USA - Parasol Advanced Systems of Vancouver, BC, Canada, was stopping traffic with its new KLRTM System (Kinetic Light Ring) during LDI 2011in Orlando on the Clay Paky booth, demonstrated with 12 Clay Paky Sharpys.

With its eye-catching display, Clay Paky won the LDI Booth Award for 'Most Creative Use of Light' at a ceremony on the show floor on Saturday, 29 October. The award was accepted by Clay Paky chief commercial officer Pio Nahum, who thanked Parasol for their involvement in making the Clay Paky booth the talk of the show.

Nahum says, "The Parasol system made a spectacular contribution to our booth, and is an ideal partner to our Sharpy spotlight. Apart from being unique on the market, the KLR system is standardised and completely market-ready. I feel sure that the Parasol system will be widely adopted and initiate an entirely new approach to designing with automat

Europe - Following the success of the first leg of the Europe and Middle East wide Vista roadshow, Jands has confirmed the next set of dates through November and December in Germany, Portugal, Netherlands, Belgium and Poland.

The roadshow is designed to give everyone a chance to take a look for themselves at the next generation Vista v2 software for the Jands Vista lighting and media control range.

Events in Norway, Sweden and Switzerland have proven to be a major success, with much positive feedback received afterwards from attendees, says the company.

Jands Europe's Neil Vann says, "If you haven't taken a look at Vista v2 for yourself yet, the roadshow gives you a great opportunity to see just how fantastic it really is. We have heard back from many visitors that have expressed how impressed they are with Vista v2, as well as how they wished they had taken a look earl

China - Leading Hong Kong based lighting rental company A-Team Plus has become the first operation in greater China to invest in Robe's new Robin MMX Spot moving lights.

This follows on from also being the first company in the region to purchase Robe's Robin 600 LEDWash fixtures at the start of the year, where their first show was the highly anticipated 2011 Hong Kong Fashion Week.

Internationally renowned lighting designer and technical director Troy Daniel had initially been reluctant to use any LED fixtures on the HKFW show at Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre's Grand Hall. However he now reports, "Let's get serious, nothing beats Robe's Robin 600 LEDWash."

Fellow Australian and now Hong Kong based Luke Hall, who is production manager and lighting designer for Untitled Entertainment Asia, one of the A Team's top partners adds, "Our company prides i

UK - Chauvet reports that season two of ITV1's television show Ant & Dec's Push the Button, showcased nearly 100 COLORado 1 Tour wash lights which were used to uplight the set.

The fixtures were specified by lighting designer Mark Kenyon and supplied by TMB, a production and services company for professionals in the entertainment production and architectural lighting industry.

The richly appointed set was a feast for the audience's eyes - both in the studio and for those at home. The woven textured walls were uplit in saturated washes by COLORado 1 Tour fixtures discreetly lining the staircases contestants descended to reach the stage.

"The COLORado 1 Tour performed amazingly well," said Mark Kenyon. "They are tremendously bright, with an even field of rich colour and convenient dimming curves for smooth uplighting. They allowed me to create a visual im

UK - Stage Electrics supplied its new 20mm pixel-pitch LED curtain for Portishead's recent European tour that included two headlining slots at the I'll Be Your Mirror festival staged by All Tomorrows' Parties at Alexandra Palace, London.

Providing the central visual focus of the production, the stage-wide LED video curtain, using 100m² of panels for a screen size of 14 x 7m, showed the work of video director John Minton and video content designers As Described, an hallucinatory smorgasbord of grungy imagery and deliberately lo-fi, distorted i-mag work.

Stage Electrics was brought in by As Described, and flew the screen from four 1 ton Lodestars and 14m of Prolyte Truss, as well as supplying mains distro and a portable production unit consisting of two Analog Way Tetra-VIO scalers, preview monitors and a 32x32 Composite Matrix Switcher. For the final two IBYM shows at Alexandr

Italy - Coemar S.p.A. has announced that the company has a new majority shareholder, Salvatore Grillo, who will immediately take up the role of sole administrator. Ten years after being acquired by the private equity fund Mezzanine Management UK Ltd (now MML Capital Partners), the company, which has a long history in the field of entertainment lighting, again has an Italian majority shareholder.

Salvatore Grillo is a 37-year old entrepreneur who, after accumulating his professional experience in a wide variety of companies in Germany and the United Kingdom, has decided to undertake a new challenge at the head of Coemar, alongside the renewed commitment of MML Capital Partners, which remain as minority shareholders.

"After nearly 15 years abroad, I'm very pleased to be able to sustain an Italian firm that is a real ambassador of the 'Made in Italy' in over 70 countries&quo

UK - London-based AV and technical production services company Presentation Rentals (PR) supplied external building projection and sound and lighting equipment for two party areas within the Freemason's Hall in London's Covent Garden for the press launch of the latest Batman game sensation - Arkham City.

PR was working for production company Limited Edition, for whom they are a frequent supplier of technical production design and services.

Outside, across the street from the entrance of Freemason's Hall, the PR crew built a scaffolding tower, and onto this was positioned two Panasonic 10K projectors, double stacked and fitted with .8 lenses.

The venue is an imposing Art Deco building dating back to 1933, now Grade II listed inside and out, and one of the finest examples of this architecture in the UK. The throw distance was 10m and the projection area about 45ft wide,

Australia - European LED manufacturer Anolis has engineered and produced a custom lighting solution for a major new installation in the impressive foyer space of The Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA)'s award winning theatre complex in Kensington, Sydney.

A new energy efficient lighting scheme has been installed, replacing 28 recessed 500W PAR 56 halogen fittings with the new Anolis ArcSource 48 MultiChip (MC) fixture, specially designed by Anolis for this project.

The Anolis ArcSource 48 MC consists of twelve 10W Cree MCE RGBW LED chips, which enable full and seamless RGB colour mixing plus an excellent selection of 'real' whites in a variety of colour temperatures.

NIDA's lighting supervisor Adrian Wright explains that top of their brief for the new lighting was to make a significant reduction in electricity consumption across NIDA's public areas. They al

South Africa - Cape Town-based Hellfire, which recently purchased six new Robin 300 LED Wash fixtures, provided the full technical for the Nu World and Lemontree stages at Rocking the Daisies, held at Cloof Wine Estate, Western Cape recently. Lindsay Barton was the sound and lighting technician at the festival.

"It is a fantastic festival to be involved with, especially in terms of the obscure and eclectic styles of music and highly skilled entertainers we get to work with on our stages," commented Barton. "This year they ranged from magicians, comedians and burlesque dancers to Pirate, Gypsy, Balkan and Mediterranean surf rock style bands."

This is the sixth year of the show and Hellfire have been involved since its second year. They provided the Nu World beat ring and Lemontree stage with all technical crew such as sound engineers, lighting designe

UK - The multi-award-winning show Phantom of the Opera has held a dazzling TV and live performance at London's Royal Albert Hall, supported by PRG and ETC lighting.

The lighting for the original show in the West End was designed in 1986 by Andrew Bridge, with associates working on it throughout the show's life. Designing for the Royal Albert Hall, Bridge worked with Patrick Woodroffe to create a production with only three performances. TV cameras were brought in to transmit the final show to thousands of cinemas and theatres worldwide.

Bridge says: "The lighting rig was quite different to the theatre version of Phantom. It was far bigger, and a different shape.

"As a part of the design team, we had a clear idea of what we wanted to achieve; anyone who has been to see the original show would have recognised it, but with the lighting coming from very di

The Netherlands - Rentall, one of Holland's leading technology sales and rental companies, has been appointed exclusive Benelux distributors for SGM lighting - under its newly formed division, Sales-All BV. The appointment was confirmed, with immediate effect at this year's PLASA Show in London, by company director Michel Roelofsen, and SGM's managing director Peter Johansen and export area manager Steen Geertsen.

Along with co-founder Theo van Workum, Roelofsen has built up a formidable sales and rental company over the past 15 years, with bases throughout Holland and Germany. Their channels to market take them into television and architectural applications as well as concert and theatre touring.

"We are extremely impressed with the new range of SGM products - and over the years we have also sold a lot of older SGM fixtures," he stated. "It's important that we

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light marks its fortieth anniversary this year - celebrating with a busy season of new theatre productions, the area that the company first worked in and for which it is still best known by many even though its work now encompasses all areas of entertainment lighting.

In London's West End, White Light is supplying the lighting to new productions of Butley, lit by Howard Harrison at The Duchess, Cool Hand Luke, lit by Matthew Eagland at the Aldwych, Driving Miss Daisy transferring to the Wyndhams Theatre from New York and lit by Peter Kaczorowski, Matilda, lit by Hugh Vanstone at the Cambridge, and The Tempest, lit by Paul Pyant at the Haymarket.

White Light is also busy on the touring circuit, supplying the lighting to shows including Buddy (lit by Joe Atkins), Dirty Dancing (lit by T

UK - Continuing a nine-year tradition, Stage Electrics recently staged a pair of successful regional exhibits showcasing its key distribution brands, at Newcastle Upon Tyne and Cardiff.

The one-day events were held at the Peter Sarah Theatre in the Performance Academy of Newcastle College, Newcastle Upon Tyne and the newly opened Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in the grounds of Cardiff Castle, where Stage Electrics also recently completed a major sound, production lighting and communications installation in the concert hall and theatre.

Brands on show were Arri, Avolites, Chauvet, Clay Paky, DiGiCo, ETC, Highlite, MA Lighting, L-Acoustics, Lee Filters Le Maitre, Martin Professional, Panasonic, Philips Strand, Selecon and Vari-Lite, Pulsar, RCF, Rosco, Roland, Sennheiser, Shure, Yamaha and Zero 88.

Some 230 people attended on the day, with students from each venue for

UK - Lighting designer Andi Watson, has showcased the new PixelSmart on his recent tours. including Bon Iver, Interpol, Zazie and Lissie.

Watson states, "The controllability of the individual pixels allows me to modulate the intensity or colour of the beam, creating movement from a static source. It is truly a beautiful effect and one which ranges from incredibly subtle to highly dynamic. The tungsten LEDs in the PixelSmarts are amazing for key lighting and for punching a white beam through a colour wash."

Watson continues, "In addition, when the fixtures are facing the audience - the LEDs can be PixelMapped or modulated to create a highly controllable LED array, enabling patterns and movement to be displayed across the fixtures. All in all a really versatile fixture which I am really impressed with."

(Jim Evans)

USA - City Theatrical's SHoW DMX SHoW Baby won the Best Debuting Product in the Widget category at LDI 2011. Widgets are simple or inexpensive products that lighting users find indispensible in hanging their shows.

SHoW Baby is a wireless DMX transceiver, meaning it can be either a transmitter or a receiver. As the LDI judges pointed out in the awards ceremony, SHoW Baby has the easiest user's manual around. "For a Transmitter, plug DMX in, for a Receiver, don't."

SHoW Baby utilizes a clever DMX input jack that senses when a DMX cable from the lighting console is plugged in, and configures itself to be a Transmitter. Without sensing DMX in, it configures itself as a Receiver. There are no other user choices to make and SHoW Baby is entirely plug and play, with no buttons to push, settings to adjust, or menu options to choose.

(Jim Evans)

Australia - LSC Lighting Systems in partnership with Open Clear have been busy finalising the development of a range of new powerful consoles that will "finally offer the market a real alternative for the world's most demanding productions".

Following the successful preview of the smallest console in the range - Clarity LX300 - at the PLASA 2011 show in London, LSC showed the other end of the spectrum with a preview of the flagship LX900 at the LDI show in Orlando, Florida.

The range features three Clarity models, the LX300, LX600 and LX900 all with touch screens, multiple programmers, unlimited undo/redo, Fader Ident for playback mode indication, media server integration, LED pixel mapping and innovative Rig Schematic patching, which allows importing of rig or venue images to overlay patched fixtures making your fixture selection quick and easy. In addition all fade

USA - The world's biggest basketball preseason show turned to Bandit Lites in 2011 in order to have the most dynamic show possible for what promises to be a National Championship season. The event is held every year at midnight on the first day of practice. Kentucky always sells out the event, 25,000 rabid fans strong. The coaches, players, fans and celebrities pack Rupp Arena for a three-hour show. The event has gained such stature that it is shown live on ESPN. Because of the NBA strike, the house was full of former Wildcat NBA stars, such as John Wall.

The evening was electric as the arena was bathed in Kentucky Blue all night while the crowd was entertained by speeches from Coach John Calapari, player introductions, cheerleaders, dance teams, celebrities and finally, an inter squad scrimmage.

Bob Stoops, technical services manager of Rupp Arena and David Haney of SGSP/ Sho

USA - ZZ Top and Lynyrd Skynyrd have teamed up since the summer of 2011 to deliver maximum rock n roll to legions of fans across the US. Bandit Lites has served as illumination vendor on the sold out package, which continues into 2012.

Designers Steve Owens and Chris Stuba combined their ideas and delivered a system that was large and afforded each act a separate and distinct look. VL 3000 Spots, VL 3500 Washes, GLP Volkslichts, Martin 301's, Atomic Strobes, 2 Lites, 8 Lites, Source 4 Lekos and ACL's all were brought into play on the show. Stuba used a Grand MA console while Owens preferred a Maxxyz Plus.

The show is a combination of LED technology with the new moving lights from Martin and GLP with the tried and true VL's, strobes and such. Owens and Stuba worked many days at the Bandit Venue 1 rehearsal hall, as well as in Bandit's virtual suite in order to prepare their pro

USA - For the past four months pop rock band Train has been out on a double headed tour of North America, alongside Maroon 5. Always on the lookout for new products and equipment, Train's lighting designer Brock Hogan wanted a wall of light at the front of the set while at the same time creating an entrance for the band from the centre piece.

Brock discussed his ideas with Craig Mitchell at LMG Touring, who took up the challenge to find a low resolution video product that allowed the band and crew to walk through it. When Brock was shown G LEC's Solaris+, he knew he'd found the right product.

Brock says, "I wanted to position the wall of light at the front of the set so that backline techs would be hidden from the audience, yet able to see their musicians. My idea was to keep the look simple for this particular show and Solaris+ allowed me to select subtle single layers o

USA - Following their success at this year's PLASA in London by winning an Innovation Award, ELC Lighting's Green-GO digital show communications system designer Joost van Eenbergen and sales manager Silvio Cibien have returned from LDI in Orlando with a second award: the LDI 2011 Best Debuting Product of the Year award in the sound category.

Silvio Cibien said, "After winning the PLASA Innovation award in London we were delighted to pick up another award in the USA. We have attended every LDI since we started the company back in 1998, but this has been the best one for us. There was great interest in Green-GO, especially after we won the award, and because of this we started signing up regional distributors in the USA on the booth."

Green-GO is a new intercom system that provides high quality digital voice communications, as well as optional and messages with cue li

UAE - Martin Professional's award-winning MAC Aura wash light is quickly finding its way into lighting rental company inventories around the world. As a leading supplier to the event production industry in the Middle East - and following a visit to the PLASA trade show in London - Dubai-based Eclipse Staging Services has made an investment in the new Aura which won a PLASA Award for Innovation.

Darren Hodge, Eclipse Dubai's GM, who made the decision to purchase the lighting fixtures, says, "Eclipse has been very happy with the Martin MAC 301s; they are constantly in use by our team and requested by clients for their versatility. I was very impressed with the new Aura light and had no hesitation in being the first company in the region to add these units to our extensive lighting stock. They have just arrived and are already being used by our team at the Live Nation DXB Beac

USA - PLASA Focus: Austin welcomes a raft of new exhibitors as the two-day event expands its floor plan yet again. The new style of regional event, to be held 22-23 February 22-23, 2012 at the Renaissance Austin, Texas, has doubled its footprint in the past week, with over 25 companies committed to taking part and as many applications being processed.

Joining confirmed exhibitors ETC, Barbizon, Philips Color Kinetics, Doug Fleenor Design, Strong Entertainment Lighting, Chauvet, A.C.T Lighting, Global Design Solutions, CommuniLux Productions, GLP German Light Products, Daktronics Rigging, Total Structures, Arri, Rosco, Rose Brand, Robe, High End Systems, Secoa and Clay Paky, amongst others, are new exhibitors; Elation, White Light, LSC, James Thomas Engineering, Creative Stage Lighting, Inlight Gobos, Mainstage Theatrical Supply, Martin Professional and TMB.

PLASA Focus' much t

USA - Chauvet won the Best Big Booth award at LDI 2011 in Orlando. "I am very grateful for all the hard work and creativity that went into this INfectious presentation. Congratulations to all and special kudos to the marketing team, the product team and the tradeshow setup crew," said Albert Chauvet, CEO of Chauvet and Iluminarc.

Almost 300 Chauvet MVP video panels were interlocked into a large-scale wall framing out the booth on three sides to create an immersive experience. Against that backdrop, a truss spider held over 200 fixtures, including the premiering COLORado Zoom Tour wash lights and Legend 412 LED moving yokes. At the floor level, a runway was flanked by Q-Wash 560Z-LED moving heads and the new Épix Series of pixel mapping fixtures running on ArKaos Kling-Net protocol.

four days for the Chauvet team to set up the 'Infectious' booth, using seven un

UK - On 16-17 November lighting supplier White Light is to appear at BVE North at the Manchester central Arena to display their products specifically designed for the TV and Studio market.

On stand 410 will be the KLA 600 Softlight from Galaxia, offering flicker free soft light with adjustable colour temperature (2700 - 6500°K). It can be controlled locally via a handset, which allows accurate settings to be replicated across multiple standalone units, or via DMX. Robust & reliable, it offers a 30% reduction in power consumption over fluorescent softlights.

Robert Juliat's Aledin 330LF offers a high output LED, a 200mm Fresnel lens; the fixture gives a very powerful wash effect. Economical, the330LF extends colour media life due to its low heat output, and requires fewer maintenance calls thanks to its extra-long-life LED.

The RevEAL Studio from Prism Projection is a pro

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