UK - Artistic Licence has announced a significant upgrade to its popular free software application, DMX-Workshop.

Designed as a network management, analysis, configuration and diagnostics tool for Art-Net networks, DMX-Workshop now offers an improved user interface and sophisticated new functionality. This includes a 'ping radar' for instant node detection, data packet analysers for both Art-Net and RDM over Art-Net, and the ability to transmit sACN and KiNET data.

Not to be left out, the handy Bandwidth-Tester application has also undergone a major overhaul. Bandwidth-Tester is designed to allow stress testing of a network by transmitting multiple universes of lighting data. The new version allows the user to select unicast operation in Art-Net 3 mode or to broadcast data for worst case network analysis. In addition to Art-Net, the sACN and KiNET protocols are also now suppor

Germany - UK wireless LED lighting manufacturer Core Lighting enjoyed a busy and successful Prolight+Sound 2015 - the first time the Core brand has exhibited directly under its own banner at this show but with the usual support of White Light as exclusive European distributor.

Core with White Light took advantage of the dynamic international mix of Prolight's visitor base to launch its new StripPoint LED batten fixture, as well as using the opportunity to meet potential new dealers from Europe and further afield.

Having just appointed Keylight as dealer in the Netherlands to supplement other dealers in other European countries, Core is keen to further expand its network worldwide.

They additionally showcased the tiny new PinPoint units and best-selling ColourPoint Mk2 range of wireless battery-powered up-lighters together with other innovative luminaires, all proudly 'Made i

Mexico - Ensconced amidst the glistening glass, steel and concrete modernity of Santa Fe, a bustling commercial and business hotspot in the west of Mexico City, in their new office and warehousing facility at the Expo Bancomer is Matatena Producciones.

The company is a design and rental - sound, lighting and video - specialist fast gaining recognition for the imagination, creative flair and energy they bring to a variety of events - from product launches, corporates and industrials to weddings, parties and socials.

The company was started six years ago by Manuel Macouzet Hierro and Gerardo Boue who had initially met a couple of years earlier whilst working on assorted events - for different companies at the time. Matatena is a new and recent investor in Robe products with the purchase of 32 Pointes.

They are also a 'preferred' technical production supplier for events at the

Denmark - The eye-catching Black Diamond cultural centre in Copenhagen is a modern waterfront extension to the old Royal Danish Library building. Earning its quasi-official nickname from its polished black granite cladding and irregular angles, it houses a number of public facilities, centred round its top-lit atrium.

One of the main features of the centre is The Queen's Hall, a 600-seat auditorium used for a variety of events ranging from classical and jazz concerts to literary events and conferences. The hall's cutting-edge acoustic modelling allows for sound reinforcement that can be adjusted to the specific requirements of the type of music being played. This, in theory, made the venue ideal for the recording of classical music, but the noise generated by the existing lighting system rendered this impossible. In fact, the hall's authorities had, with little success, sought a

Europe - Entec's lighting department is enjoying another busy season with The Australian Pink Floyd Show (TAPFS), currently touring Europe with a lighting design by Phil White which is being operated by Tom Mumby.

Entec's project manager Noreen O'Riordan comments, "It's great to see the popularity of this tour grow together with the investment in production values. It really proves that there is a huge demand for live shows and that a diverse selection of people want to appreciate legendary and influential music first hand. Apart from that, we're very proud to be part of an absolute top production team and crew."

Entec's working relationship with TAPFS dates back to 2004, when they decided to seriously up the ante in terms of production.

That same year, current TAPFS Production Manager Chris Gadd - universally known as Gaddie - also undertook his first gig for Ente

South Africa - For the live telecast of Miss South Africa 2015, designer Joshua Cutts of Visual Frontier picked up producer / director Gavin Wratten's gauntlet to help bring a fresh look to the high profile beauty pageant staged at Sun City Superbowl.

Central to his lighting and set design was the specification of 24 x Robe BMFL Spots moving lights. Gavin's re- imagining of the show in a new and contemporary context involved a 30m long black high-gloss central runway emanating from the stage, traversing to the centre of the venue.

Sic Productions produced the event for Sun International. The traditional gala dinner set up was ditched in favour of tiered VIP seating - fashion show style - flanking the catwalk.

Broadcast live on TV channels MNET and Mzanzi, this redefinition of traditional beauty pageant presentation was hailed as a major success by the media and received with

Germany - Prolight+Sound 2015 was a great success for Clay Paky. The 60 demos that were held one after the other in German and English during the four-day fair were seen by more than 10,000 people, with an average of 150-200 spectators at each.

The Clay Paky stand was designed to look like a large cinema where the Clay Paky lights were the stars of the show, thanks to a high resolution LED wall provided by Unitech Digital Media.

Pio Nahum, Clay Paky CEO, comments, "In my memory, I cannot recall another ProLight+Sound that was so busy and so full of visitors. Our demos were literally taken by storm and the interest in our new products was constant and widespread. We had some very interesting new contacts and noticed a general revival in the industry."

Clay Paky's stand stood beside the Osram stand. This year, Osram chose to be in the hall devoted to show technology

UK - Lighting designer Tom Campbell is using an Avolites Tiger Touch II for the entire run of Australian progressive rock band Karnivool's European tour - and has recently upgraded to the new operating system Titan V9.

Karnivool has played dates in countries across Europe, including France, The Netherlands, Germany and the UK. Campbell has been controlling a large rig for much of the tour. At one of the major UK shows at London's Roundhouse, this included a mixture of Robe MMX spots, Robe 600LED wash and 100LED beams, Showline NITRO 510 strobes.

"The new features of V9 are great - Key Frame Shapes is an extremely powerful new addition to Titan," says Campbell. "It adds a new dimension to the show, even the band noticed and mentioned how it looked cool in soundcheck. I used this to run some original looking dimmer effects over 42 asymmetrically rigged 60-watt squ

Germany - French LED lighting manufacturer Ayrton surprised visitors and clients with the launch of no less than seven new products at Prolight + Sound 2015. The newest developments added three fixtures to Ayrton's Creative Solutions line, two specimens to its Imaging Displays portfolio and a further two additions to its Automated Luminaires range.

Heralded as the A61 Project prior to the show, Ayrton revealed a totally new technology that combines the first 94mm diameter narrow beam angle collimator with the latest generation high-power (40W or 60W) Osram multichip LED. Together these two elements create tighter beams with "an unrivalled centre beam intensity" that Ayrton has incorporated into three new Creative Solutions fixtures: MagicDot-R, CosmoPix-R and VersaPix-RS.

The latest member of the RADICAL series, MagicDot-R is the first professional moving head LED lu

USA - Chauvet Professional has added a versatile LED house light to its award-winning line of Ovation stage and studio fixtures. The new Ovation H-105WW is a warm white fixture that features COB LED technology to produce an exceptionally flat, even, flattering field of illumination when used as a house light in any environment.

Powered by a 100-watt, 50,000-hour-rated, 3048K (at full operation) LED source, the Ovation H-105WW is suitable for theatres, houses of worship, colleges and other venues that want to bring the energy-saving, low-heat, low-maintenance advantages of LEDs to their house lights. Additionally, it features convection cooling for completely silent operation, as well as adjustable PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) to eliminate flickering, making it a perfect choice for applications that involve TV and video filming.

"Many theatres and churches are so happy wit

Germany - The launch of Green-GO's new wireless extension of its Ethernet based multi-channel digital intercom system at this year's Prolight+Sound has been hailed a huge success by the company's sales manager Silvio Cibien.

He explained "We chose to début the new wireless system in Frankfurt as the event is always a highlight on our calendar and we are aware of the calibre of people that are drawn to the show. It is a truly international event and we wanted to introduce our new product to the world. It really is a remarkable development for the Green-GO system and as predicted, it was an amazing crowd catcher."

Silvio continued: "This year, we chose to take a display at the entrance of hall 8 which was instrumental in leading many curious customers to our booth. Visitors to our stand got to see the system in action and were extremely impressed with what

Germany - Robert Juliat served up an extremely well received menu of new products at Prolight + Sound 2015, starting with the presentation of its new asymmetrical LED cyclorama light, DALIS. The new 300W batten proved the hit of the Lightpower Village: DALIS stunned everyone with its powerful, smooth coverage and the huge variety of pastel and saturated colour generated by its 8-colour LED sources. "The spread and density of the light produced combined with the silent fanless operation makes it ideally suited to theatre and television," says sales director, Claus Spreyer. "We are really excited by the prospect of bringing this superb new Robert Juliat product to our customers."

Prolight+Sound also saw the official launch of Roxie, Robert Juliat's first LED followspot. The compact 300W wonder went down a storm with the visitors who said it is the ideal energy-

Germany - Philips has secured yet another successful year at Frankfurt's Prolight+Sound expo. The company launched a wide range of industry-anticipated new products from its entertainment lighting brands, including the Vari-Lite VL4000 BeamWash, Strand Lighting 500ML console and an array of innovative Showline luminaires, which garnered much excited feedback from visitors.

A dedicated Philips Vari-Lite booth was situated in the Lightpower village, where the VL4000 Spot and VL4000 BeamWash were product highlights.

"The new Vari-Lite VL4000 BeamWash gained much attention and a lot of praise at Prolight + Sound," says Bjoern Gaentzsch, Product Manager for Marketing and Public Relations at Lightpower. "Our customers were very happy with the fact that Vari-Lite has again developed a true masterpiece."

Alongside the Vari-Lite stand, Philips supported partner co

UK - Over the past few years there have been a number of studios closing in London meaning that more and more work is being filmed in different parts of the country. So it was very refreshing when we recently filmed The Javone Prince Show in up-and-coming Rivoli Ballroom.

The South London building was originally built back in 1913 and is the only ballroom still intact in London. It has been used for a variety of different things over the years but the untouched cool, vintage interior now means it's the kind of trendy venue artists such as Noel Gallagher want to play.

The beautiful building was the perfect backdrop for a stand up style comedy show with a cabaret style twist.

After his success on shows such as Horrible Histories, I've Got No Head and PhoneShop, award winning comedian Javone now has his own new sketch show.

Javone trained at LAMDA and as

USA - A new contemporary live entertainment venue, Livewire, opened recently in Scottsdale, Arizona, outfitted with a large, professional lighting and video system from Elation Professional supplied by Elation dealer Fyxx Entertainment. Located in the heart of Scottsdale'sEntertainment District, Livewire is Arizona's newest premier concert and performance space, playing host to a spectrum of national touring acts (Jeff Bridges, The English Beat, Boyz II Men) and up-and-coming local bands all supported by state-of-the-art sound, lighting and production.

Designed from the ground up for live music, the 14,000 sq ft. venue occupies the same location that iconic Scottsdale nightclub Axis/Radius did for 16 years. Les Corieri, owner of Evening Entertainment Group, shut down the club last summer to make way for the 1,100-guest live entertainment destination.

Adrian de Pamphilis, owner

Top Gear - The musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is to tour the UK from December. The production opens at the West Yorkshire Playhouse on 2 December, where it will play for nine weeks. It will then begin a tour of the UK and Ireland, beginning at the Mayflower Theatre on 10 February, 2016. It is produced by WYP and Music and Lyrics.

Silver Scream - Primal Scream will be named musical icons at the Silver Clef award ceremony in July. The band, who were instrumental in shaping the indie pop scene in the early 1990s, called the icon award "a real honour". Previous winners of the icon award include Sir Cliff Richard, Dame Vera Lynn, Madness and Fatboy Slim. Rita Ora, a recent judge on The Voice, will be named best female, while music producer Mark Ronson will be given this year's innovation award.

The Silver Clef awards, which celebrate their 40th anniv

UK - Last month White Light had its first opportunity to light the way for Fast Forward, a fundraising gala evening at the National Theatre. Featuring an auction for once-in-a-lifetime experiences and excerpts from forthcoming productions, the event raised proceeds for NT Future - a transformative project providing new facilities for audiences, artists and young people.

Fast Forward took place on March 4, 2015 and attracted a glittering guest list including: Simon Callow, Olivia Colman, Frances de la Tour, Anne-Marie Duff, Sir David Hare, Ian Hislop, Patricia Hodge, Tom Hollander, Jeremy Irons, Lesley Manville, Andrew Scott, Fiona Shaw and Anna Wintour.

Held in the Olivier Theatre, innovative event design saw the stage utilised for dinner service, keeping the vast auditorium space free for the plethora of entertainment. Performances included: Damon Albarn showcasing a song fro

UK - Following a hugely successful Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt, ETC is getting ready to head to northern England, where its most popular new and updated products will be on display at PLASA Focus Leeds.

The new Source Four LED Fresnel adapter is set to take pride of place in the lighting area, alongside ColorSource PAR - the new addition to ETC's LED range which perfectly suits budget-starved venues without sacrificing the output quality or customer service levels that people have come to expect.

Source Four's miniature sibling, Source Four Mini, will also be on display, proving that bright, accurate light can come in a small package.

Meanwhile, an ETC Gio control desk will be joined by ETCnomad and ETCnomad Puck, each of which comes with powerful Eos-family software and provides similar lighting control features.

Gio is a compact control desk with big ideas: its fast, eas

UK - UK companies installing energy monitoring systems, such as the MeasureMyEnergy equipment offered by consultancy :entertaining sustainability, can now qualify for upfront financing from the Carbon Trust's Energy Efficiency Financing Scheme.

The scheme, which is run on behalf of the Carbon Trust by Siemens Finance, provides initial funding for the installation, with repayments made over a maximum of five years from the savings generated by working with the equipment.

The MeasureMyEnergy system - already installed at the Royal Opera House's Linbury Studio - utilises sensors on each circuit within a distribution board to log consumption, flag up anomalies and present real-time data via a secure web app.

Companies already working with the system - anecdotally report savings of between 10% and 20% through the ability to target the highest areas of consumption within a buildin

UK - Artistic Licence, the experts in lighting control, invite visitors to stand N-B23 at this year's PLASA Focus Leeds. Making its debut is versaSplit mini, a multi-functional modular DMX distribution system that promises to be the lighting control industry's equivalent of a Swiss Army knife.

versaSplit mini is housed in a compact metal case, suitable for desktop or truss mounting via an adapter. It comes with an inter-changeable input module, allowing the user to select between DMX/RDM, Ethernet (Art-Net, sACN & KiNET) or CRMX wireless DMX input.

The product features six splitter outputs, fitted with 5-pin XLR connectors. Moreover, all the input modules allow the user to switch to a 'fix mode' if any flickering is encountered.

The beauty of the product is that all the input modules (of which there are six types) can be purchased separately, making versaSplit mini an extrem

UK - Chroma-Q Color One 100 LED Pars made their debut at Worthing's Connaught Theatre beaming bright, primary colours for an all-star production of Aladdin.

Originally an early cinema called the Picturedrome, in 1935 the venue was turned into a theatre when the Worthing Repertory Company outgrew its own premises - bringing with it the name Connaught Theatre. Last year's pantomime, Aladdin, starred singer Jon Lee of multi-million selling band S Club 7, alongside Britain's Got Talent semi-finalists Kieran Sutcliffe and Sarah Jameson.

The Color One 100 LED Pars were purchased for use in the venue's Studio Theatre, but made their debut in the main auditorium for the panto, to provide bright and comprehensive stage coverage.

"The main attraction of the Color One 100s for me was the excellent colour mixing and replication along with the decent lens,"

UK - A special version of Robe's Robin LEDWash 800 PureWhite SW fixture was specified by lighting designer and broadcast lighting and visual media effects specialist, Manfred Ollie Olma, from Cologne, Germany based lighting and visual design practice, mo2 design, for the new state-of-the-art Al Jazeera broadcast studio in London.

The studio, located on the 16th floor of The Shard in London features 80 of these Robe moving lights.

mo2 design was commissioned by set design and constructor Studio Hamburg, Germany's leading production service centre for film and television, which installed the studio's set and infrastructure on the strength of their designs for other high profile TV studio installations. These have included Phönixhof in Hamburg (also using Robe lights) and Sky Sports News in Munich.

The 600sq.m London studio is divided into two elements - the News Studio and th

UK / Belgium - As AED Master Distribution, with its HQ in Belgium, continues to expand to new territories with brands such as High End Systems and QSC Pro Audio, the company has recently added a couple of new profiles to its team.

The first new team member is Paul Young, who has been appointed as Brand Manager Rigging. Paul brings over 20 years' of the Live Entertainment sector and a wealth of experience gained in rigging and stage lighting to the position.

AED Distribution currently distributes some of the industry's leading rigging brands including the Prolyte trussing & staging range and Columbus McKinnon hoists, and wishes to add Young's experience to this rapidly growing area of their business. His role will primarily be to manage the brands and the link between manufacturer and the expanding AED sales team to ensure end users benefit from a truly focussed relationship wi

Germany - Power management company Eaton launched its new FLX lighting console - part of a new performance lighting control product line from Zero 88 - at Prolight+Sound in Frankfurt.

The Zero 88 team helped generate a great buzz and enjoyed a huge response to the FLX from the public as well as amassed international press and media.

A special press event on the Thursday was attended by a slew of industry journalists from around the world, and FLX demonstrations involving multiple consoles took place throughout the show on the stand of Zero 88's German distributor Ultralight. This was right at the heart of all the action in Hall 11 - arguably and consistently the busiest of the expo.

FLX has been designed to maximize the creativity and time of lighting designers working on medium sized shows across all sectors of the industry.

This powerful and compact console offers a clea

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