Germany - High End Systems will be hosting a new competition at Prolight +Sound next week. The first ever Battle of the Hogs competition will take place daily on the High End Systems stand.

The Battle of the Hogs competition showcases the showmanship, timing and talent of Wholehog programmers and operators. Each participant will have 90 seconds to perform on the main console in the performance section of the High End Systems / Arcus booth. Utilizing state of the art lighting equipment such as Technospot, TechnoArc, trackspot Bolt and DLV Digital Lights, the contestants will demonstrate their individual playback abilities on a Road Hog Full Boar lighting console. Each round will feature various tracks of music to ensure the battles are energetic and fierce.

The competition will take place daily from 21-23 March at the following times: 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 3pm, 4pm and

World - Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures are making their mark on the Evanescence Tour, the world tour by American rock band Evanescence in support of their eponymous third album. After a successful start to the tour in the US last year, the band, with frontwoman Amy Lee, is currently playing to packed houses in Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Australia.

Lighting designer Dan Hardiman of UK-based THC Design is using more than a dozen Sharpys as part of the upstage floor lights. He positions them in pairs on draped cases and utilizes them for aerial lighting effects and to back light the band.

"Amy Lee is very creative; it's great to work with an artist who wants to be involved in all the creative aspects of a live show," says Hardiman. "The music has strong contrasting elements: Amy's soaring angelic vocals, the crunchy guitars, the haunting piano sections, the etherea

UK - London- based Entec was asked by show producers Magic Sound to supply lighting and all associated rigging equipment plus crew for a show at Hammersmith Apollo, London by Malaysian Chinese Mandarin pop superstar Fish Leong.

This was part of her Love Page world tour and coincided with celebrations for the Chinese New Year. Leong, known as the 'Queen of Love Songs' is famous for her love themed ballads, many of which have become popular karaoke hits.

Lighting designer Mr Wu (also known as Bevan) sent a plot to Entec and flew in to London from Hong Kong on the Friday night for Sunday evening's gig, which was totally sold out and eagerly anticipated by the local Chinese community.

Entec's project manager Peter Schofield ensured that all Bevan's technical and creative requests were met. He worked with lighting technicians Tom Crosbie, Leo Tierney and Yuko Sano. They lo

USA - Robe Robin 600 LEDWash and 300 Plasma Spot moving lights have been installed to illuminate a 20ft high triple helix glass sculpture created by artist Lyle London, which is suspended in the new Rotunda entrance of the Joyce Eichhorn Ames School of Art in Bloomingdale, Illinois, USA.

The sculpture - an intricate work of extreme elegance inspired by nature's recurring spiral forms - was commissioned by the Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU). It is part of a series of Helix artworks conceived by London that are intended for public atriums. His Tempe, Arizona based company Art In Metal has been established for 25 years, and he has been using glass in most works since 2000.

London has used Robe products in the past, most notably to illuminate another Helix series work in 2007 for the Tahoe Tower lobby at the Renown Healthcare campus in Reno, Nevada. When given the go-ahead on

Germany - LED screen manufacturer Pixled will show its new Pixled F-10 i/o multi-purpose product on Booth E17, Hall 9 of the Prolight+Sound exhibition in Frankfurt.

This latest innovation from Pixled is a truly 'all-round' 10.4 mm pitch screen surface populated with three in one SMD chips that can be used indoors, outdoors or be rigged horizontally - and covered - to become a dynamic dancefloor and under-floor or stage effect.

The standard F-10 i/o tile is fully Indoor use ready. It is a mesh surface and therefore transparent, and excellent for creative indoor work including scenic elements - and also for IMAG displays. The tile dimensions are 50 x 50 cm each of which is super lightweight at only 7 Kg! (28 Kg/sqm)

For outdoor use, Pixled offers optional 'clickable outdoor shaders' which are quickly fitted onto the mesh tiles and include blank panels to 'close' the modules an

UK - Specialist manufacturer Robolights, has recently relocated to new premises in the South West. Robolights' Julian Baycock explained to LSI the reasons for the move: "An ideal premises for our company became available in Exeter allowing us to bring our manufacturing, fabrication, warehousing and administration all under one roof. The well equipped building will enable us to increase our capacity and range of services whilst continuing to serve our ever growing UK and overseas customer base."

Although Robolights is well known throughout the industry for its Smart Socket and other award winning products, a large part of the company's business is the manufacture and assembly of specialist facility panels, power distribution, system control panels and other bespoke items.

Over the years Robolights has manufactured numerous production lighting and audio / AV boxes that

South Africa - The Avolites Titan Training Course, comprising of two two-day sessions in Johannesburg (DWR Distribution Offices), and a one two-day session in Cape Town (The Arena Crew Lounge at the GrandWest Casino), was well attended by delegates fromacross South Africa and Namibia.

The course, presented by Avolites' Emma Thompson and assisted by DWR's Nick Britz, was fully booked with an estimated 20 enthusiastic delegates per day who brought along their own consoles and laptops for visualisers.

"It was really good," said Emma Thompson, who was visiting South Africa for the first time. "At times it was difficult having two different levels of students, some complete beginners to lighting, and some really advanced programmers, but I found I could show even the more experienced users some new tricks. Because I love the software it's great to train on, and it's

UK - Respected UK lighting designer Johanna Town used Philips Selecon PL1 LED luminaires to great effect on Wiki play, Man in the Middle by Ron Elisha.

Staged at Theatre 503 in London, the play is a fast paced journey through the key events of Julian Assange's turbulent life. Each Wiki style scene moves dynamically to the next to arrive at a totally different time or place in his life. From boardrooms to bedrooms, offices to torture chambers, and student flats to hotel rooms, no scene is set for very long.

This presents Town with a tough job - to set a convincing environment for each scene, and to ensure they flow seamlessly from one to the next.

A back and front-lit rear projection screen is the key vehicle by which the time, mood and atmosphere of each busy scene was set. Everything else on the stage - the scenery, the props and even the actors - generally had more

UK - Internationally respected lighting designer Richard Pilbrow has called the annual Knight of Illumination Awards "the most valuable gift to the entire lighting profession".

British-born Pilbrow, who now lives in America, is joint founder of the Association of British Theatre Technicians, Society of Theatre Consultants, The Society of British Theatre Designers, and the Association of Lighting Designers.

He has won countless awards, including the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award in Lighting Design from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Association of British Theatre Technicians Technician of the Year (2000), Lighting Designer of the Year by Lighting Dimensions Magazine (2005), The Wally Russell Foundation Wally Russell Lifetime Achievement Award (2008), and was honoured at last year's Knight of Illumination Awards with a Lifetime Achieveme

USA / Denmark - Phish lighting designer Chris Kuroda (Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, R. Kelly) has a couple of associations to Denmark. One is that he happened to be in Copenhagen on that June day in 1992 when Denmark won the UEFA European Football Championship.

Another is the fact that he is an admirer of Martin Professional lighting gear and has used Martin's 1500-watt MAC III Profile on Phish shows since 2009 - the second Phish tour using the fixture having wrapped up in December.

"It's the perfect fixture for Phish," says Kuroda, who has been with the band for so long - 24 years - that he is considered the fifth member of the group. "Upstaging pointed us to the MAC III Profile and it was a good decision. Brad Haynes at Martin has also been incredibly helpful."

Kuroda has 45 MAC III Profiles placed liberally across the set and uses them for different pur

UK - Newly launched entertainment technology installation company Push the Button Ltd has installed a new ETC dimming and control system into London's famous Royal Court Theatre, with no disruption to the venues busy programme of shows and events.

Push the Button - or PTB - came onto the scene in January 2012 with a mission to provide "an intelligent and sympathetic technical approach to all of its projects and clients". With an inaugural job at what the New York Times calls 'the most important theatre in Europe', PTBs managing director Nick Ewins and his team certainly didn't waste any time making their mark.

Matt Drury, head of lighting for The Royal Court concurs: "The Royal Court receives and considers an extraordinary quantity of new work and each year presents an ambitious programme across its two venues. It's therefore of paramount importance to us that o

Germany - Aside from its range of lighting equipment for theatre, opera and corporate event markets, Robert Juliat will be previewing two new profile ranges at Prolight + Sound 2012 in readiness for their launch later in the year.

On the stand will be the Lancelot 4000W HTI stadium effects projector, the successful 1800W MSR Victor followspot and, just to show that LED has not completely replaced tungsten, the Cink 325LF 2000W tungsten Fresnel which adds the 'traditional touch' to any lighting design. And, one year after the first occasion, the Robert Juliat stand will be lit using the low power, high output, award-winning Aledin fixtures.

After successfully introducing the first framing spotlight with integrated LED light engine in 2010, Robert Juliat is now previewing two innovative ranges of profile spots that combine excellent dimming with homogenous projection quality.

Germany - In the new ilumo range of LED Spotlights the way in which the colour engine handles colour palettes has solved the old problem of intermediate colour being outputted by the LED Fixture during the fade when changing between colours, says Lumonic.

Lumonic, based in Manchester UK, believe they may well be the first company to offer the professional lighting engineer a virtually 'seamless fade' when moving from colour to colour.

This technological breakthrough affords a new level of control and creativity, says the company.

The ilumo ZOOM LED Spot is now in production and will be featured at ProLight+Sound on the Sonoss Stand F45, Hall 9.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - ArKaos will bring two new innovations at this year's Prolight+Sound - the ArKaos Hub, an intelligent network monitor software for media servers running MediaMaster Pro and a new revolutionary Video Mapping Software making its first public appearance at the show.

ArKaos Hub is an application specifically designed to monitor the state of multiple servers running MediaMaster in Fixture Mode. It can also send configurable commands to any video switchers connected to Ethernet using a TCP/IP address.

However, ArKaos Hub's key function is as a real-time backup system that gives instantaneous protection against server failure.

Currently, a backup system requires two servers running ArKaos MediaMaster simultaneously with the same set of visuals and receiving the same DMX commands to produce the same video stream. Any failure of a server necessitates a physical rewiring of t

Sweden - LumenRadio reports that all Robe's Robin 1200 LEDWash product will come with the award-winning CRMX technology as standard.

Robe's track record as a constant innovator also influenced their choice of a wireless technology partner. Not only did they demand the most reliable and best performing wireless system, but their R&D team also wanted to the stretch the envelope by finding a partner that was at the forefront of developing such emerging technologies as RDM (Remote Device Management), RDM over Art-Net and Streaming ACN. An exclusive development program with LumenRadio based on a customized version of the CRMX technology platform became the obvious choice.

"We have collaborated with Robe for over two years and the partnership was a natural step for both companies. The Robin fixtures have truly established themselves as market leading products in their category.

Germany - Version 2.14 is the next major release of the powerful LED control software MADRIX. The update includes four new prime features as well as various other improvements. All of which users can get for free. MADRIX 2.14 is now available for download at www.madrix.com and will be officially introduced at Prolight+Sound this week ( booth A08 in Hall 11.0)

SCE Graph - Showtime, a new stock effect has been added to the built-in graphics and render engine. "The possibilities of this effect alone and in combination with other effects are simply staggering," says the company."Users can expect dozens of customizable options to create stunning new visuals. Graphs never looked so good."

CITP is a widely-known way of communication between media servers and lighting desks or visualizers. When supported by the device, users can now use CITP v1.0 to display preview

UK - The nominees for the 2012 Olivier Awards, which reward achievement in London theatre over the last 12 months, were announced on 15 March at a presentation broadcast live online for the first time. Entertainment lighting specialist White Light, lighting supplier to many of the nominated shows, would like to congratulate all of the nominees -in particular those in the Best Lighting Design category.

This year's nominated lighting designers are Howard Harrison for Anna Christie at the Donmar Warehouse, Bruno Poet for Frankenstein at the National Theatre, and Hugh Vanstone, who received two nominations - for Ghost The Musical at the Piccadilly Theatre and Matilda The Musical at the Cambridge Theatre.

Vanstone's nomination was one of the 10 received by Matilda, the show receiving a nomination in every category for which it was eligible, inclu

Germany - LumenRadio will once again showcase the latest product innovations at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt this week. In Hall 11.0, stand A61 (part of the LMP lounge), the latest releases of the award winning products CRMX Nova and CRMX SuperNova will be displayed and available for demonstration. Also, the new LumenRadio spring 2012 product catalogue will be released with product updates, new installations and new partnerships. Prolight+Sound will also be the first exhibition to feature the new stand featuring typical Swedish elements.

Updated and improved CRMX Nova products and CRMX SuperNova 2.1 brings full CRMX Unity integration for both wireless and wired RDM, DMX and Ethernet merging capabilities and enhanced RDM functionality as well as an improved user interface and stability. The already impressive list of supported Ethernet protocols grows even longer with the latest a

USA - Elation Professional has unveiled its new Platinum Wash ZFX Pro RGBW moving head wash.

Equipped with 19 x 10-watt OSRAM Quad-Color RGBW LEDs, the Platinum Wash ZFX Pro has a total 190-watt LED engine, yet its powerful output rivals a 700-watt wash discharge fixture in brightness. This extreme power, combined with the unit's compact size, makes it an ideal fixture for touring, concerts, theatrical productions - even on the largest stages, says the company.

The Platinum Wash ZFX Pro features a wide-range, high speed 9° - 21° beam angle motorized zoom (17° - 43° field angle), which gives it the flexibility of narrow beam or wide coverage. Another innovative feature is the addition of "FX" -- Chase/Zone effects, which are rings of LED array controllable zones, making the Platinum Wash ZFX Pro a much more high-energy visual effect than the typical wa

Jamaica - John Dacosta is fortunate enough to have been the lighting designer for the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival for the past five years. Not a bad place to spend a late January. For this year's festival, a kick-off celebration as Jamaica celebrates 50 years of independence, Dacosta turned to the design ease of Martin Professional EC-10 LED video panels.

"It was a simple choice to use the EC-10," he states. "I had used the EC-20 panels for last year's show and loved it. When I was presented with the option to use the EC-10, I jumped at it."

A large EC-10 wall upstage centre provided a stunning backdrop while graphics spilled onto surrounding columns of Martin LC Series LED video panels with MAC 101 LED wash lights mounted under each. Dacosta also had EC-10 panels mounted around FOH for IMAG.

"It worked out great. I love the look of the video, th

Denmark - Lighting designer Benjamin la Cour has been using his own Jands Vista T2 lighting console, running the next generation Vista v2 software, on a busy schedule which includes the Musical Silkeborg's production of the Victor Hugo classic, Les Misérables.

Benjamin decided to invest in his own console as he feels that programming shows himself allows him to get the most out of his creative designs. To achieve this he needed to have a desk that he could easily get to know 'inside out'.

To ensure he was making the right choice, Benjamin trialled three major brands of console for one month each. At the end of the period his decision was very clear - Jands Vista.

"I learnt the Vista T2 with incredible ease" he states, "I really love the interface, it makes programming exceptionally fast and enjoyable!"

Benjamin has been running Jands' next

Germany - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light will be showcasing lighting solutions from their exclusive product line at Prolight + Sound in Frankfurt this week on stand A61 in Hall 9.0.

On display will be the White Light Family of products, which will include those from i-Pix, Core Lighting, Prism Projection, Interactive Technologies, Galaxia and CITC FX.

On show from i-Pix will be the Satellite Mk. II. Building upon the success of its highly successful predecessor, the Mk. II Satellite has been completely redesigned. Eight 10 watt high powered RGB and daylight white light engines provide a high light output, whilst saving energy. It is capable of fitting within a 1' square truss for truss toning, or as a wash device. The newest products in the i-Line range will also be on show, featuring linear battens whose configurations include 6x40 watt and 12x40 RGB & White LE

Germany - City Theatrical will be demonstrating their SHoW DMX Neo and SHoW DMX SHoW Baby products at Prolight + Sound Frankfurt (Hall 9, stand C61) this week - and giving away a free pair of the LDI Award Winning SHoW Babys to a lucky visitor

These two products are the latest innovations in City Theatrical's 10 years of wireless DMX development and manufacturing. City Theatrical's SHoW DMX is the wireless DMX of choice for lighting professionals on Broadway and West End shows, permanent entertainment installations, architectural landmarks, and major music tours such as the U2 360 Degree Tour.

SHoW DMX Neo has advanced Ethernet gateway functions including dual Ethernet ports and accepts multiple show protocols such as sACN, Art-Net, and KiNet.

SHoW DMX SHoW Baby takes the same wireless DMX radio and puts it into a small, inexpensive, simple to operate package. Each box is a

USA/Singapore - High End Systems has announced the addition of Jamie Boey as a regional sales Manager for APAC. Boey comes to High End Systems after spending the last two years working as an area sales manager for Robert Juliat where he established and managed the sales activities in Asia regions. In his new role at High End Systems, he is responsible for sales within territories throughout Asia and the South Pacific.

Boey says, "I'm delighted and extremely excited about being part of High End Systems family. HES is always perceived as an innovation company with quality lighting worldwide. I'm passionate about the future of Digital Lighting along with the automated product road map and the continued development of Wholehog consoles."

"The Asia markets are a key segment for the entertainment lighting industry," said Bill Morris, CEO of High End Systems. &quo

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