opened and it pelted with rain throughout the first day of the event, turning the site at Punchestown Racecourse into a slightly sticky, mud-tastic experience - which didn't dampen any of the vibes.

The highprofile festival is promoted by the country's largest concert and live event organisation, MCD and this year it featured a strong line-up.

Dublin-based rental company Just Lite's relationship with MCD's Denis Desmond stretches back over 20 years, and the company headed by Paul and Alan Smith has been involved with lighting the festival for the last 11 years, when it was originally launched as Witnness in 2000. O

Australia - The Port Fairy Folk Festival is held in early March each year over the Labour Day long weekend on the south-west coast of Victoria in the historic sea-side village of Port Fairy. Australia's 'world famous' independent music festival presents major international and national folk, trad and roots music artists during a four day festival of folk, country, Celtic, blues, jazz, bluegrass, traditions, contemporary, singers, songwriters, acoustic rock and world roots music.

Geelong-based Total Events provided lighting, staging, transport, rigging and AV requirements for the festival across six venues. 2011 was the 35th year of Port Fairy Folk Festival and Total Events managing director Scott Parker has provided various levels of production to the event for over 15 years.

Lighting - consisting of approximately 100 LED fixtures, 50 moving head fixtures and 100 dimmer channe

Russia - Clay Paky's new narrow beam, the Sharpy, has been given its first airing on Russian television following an appearance on Star Factory, a reality TV talent show broadcast on Russia's Channel One. Mixing elements of Pop Idol and Big Brother, the contest aims to nurture the next generation of singing talent with help from pop industry veterans.

Star Factory lighting designer Leonid Pozdnyanskiy made up his mind to use the Sharpy after viewing a demonstration at the studio organised by Clay Paky distributor DOKA.

"We are pleased that Channel One allowed us to promote Sharpy on Star Factory," says DOKA's Vasily Litvin, brand manager for Clay Paky. "Sharpy has found an instant fan base here in Russia; those in the studio were absolutely amazed by the output, and we expect great things from this fixture in the Russian market

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