UK / USA - White Light's Digital Festoon System, launched at the 2004 PLASA Show where it won a PLASA Award for Innovation, found its way onto a number of UK lighting projects this summer, and is now on its way to the ETS-LDI Show in Orlando, Florida.
A radical re-think of traditional festoon lighting, the Digital Festoon System offers users the ability to individually control the level of each bulb along a length of festoon, while still being formed from a traditional two-core festoon cable.
The first to use the system in a real-world project was lighting designer Gary Collins, on a large outdoor event for VS Creative. "VS Creative had asked me to come up with an efficient and cost-effective way to light a 400m path through the woodland grounds of the venue, allowing guests to return to the car park after dark," Collins explains. "Light levels had to be generous as this path was cut through 1.5metre high grass and the surface underfoot was uneven with the odd rabbit hole! We also had to be considerate to the natural environment; we couldn't use hot lamps to light the trees because of the fire risk, and LED units were out of the budget. Festoon seemed the natural choice."
Collins then remembered a conversation he'd had with White Light's managing director, Bryan Raven. "Bryan had mentioned the DFS to me, and this seemed like the perfect project to give it a shot. We installed a low-level run of DFS with the lamps at 1m spacing along each side of the path, interspersing the DFS units with standard static Festoon lamps. The static units p
UK - Digital media specialist Projected Image Digital has supplied the Hard Rock Café London with a bespoke Element Labs VersaTILE installation for their newly refurbished Basement Bar. Hard Rock Café London, the first and most famous venue of this landmark brand, has just reopened after extensive renovations. Its interior was designed by Paula Reason of Cadmium Design, a London-based designer involved in creating many of the Hard Rock Café interiors worldwide.
Reason wanted a central light feature in the bar to continue an ongoing theme of using light to interact 'live' with the people within specific Hard Rock spaces. This had been started at previous Hard Rock projects and has taken many different formats. However for the new-look London venue she wanted something completely different.
Reason became aware of PID, and the VersaTILE product, and contacted them for a demo. Apart from the amazing liquid effects made possible, there was also an obvious connection in using a stage lighting technology product and the Hard Rock theme.
Reason wanted the entire back of the bar area to be covered top to bottom in VersaTILES, complete with three different sized screens (one plasma and two TFTs) embedded into the surface. She originated a 350 pixel design, measuring 4m long by 1m high, with each pixel (i.e. VersaTILE) required to measure 10 x 10cm. Each of the special sized tiles is edge lit with 18 LEDs, six red, six green and six blue.
Video inputs are fed into the 'VersaWall' via an Element Labs C1 controller, specified by PID as a simple to use
Austria - dBLuX has been appointed the Austrian distributor for LSC Lighting. Following the appointment, Thorsten Sattler of dBLux visited the LSC Melbourne headquarters to undertake three days of intensive training on the LSC range of lighting equipment.
"It was great to see inside the company and to meet all the people who work there," said Sattler. "Now I understand what will happen inside the company when I send my orders through to them. Richie Mickan spent a lot of time with me and he has showed me so much - products, people and anything else I was interested in.
"It was a great start for both of us. I have had the chance to get to know the guys more than I can do over phone. We had many discussions on what we can do together in the future and I am looking forward to a long term partnership."
(Jim Evans)
UK - Ali Baba is a major new creation to the tableaux this year at Blackpool Illuminations. Designed by Graham Ogden and the Blackpool Illuminations team, eleven James Thomas Engineering PixelPar 90s saturate the feature in continuous colour.
The all-weather PixelPars are rigged facing the construction, animating the characters via complex programming sequences - bringing the busy seafront traffic to a halt.
The huge complex scene features moving illusions, authentic sound effects and a giant illuminated waterfall. Housed deep in the water, a submersible IP68 PixelPar 90 provides the radiance to light up the waterfall.
Illuminations manager, Richard Ryan enthuses: "The PixelPars were selected for this project due to their outstanding build quality and technical flexibility. Blackpool promenade is an extreme environment and to be frank only high quality well designed fixtures are ever adequate for the task of operating in these conditions. We are very happy with the performance of the units, the tab looks awesome."
(Jim Evans)
UK - HSL supplied lighting and sound for all main performance areas at the Isle of Wight's Bestival festival. The event, produced by Loud Music, was enjoyed by over 25,000 people across three days of music. This is the second year that Lancashire-based HSL has supplied Bestival. In addition to the main stage, HSL provided lighting and sound for the Big Top, the Bollywood Bar, The Hidden Disco and the JD Lounge. It was co-ordinated for HSL by Mike Oates and followed hot on the heels of HSL supplying the majority of the sound and all the lighting production to Creamfields 2005.
The HSL site crew consisted of 15 lighting and sound technicians, crew chiefed by Ian Stevens. The event was production and site managed by Lee Charteris and Jo MacKay for Loud Music. Bestival 2005 was headlined by Magic Numbers, Mylo, Royksopp, Soulwax, Howard Marks and the Super Furry Animals.
"The 15m wide Orbit main stage was extremely tight for space", said HSL, "so every inch had to be used thoughtfully and integrally by the lighting design which was created by Steven Abbiss".
The moving lights were 14 Robe ColorSpot 1200 ATs and 12 ColorWash 1200 ATs, and these formed the workhorses of the rig, which also featured 10 Martin Atomic strobes, six Molefeys and an assortment of Pars.
For control, HSL offered any visiting lighting designers the options of an Avolites Pearl 2004 or a Hog II, set up so all the lights could be swapped between both desks. It was a challenging site to work, with a difficult terrain and steeply downhill get-in.
FOH sound was babysat by M
Germany - Everything Flows was the motto of September's Drinktec exhibition in Munich, Germany, where G-LEC installed its biggest LED PhantomFrame system ever.
International market leaders in the field of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottle production and labelling, Krones AG, took over an entire hall at the popular exhibition, central to which was a striking and dynamic two storey construction known as the Think Tower. Used as a meeting and business centre, the tower was clad with 288 1m x 1m PhantomFrames, creating almost 300sq.m of video and moving graphics.
The video content comprised a combination of solid colours flowing through to graphics and video footage, ensuring that the activity going on inside the tower was complimented by the liveliness of the images on its fascia.
G-LEC provided six of its own trained technicians to construct the Think Tower. Once the tower was completed and signed off they were immediately off to their next assignment - building an open-air LED system for a German car manufacturer in the harbour of Ibiza Town.
(Jim Evans)
UK - Staging, lighting and sound company Stagecraft has reported a record Summer for its Hire Department. Based in Salisbury, the hire team from Stagecraft has travelled throughout the country, with hire projects in Edinburgh, Reading, Southampton, Winchester and Windsor.
"We have been delighted to work with so many festivals, concerts and parties this Summer and are hoping to build on this success in 2006," says technical director Mike Naish. "Not only have we been involved in short hire projects this year, but also long-running events such as the Edinburgh Festival and locally at the Salisbury Festival. Some of our staging even made its TV debut on the set of Channel 5 programme, The Farm, and we have thoroughly enjoyed working on such a variety of different projects."
One of the largest projects for the company this Summer has been its work with travelling Festival Hildegard, which visited three cathedrals including Norwich, Salisbury and St David's in Wales and the famous St John's concert venue in Smith's Square, London. Stagecraft supplied lighting equipment for the festivals including ETC Source Four Profiles and Pars, DMX Strobes, Par 36 8 Lite, Par 16, Avolites Dimming, Zero 88 Control Desk and rigging.
Other work this year has included: lighting, staging and sound for the Salisbury Festival, supply of the Arc Roof for the Lulworth Blues Festival and the Southampton Mela Festival for Art Asia, staging for events in Reading, Winchester, Southampton and Windsor, trussing and lighting for the Edinburgh Festival and lighti
UK - The new PixelEight fixture from James Thomas Engineering is the first in a new series of contemporary versions of classic lighting instruments. Traditionally called a 'blinder' or '8-lite' this LED version allows the exploration of innovative design ideas using the latest technology, say the company.
Ideal for audience and stage/studio illumination, the fixture offers long-throw capability and a 6° beam. The independent control of each LED cell allows creative programming opportunities and the powerful internal effects engine produces colour strobing and colour scrolling effects. There is no heat projected by the unit, allowing it to be positioned in close proximity to performers, stage sets, screens or drapes. It can also be hung vertically or horizontally for further flexibility. It is robustly designed for touring and boasts extremely low power consumption. Black powder finish is standard with other colours available to order.
(Lee Baldock)The PixelEight from James Thomas Engineering.
UK - ETC now offers its comprehensive product catalogue in Russian. Addressing the growing market demand in entertainment and architectural lighting technologies in Eurasia and other Russian-speaking regions, ETC has responded with this new catalogue version, available on CD-Rom.
ETC catalogues are also available in hard-copy print versions in American English, British English, French, German, and Spanish, with an additional CD-Rom version in Italian.
(Jim Evans)
UK - Lighting rental house HSL Productions has invested in 150sq.m of Main Light Industry's Soft-LED LED drape. This is going straight out on Fremantle Media's new X-Factor series, being recorded at Fountain Studios and broadcast on ITV, say the company.
"There's no other product like it out there right now," enthuses HSL's Mike Oates. "It's a drape that doubles as a video wall and can be rigged by lampies - surely that's every production and lighting company's dream!"
SoftLED is a flexible high-resolution surface that is billed as being suitable for full colour graphics, text and high resolution video effects of all types. The modules can be used in all types of venues and situations from hotel rooms to concert venues and arenas.
In addition to the 6 Soft-LED cloths, HSL has also purchased 180+ I-Colour tiles made by Color Kinetics. These tiles are also employed on X-Factor where they are under the perspex stage floor, receiving high resolution video from PixelMad.
(Jim Evans)
USA - City Theatrical's new PDS-50 is a power/data supply designed for Color Kinetics ColorBlast, ColorBurst, and iColorCove LED lighting fixtures. Its breakthrough technology combines both WDS wireless DMX data and either battery or mains operation, giving it the ability to be a totally wireless DMX controlled LED lighting fixture.
The low power consumption of LEDs and the reliability of City Theatrical's WDS Wireless Data System give designers and users the ability for the first time to light with: No AC power or generators; No power distribution to hook up; No power cables to run; No dimmers; No data cables to run; A setup time of minutes; Built in colour mixing; Low heat; No dimmer noise; 20 hours of battery life on a rolling fade or seven hours of battery life at full output (mixing white light) when using a City Theatrical Battery Base.
The PDS-375TR is a six circuit version of CTI's PDS-750 TR and is a durable touring style LED power/data supply with XLR outputs, selectable DMX addresses, built in stand alone mode, and a built in Mini-Zapi. Its design features a built in carrying handle and mounting hole for hanging from a c-clamp.
The PDS-50 and PDS-375 TR join City Theatrical's PDS-750 TR power/data supply for Color Kinetics LED fixtures, and give users even more flexibility in the way they use their Color Kinetics lighting equipment. City Theatrical's power/data supplies for Color Kinetics are available through City Theatrical distributors worldwide.
(Lee Baldock)
Australia - Australian lighting control manufacturer, LSC Lighting Systems, has appointed Martin Professional (H.K.) Ltd as the Hong Kong and China distributor for its full range of products.
Martin Professional will be responsible for the importation, distribution and technical support of LSC's lighting control desks, DMX network products and the complete range of portable and installation dimming systems.
LSC's managing director Gary Pritchard commented: "Everyone is aware of the large potential of the China market and we have been searching for a suitable partner that can support our broad range of professional control desks and dimming equipment. We are very happy to have found a strong partner in Martin Professional. As a subsidiary of the Danish parent company, Martin Hong Kong and the Martin brand name are both already well known in the industry and we are happy to be associated with them."
Martin Professional (H.K.) Ltd's managing director Raymond Wong commented: "Martin has a well established network in Hong Kong and China. Quite often when our customers come to Martin, they expect a "total solution" package, hence, we have extended our product range to other lighting equipment. We always focus on offering high quality products and we found that LSC is the perfect addition to our current range. We believe their aggressive marketing scheme and highly reliable products will help make LSC successful in high level lighting installations in China."
(Lee Baldock)
UK - Bristol-based Utopium undertook design and installation of the stage and production lighting in the 2000 capacity main room and 400 capacity Carling Academy 2 Newcastle. The stage and dancefloor lighting rigs were designed by Angus Chinn, his fifth Academy project for the Group after Bristol, Liverpool, Islington and Glasgow. Avolites consoles are also used for lighting control in all these other Academy venues.
"We have worked with Utopium on a number of installations at AMG venues and as a group we invest heavily in both our PA and lighting equipment. We set high production values so that all AMG sites can offer the same high quality, in-house production as standard to not only international touring acts, but also talent on the way up," says Group property & development manager, Archie McIntosh.
It was integral that the lighting for Newcastle was designed to cover the needs of the venue's stage and club activity, so Chinn selected from Robe's wide range of moving fixtures. The largest ones used here are the ColorSpor 575 AT and ColorWash 575 ATs, intended to be used as the main over-stage lighting workhorses.
Utopium and AMG have also opted for Robe's compact ColorSpot 250 ATs for both stage and dancefloor beam-work plus their ColorMix 150 AT static wash units - a PC washlight with an 11 dichroic slot colour wheel plus open, dimmer and shutter - over the dancefloor.
There are also strobes, Source Four Junior profiles for band key lighting and eight bars of six Pars in the main room for general illumination, positioned along the front of the b
USA - Martin Professional's International stage, studio and event segment manager, Mark Ravenhill, has relocated to Martin's US headquarters office in Florida from the Martin Danish headquarters. Ravenhill remains Martin's International segment manager for the SSE market, and retains overall global responsibility for the segment.
In other news, Peter Skytte has been named Martin's SSE chief product manager. He has been with the company for over ten years and has headed up Martin's service department for a number of years. Mark Ravenhill commented: "Peter's extensive knowledge of both our customers and our products represents an invaluable addition to the global SSE team for Martin. I am very pleased to welcome him to the department."
(Jim Evans)
UK - It's been a busy summer season of corporate lighting projects for White Light, with the Corporate Lighting team led by Steve Bartlett dealing with events ranging from the Labour Party's pre-election tour to the 30th anniversary screening of Jaws on Brighton beach in front of more than 15,000 people.
Labour's pre-election tour saw White Light working with production company Potcakes on the campaign which covered a wide variety of venues. Since the election, White Light has been involved with the Quincentenary of Christ's College Cambridge and the V Fest lit by lighting designer Chris Biddolph; two events for Barclays at the Excel Centre with lighting designer Tim Ball, and the summer season at the Honorary Artillery Company, lit by Jason Larcombe and Simon Jones.
White Light has also been involved with three projects with Oxygen Events, a massive private party in Plymouth, a new semi-permanent installation at the Trocadero in London and in a day out at the beach in Brighton, an open-air screening of the classic movie Jaws, the latter overseen by technical director Luke Bennett.
Moving into the autumn, White Light's Corporate Lighting team returned to politics, servicing the autumn conferences of both the Labour and the Liberal Democrat Parties.
(Jim Evans)
USA - Color Kinetics Inc and Litecontrol Corporation have announced an OEM agreement. Litecontrol, a leading architectural lighting manufacturer for nearly 70 years, will enter the intelligent solid-state lighting market by applying Color Kinetics' technology, expertise and intellectual property for a unique LED-based product line, say the companies.
Litecontrol's record of innovation includes the development of many widely-used interior architectural fixtures. Recognizing the increasingly prevalent role of LEDs in architectural lighting, Litecontrol will expand its product portfolio with three LED-based offerings that are readily adaptable to common lighting environments, including pendant fixtures and wall sconces. The products will be based on Color Kinetics' versatile Digital Light Engines (DLEs), which apply patented Chromacore technology to efficiently generate colored light and color-changing effects. They will also be compatible with Color Kinetics' line of intuitive controllers, providing a complete, integrated system for diverse applications, from wall washing to cove and accent lighting.
"This agreement marks a natural collaboration between respective leaders in architectural lighting systems and intelligent solid-state lighting technology," said Veda Ferlazzo Clark, president and CEO, Litecontrol.
Litecontrol's first offering of Chromacore-based products from the LC-Euro Collection are slated for availability in Spring 2006.
(Lee Baldock)
Germany - Over 65,000 concert-goers attended this year's Popkomm festival in Berlin, where more than 1,500 musicians from 23 different countries provided over 400 hours of live music in 30 different clubs and halls around the city. In the thick of the action was the Berlin production company TSE AG: the team lead by Marcel Fery was responsible for both the lighting and the sound at many of the main events, including one of the real highlights of this year's Popkomm, the MTV Designerama Fashion Show.
The centrepiece of the sound design, for an event that received widespread media coverage within Germany and drew a large TV audience throughout Europe, was an Electro-Voice X-Line, Midas consoles and processors and EQs from Klark Teknik.
Commented Fery: "The extremely wide stage in the Berlin Arena held no terrors for the EV system, with its coverage angle of 120 degrees. Not only was the sound transparent; it was also invisible, as we were able to keep all the enclosures out of shot!"
(Jim Evans)
USA - For the third year running, Los Angeles-based Visions Lighting helped create the party atmosphere for Spanish-language radio station Super Estrella's annual Reventón concert at The Pond in Anaheim.
Working with Reventón's lighting designer, Chris Reade, Visions Lighting erected an intricate overhead truss structure that dominated the look of the event. The lighting rig itself included 32 Martin Professional MAC 2000 fixtures, 19 Atomic 3000 strobes, 24 High End Studio Color fixtures, 24 Studio Beam fixtures and 20 Molefays.
Visions Lighting, worked around the clock for three days to make Reventón happen. Each of the nine Latin artists playing at this year's event, several of whom had their own lighting designer, played anywhere from a 20 to 50 minute set.
"It's difficult to describe just what Reventón is like for someone who's never experienced it," remarked Todd Roberts, owner of Visions Lighting. "The audience is dressed to the nines; everyone is dancing in the aisles between acts and it's just this big party - not to mention that some of the biggest names in Latin music are playing." This year's sold-out show featured performances by Juanes, Alejandro Fernandez and Julieta Venegas.
Reventón was also one of the first major events where Visions Lighting had used its new Flying Pig Systems Wholehog III console. "Chris (Reade) is very used to the Hog II," notes Roberts, "but it really did not take him long to settle into using the new board. He used it on a small show and then was comfortable enough to use it on R
The ShowLED 'Chameleon' is a full-colour LED starcloth offered in the UK by S+H Technical Support. Producing full RGB colour mixing, the curtain can be used straight out the box as a plug-and-play random colour changing device, or is programmable via any DMX controller. ShowLED once again formed the backdrop at the rear of Earls Court's main hall (see pictures) and also dressed certain other areas of the PLASA Show.S+H also offer a fun video tool for - well, many applications, really. The Inter Active Projector (working title) is a clever piece of software that takes a signal from an IR motion detector, and uses placement of that signal in space to target temporary distortion of the projected image. Confused? S+H projected an animated fishpond on the floor of its stand: as you stepped onto it water would ripple around your footsteps, and fish swim away. Got the picture?
KAM - on the stand of UK distributor Lamba - introduced its first ever lighting range - aimed at the mobile DJ and small installations.
PLASA regulars Lite Puter Enterprise from Taiwan showed the new EDX-610 DMX switching dimmer pack, aimed primarily at the architectural and installation market. Dimmers can be selected for all types of lighting on this six-channel product and different 'on' or 'off' times can be set. The product has recently been used for several five-star hotels in Taiwan, including the Sheraton and the Hyatt in Taipei.
Lagotronics is a Dutch manufacturer majoring in customized LED lighting solutions. Although the company also has a range of standard products, its key interest is in providing total solutions - from design to installation. At PLASA this year it introduced a new range of standard products made in the Far East, all aimed at the fast-growing 'architainment' sector.
New lasers were the main product interest at Chauvet, which gave the world launch of its 'Scorpion' line of DMX-controllable lasers. Featuring a fat beam and taking eight channels of DMX, Scorpion is a very dynamic range. Its USP is the fat beam, which, via a patented optical system, enables a 4.9mW laser to resemble a YAG. Chauvet also showed its range of moving light fixtures.
New from Daslight was the DVC 100 Basic interface for the company's Virtual Controller DMX software. A 'reduced function' version of the company's DVC 512 interfaces, the DVC 100 Basic works with a maximum of 100 channels or 10 fixtures, with the number of scenes, steps and effect is fixed at 30, four of which can be triggered simultaneously. "This was the fourth year that we have exhibited, but the first where the stand has been just Daslight products," said technical and sales manager Vianney Bourjot. "We have been very pleased with the show, meeting new international customers, old friends and regular users."