UK - Philips Vari-Lite's VL4000 Spot and Philips Strand Lighting's Emergency DMX Bypass Switch have both won a PLASA Innovation Award 2014.

GM PLS Entertainment Group at Philips Lighting Richard Schmit picked up the award for the VL4000 Spot from PLASA Governing Body chair Ed Pagett at a glittering ceremony presented by PLASA. Philips Selecon and Strand Lighting Product Segment Manager Bill Richards accepted the award for the DMX Emergency Bypass Switch, which was also presented by Ed Pagett.

Every year, PLASA recognises products that demonstrate progress, through attributes like a new style of thinking, an improvement in technical practice, new technology, materials or techniques, or an improvement in safety. The entries were considered by an expert judging panel comprising Tim Atkinson, Scott Burges, Jonathan Burton, Richard Cadena, Jenni Harris, Tapio Ilomaki, Steve Moles,

Everyman A Winner - Liverpool's rebuilt Everyman Theatre has won the Riba Stirling Prize for best new building of the year. The venue beat five other buildings to win the honour - the Royal Institute of British Architects' highest accolade. Riba president Stephen Hodder called the Everyman an "exceptional new building". He added, "It is a ground-breaking example of how to build a daring bold and highly sustainable large public building in a historic city centre.

The theatre - famed for launching the careers of actors including Bill Nighy, Julie Walters and Pete Postlethwaite - first opened in 1964 in the shell of a 19th Century chapel on one of Liverpool's main streets. However, over the years it fell into a state of disrepair and architects Haworth Tompkins were tasked with designing a new theatre as part of a nine-year £27m rebuilding project, retaining i

Sweden - Wireless Solution Sweden AB and Antari have announced the line of fogger and hazer products offering W-DMX as standard OEM installed or optional.

Users can now get the F-5D Fazer, F-7 and W-515D/W-530D with W-DMX built in as standard. W-DMX is also available as an option in the F-1 and M-4. These high quality foggers and hazers are top choice among users in some of the biggest events worldwide and the ability to operate them wirelessly offers endless opportunities.

Wireless Solution and Antari have been OEM partners for years on several products in the Antari range. The introduction of Antari's Wireless Series transforms digital wireless control of stage effect machines into simple, intuitive control. Antari has gathered the most popular models and given them a convenient wireless function where messy cables are a thing of the past.

Joyce Chan of Antari said, "

USA - Emmy-nominated television LD Fred Bock is always filing away information about possible "future uses" when he encounters a new fixture. So when Bock of Ferri Lighting Design & Associates (FLDA) in New York saw the Nexus 4x4 LED panel from CHAUVET Professional at LDI, he made a mental note. "I thought they did a nice job and could be a good replacement for halogen matrix panels," he said. "They seemed like a nice solution looking for a challenge."

Recently, Bock found a challenge that was tailor-made for the Nexus. The red-hot Australian band 5 Seconds of Summer, whose debut album charted at number one in 11 countries, was appearing on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon, where Bock is the LD. The band presented him with a concept sketch that called for a wall of quartz tungsten halogen panels, but Bock had a better idea.

"I felt t

UAE - Production Resource Group, L.L.C. (PRG), one of the world's leading suppliers of entertainment and event technology headquartered in New York, is acquiring Dubai-based Gearhouse, L.L.C., the largest provider of turnkey event production services across the Gulf Region. PRG Chairman & CEO Jeremiah J. Harris and Peter McCann, the Managing Director of Gearhouse, L.L.C jointly announced the acquisition this week.

Founded in 1994, Gearhouse, L.L.C. has long been established as the market leader with a client portfolio that includes international touring artists The Rolling Stones, Muse, Rihanna, Eric Clapton, and The Prodigy, along with leading global production companies, government agencies and a growing list of key regional venue partners.

For PRG's worldwide clients this acquisition means that they will now have access to a complete range of technical expertise and product

Belgium - Creative lighting and visual design practice Painting With Light has announced a restructure, with Luc Peumans becoming the majority shareholder and CEO with immediate effect, taking over all the company's day-to-day management.

Luc founded Genk based Painting With Light in 1999. He comments, "To move forward on the same trajectory for the next 15 years, I needed to be fully in control and accept responsibility for our future strategies, investments and direction ... and so the deal was negotiated on that basis".

He adds that he and his former business partners - Dimi Theuwissen and Jim Stas - are looking forward to new challenges and horizons and that they have parted "on the best possible terms", and very proud of what the award winning company has achieved to date.

Painting With Light specializes in creating lighting, set and visual designs f

Switzerland - RTI has updated their high professional Nano product range and released the RTI Nano RGB 30 with '10-10-10' ultra white-balanced setup.

The new RTI Nano RGB 30 show laser light systems were especially developed for professional users with high demands that require professional quality without compromise. This new system comes with a '10-10-10' setup, meaning it has nearly an equal power distribution over the colour sources: >10W/638nm, >10W/530nm, >10.4W/450nm and a guaranteed power of 28W after aperture providing an awesome white balance with incredibly good beam specifications of only ca. 6mm/<1.0mrad (full angle!). The red spectrum is covered by 638nm bright red diodes only - no dark 658nm diodes are used! As a green color source, a Coherent Taipan OPSL is integrated.

The major challenge was combining the huge number of single red diodes in an array with good

UAE - Production Resource Group, L.L.C. (PRG), one of the world's leading suppliers of entertainment and event technology headquartered in New York, is acquiring Dubai-based Gearhouse, L.L.C., the largest provider of turnkey event production services across the Gulf Region. PRG Chairman & CEO Jeremiah J. Harris and Peter McCann, the Managing Director of Gearhouse, L.L.C jointly announced the acquisition this week.

Founded in 1994, Gearhouse, L.L.C. has long been established as the market leader with a client portfolio that includes international touring artists The Rolling Stones, Muse, Rihanna, Eric Clapton, and The Prodigy, along with leading global production companies, government agencies and a growing list of key regional venue partners.

For PRG's worldwide clients this acquisition means that they will now have access to a complete range of technical expertise and product

Azerbaijan - Mamedia group teamed up recently with SGM to deliver a full outdoor event concert package for the Nakhchivan city municipality in Azerbaijan; this included all technical project design and event management.

"Not having had any outdoor equipment before, we wanted to offer them a flexible solution in sound and light from top manufacturers, so I chose SGM for the lighting and K-array for the PA system," explains CEO Boris Abdul.

The eight G-Spots used for this open-air show were the first shipment of these fixtures received by Mamedia, who since 2004 have deployed SGM's 1200 spots to high satisfaction. Even though the fixtures are still in good condition, Mr. Abdul wanted to expand his stock with the new LED moving head.

"In my opinion, the G-Spot is the most advanced and innovative moving head in the world market today. The weather in Baku [capital

Estonia - The Vanemuine Theatre in Tartu, Estonia, has just premiered its own new production of the epic Andrew Lloyd Webber musical, Phantom of The Opera.

It is only the third occasion in over 25 years of this work that a producing house has been granted the right to produce a new version of the show adding elements of their own interpretation. It's also the first time that the worldwide hit Phantom has been produced in the Baltic states and former Eastern Europe - all of these facts an immense honour for Vanemuine.

The production is directed by Georg Malvius with a lighting design by Pallé Palme utilizing over 100 Robe moving lights.

The two - both Swedish but constantly working internationally - have collaborated on many previous projects. They enjoy a great working relationship and creative chemistry, and both also have a long history at Vanemuine, o

USA - Located at the confluence of the Mississippi and Elk Rivers, the community of Elk River, Minnesota has been called the 'City of Energy', a reference to its long history of harnessing the power of its two mighty waterways. This tradition makes Elk River a fitting home for River of Life Church, a house of worship that radiates positive energy as evidenced by its many outreach programmes and dynamic worship services.

The environment inside the roughly 6,000sq.ft house of worship matches the vibrant character of its services, thanks in no small measure to a high impact lighting design created by Excel AV Group that uses the Rogue R2 Spot moving head and COLORdash Par-Quad 18 LED par-style fixture from Chauvet Professional to engage worshippers. This was the second phase of a long range project; an earlier phase also utilized Chauvet Professional variable white LED fixtures for

South Africa - Rental company Gearhouse South Africa has added 48 x Robe Robin Pointes to its inventory which went straight onto War Horse, Vodacom in the City and various other events.

"The Pointes are a market leading product in terms of innovation and flexibility," commented Stuart Andrews, lighting operations manager for Gearhouse SA, Johannesburg. "We compared many other products from a variety of manufacturers and they still won hands down. The units have been, as I thought, the star of the show."

(Jim Evans)

UK / USA - GDS (Global Design Solutions Ltd) has just signed a licensing and manufacturing agreement with US-based company ETC (Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc). Under the agreement, ETC will manufacture the GDS ArcSystem and BluesSystem product lines for distribution exclusively in North and South America.

GDS will continue to manufacture and distribute ArcSystem and BluesSystem for other worldwide markets from the company's Bristol, UK, headquarters. "We are extremely happy to have ETC handling these products in the American markets," says GDS managing director Matt Lloyd. "Their ability to manufacture and stock the products locally and provide the level of service needed is a perfect match for GDS."

ArcSystem is an award-winning range of overhead dimmable LED products designed specifically for auditoriums, commercial and retail spaces. Most recently, th

USA - Le Maitre USA will be exhibiting on Booth #2625 at LDI this year at the Las Vegas Convention Centre next month. Among the products on show will be a new hazer making its world debut.

The TBF-Pyrotec flame range is to be exclusively distributed by Le Maitre USA in North America and there will be several of the German manufacturer's machines on the booth along with video footage: 5-Master, Pyromaster & Spraymaster.

In the year of the 20th Anniversary of the G300 Le Maitre is delighted to be running an original 20 year old G300 on the stand next to a brand new one, underlining just how durable this industry leading unit really is! Other fog units on show will include the GForce 3, GForce 2 with Freezefog Pro producing atmospheric low fog and the portable Mini Mist.

HazeMaster - the most powerful hazer on the market today along with the unique oscillating MVS hazer will be

UK - Behind the Scenes - the new charity which supports entertainment technology professionals in times of need - received a kick-start to its fundraising efforts at the Knights of Illumination Awards thanks to a donation from Clay Paky.

The company's Chief Executive Officer Pio Nahum presented a cheque to lighting designer Rick Fisher for Behind the Scenes UK, explaining to the audience that one of the last things approved by the late Pasquale Quadri was this generous contribution to the new charity.

"As an industry, regardless of sector, we all come together to ensure the success of the shows we work on. We work closely together and our colleagues can't help but become our friends. This camaraderie stays with us through the good and bad times and it's only natural that, when our friends fall upon times of hardship through no fault of their own, we want to do anything an

Italy - ArKaos has announced the adoption of its Kling-Net protocol by Italian lighting manufacturer Music & Lights to be incorporated into a number of pixel-based LED lighting fixtures from its Prolights range.

Kling-Net will be retrofitted into four existing Prolights products, Halupix, Chromapix, Halurock and Chromarock, with plans to incorporate King-Net into all new Prolights products from the outset.

The Prolights Halurock is based on a 7x7 matrix of high-lumen CREE Warm White LEDs, with a 2800K° colour temperature which recalls the classic effect of the halogen lamp in rock concerts, while the Chromarock LED moving head is based on a 5x5 matrix of high-lumen Osram Ostar RGBW/full colour LEDs, offering a limitless chromatic generation.

Halupix is a 7x7 matrix of high efficiency CREE LEDs with an on-board modular rigging system designed for arrangement into walls or

UK - High Wycombe-based lighting rental specialist Siyan has recently expanded its stock with the addition of Robe Pointes and more LEDBeam 100 moving lights, all of which were sent directly out on various jobs for the summer as soon as they were delivered by Robe UK.

The Pointes were purchased for their brightness, versatility and excellent features, and the LEDBeam 100s for their tiny size and because, "They are simply one of the most popular fixtures of the moment," states Siyan's MD Nick Valdez.

He adds that the frequency with which Pointes are appearing on riders was another fact making them realise they needed to have them in stock to augment their existing Robe inventory.

Siyan now has approaching 150 Robe moving lights in its rental inventory - a mix of MMX Spots, Pointes, LEDBeam 100s and LEDWash 600s. One of the reasons they keep buying Robe is for the br

USA - Grammy Award-winning singer Colbie Caillat toured the US through the summer beneath a highly original lighting design that featured high-power Elation Cuepix Panel LED matrix blinders fabricated into eye-catching scenic light cubes.

Out on her Gypsy Heart tour, multi-platinum selling artist Colbie Caillat is fond of the Cuepix light cubes. "The artist has told us that the cubes were the highlight of the tour, fetching the most compliments and inquiries of any other element," says Paul Hoffman, owner of full-service lighting production company Pulse Lighting, who provided the complete visual package for the tour. "In fact, she looks forward to incorporating them into her touring plans in 2015."

Built by Steelfab LLC of Denver, "who did a fantastic job" Paul says, each cube consisted of six Elation Cuepix Panels mounted in a steel frame

South Africa - Lighting designer Christopher Bolton recently used 24 x Robe Robin Pointes to provide effects for a special gala dinner and evening of entertainment staged for business systems specialists EOH at Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Bolton was asked to light the event by technical service providers AVL Productions who were working for producers Jam Productions.

He worked very closely with Verusca DiZio and Paul Hughes who designed the stage and set including the video elements, and also with Show Director Samantha McGraw who collated all the musical content. This featured the Mzanai Choir, the Johannesburg Youth Orchestra and platinum selling singer and musician Elvis Blue, together with a house band that backed all the various performing artists in the action-packed entertainment schedule.

A massive amount of detail went into planning this e

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light has recently sponsored UK Theatre Awards for 2014 which took place at London's Guildhall. Produced by leading theatre membership organisation UK Theatre, the annual event recognises creative excellence and outstanding achievement on and off stage throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

White Light, a major lighting supplier for theatre and live performance in the UK, continues to sponsor the event as part of its commitment to supporting the UK's thriving creative sector.

In addition to sponsoring the event, White Light also provided lighting for the celebration. This year, musical theatre star Michael Xavier served as host while guest presenters included Anita Dobson, Tamzin Outhwaite, Angela Griffin, Lesley Joseph, Wayne Sleep, and Debbie Kurup.

Notable winners included:

Best Performance in a Musical: Ja

USA - Renowned motion tracking solution BlackTrax will participate in the highly anticipated Projection Master Classes at LDI 2014 in Vegas, NV from 19-20 November 2014.

The Projection Master Classes is the event for top visual designers and leading projection professionals, as well as senior production executives. Eight intense sessions will provide a forum for discussing creative, technical and leading practical challenges involved in creating, programming and mapping cutting-edge images!

For those participants wishing to get some hands-on and expert insight, Gil Densham, president of CAST BlackTrax, will partake in panel sessions focusing on the technical achievements of Marvel Universe LIVE!. Densham will present a detailed look at realtime motion tracking at 4pm on Wednesday, 19 November 2014.

Bob Bonniol of Mode Studios serves as creative consultant for the Proj

Latin America - ARRI Inc has appointed Wilson Zeferino as its new director of sales, Latin American markets. Fluent in Spanish, Portuguese and English, Zeferino will further develop business and strategy in the Caribbean, Central America and South America. He will also oversee sales efforts and customer service in these territories to strengthen ARRI's presence across the region, the company says.

Zeferino previously worked at Fujifilm in the Optical Devices Division as sales and marketing manager for North America, Latin America, Mexico and the Caribbean. Says ARRI Inc CEO Glenn Kennel: "ARRI continues to grow our business in Latin America's thriving market. I am happy to welcome Wilson to the team."

"ARRI is one of the most highly regarded brands in the world. I'm excited to join such a pioneering technology company and intensify further support in Latin Ameri

UK - The promise of reduced maintenance costs for outdoor theme park cabling systems is offered by the Han-Eco(R) Outdoor connector from Harting.

The new connector is based on a robust high-performance lightweight plastic material which, when mated through its FPM (Fluor Polymer Rubber) flange seal, provides IP65, UV, ozone and acid-rain resistant protection.

Insert options allow simple field installations using screw-terminal monoblock assemblies with 10, 14, 20 and 28 ways at 16 A. Alternatively, mixed audio, video, communications, data and power signals can be handled in a range of four different sized housings.

This modular integrated cabling approach makes Han-Eco(R) suitable for exposed conditions in theme park audio-visual/multimedia installations, and reduces costs by enabling extended maintenance intervals through its ability to withstand adverse outdoor environment

UK - Hawthorn took away the award for Best Lighting at the inaugural Festival Supplier Awards on Wednesday 22 October at the Showman's Show, Newbury Showground. The award was given to Hawthorn based on a case study of the literary Hay Festival.

Hawthorn was tasked with providing the full technical production of the Hay Festival. A major part of the technical provision was a significant lighting remit. The remit included artistic stage lighting, architectural lighting and general site and work area lighting. Hawthorn also provided the power requirements for the whole site, and included the power for all lighting.

The provision included the lighting for nine stages, used for reading sessions, panel discussions and literary performances in the daytime, and musical performances on the larger stages in the evenings. Hawthorn provided Clay Paky Alpha 800 spots, GLP Impression X4 mov

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