2000 marked the first full year of trading for Amptown Cases UK, and a debut appearance at the Frankfurt trade show, where the new SiP case inserts and flying RigRax cases generated an enormous amount of interest. The company's Steve Kane told PLASA: "We have been inundated with enquiries and orders from existing and new customers. In fact, the response has been so much better than we anticipated that we have been taking on new staff to cope with the extra workload."
High End Systems and its lead equity investor, Generation Partners, have hired an investment banking firm to represent High End as it seeks to find a new partner to fund the company's further growth. Although Generation Partners made a substantial investment in High End two years ago, the company's existing management holds a major stake in the company and plans to remain actively involved. The company's expansion plans include a broadening of the product range and a higher profile worldwide, underlined by the new sales offices in New York and London.
Cambridge-based Adda Super Cases has signed an agreement for the exclusive UK distribution of the Con'dome and Flightdome products with French manufacturer Impact Evenement. These innovative protective products, which have become common sights at trade shows around the world in recent months, are ideal for protecting a wide range of lighting instruments in applications from club opening nights, movie premieres, son et lumieres and other outdoor promtions.
Martin Professional is to hire Stig Poulsen as its R&D director. Poulsen takes up his new position in August replacing Finn Kallestrup who leaves Martin at the end of July. Poulsen was previously technical manager at Danfoss Building Control Divisions in Denmark, and prior to that was engaged in development at Infocom Systems, Purup Electronics and ABB Scandia - all Danish firms.
Strand's remodelled Quartzcolor range of HMI and studio fresnels will be piloted into the film location and cinematographic markets by the recently-launched LCA (Lights Camera Action), based in Greenford. Started by directors Nick Shapley, Graham Kerr and Richard Maskell last June, LCA has grown quickly, necessitating a move into the 10,500sq.ft warehouse and office space in the Vari-Lite building, formerly occupied by Brilliant Stages.
MTFX has recently invested in a new glitter (mylar) cutting machine which will allow them to provide a range of glitter and confetti products. In stock at present is over 200kgs of both gold and silver mylar fetti in stock which MTFX can now cut to any size or shape required.
Pulsar has announced a new structure for its sales and marketing department following the recent retirement of Derrick Saunders. Andy Graves has been appointed head of sales and marketing, with Jane Monk as marketing manager and Snowy Johnson as technical sales manager. To complement the new structure, Simon Cox joins the technical sales department, alongside assistant marketing manager Sabrina Marenghi and assistant sales manager Ben Thomson. Support for the sales and marketing department will be provided by Brian Baker covering support logistics, and Lesley Kerr as support assistant, with new team member Trevor Jackson joining as support engineer. The new management line-up will be responsible for all Pulsar sales and marketing activities worldwide and Clay Paky distribution in the UK and Ireland.
The 41st annual Festival Internacional de la Canción de Viña del Mar was held in Quinta Vergara, Chile from February 16 - 21. Held in an open-air arena, this world-famous Latin music festival attracts crowds of up to 18,000 people every night and is transmitted via satellite to no less than 16 nations, with a total audience of 500 million viewers. Since 1994, this festival's lighting rig has been supplied entirely by Pat Henry Iluminación of Mexico City, SGM's official distributor in Mexico, who also handle design and installation. Pat Henry, a well-known LD throughout Latin America, achieved a spectacular visual impact for both the live audience and television viewers. The complete list of SGM hardware included the following fixtures: 36 Giotto Spot 1200s, 24 Giotto Wash 1200s, 40 Galileo IV Live 1200s and 40 Colour Dynamic 100s.
Artistic Licence (UK) Ltd has released a new revision of the Art-Net Ethernet protocol. Art-Net is a TCP/IP protocol that provides a mechanism for transferring DMX512, triggering and console video monitor data over 10BaseT Ethernet cable. The Artistic Licence product DMX-Hub implements the Art-Net Protocol and provides input and output for four universes of DMX512. DMX-Hub can be used as a peripheral to a lighting console that outputs Art-Net or multiple units can be used to transfer DMX512 over Ethernet. In conjunction with the revised protocol, Artistic Licence has also released Art-Net View' which, as the name suggests is a test and analysis program for Art-Net.
Tim Adams is to take on the role of Editor of Installation Europe following Mike Lethby's departure at the end of April. Adams, who for the last few years has been working alongside Jerry Gilbert at JGP public relations, will take up his new position at the end of May.
The International Association of lighting Designers (IALD) will tomorrow award six aspiring architectural lighting design students from around the world with a total of $10,000 in scholarships and cash at the 17th annual Lighting Design Awards, held in New York. The lucky six are Tuuli Somma from Helsinki, Finland; Emily Emerson from Easton, Kansas; Swapna Sundaram from New Delhi, India; Brad Koerner from Boston, Massachusetts; Sandra Loren Park from Glendale, California and Paul Wraa of Pleasant Hill, California. The money is raised by the IALD Education Trust Fund Grant and Scholarship Committee.
Midnight Design has recently opened a new design and sales office next to Euston Station in London. The office, now home to 15 members of the Midnight team, the permanent lighting design and Logistics crew, plus the entire sales and senior management contingent, features a substantial presentation suite and state-of-the-art CAD facilities. It will also meet the needs of Midnight's ever-increasing number of projects, both in the UK and internationally. "Every office desk is permanently linked via high-speed Intranet to our warehouse in Croydon," explains business development manager Damian Dowling. "From there we can access the wider resources and international equipment inventory of our parent company PRG."
Strand Lighting and Futurist are holding an exclusive VIP product showcase on Tuesday 13 June at the Bradford Alhambra Studio Theatre, intended to bring stage, studio and architectural lighting personnel up to date with the latest Strand products. The main feature of the show will be the new Strand 300 series of consoles. Invitations can be obtained by contacting Futurist on +44 1924 468183 or sales@futurist.co.uk
South Korea's LG Corporation recently built a state-of-the-art performing arts centre to enhance its corporate headquarters in Seoul, based around ETC lighting, dimming and control equipment. The Centre is run by the non-profit arm of the $73b LG Business Group, which makes and sells almost everything, from electronics to fashions and financial services. Inside the high rise glass walls of the Centre is a 1,100-seat auditorium, a large rehearsal space and three exhibition halls, as well as dressing rooms and office space. LG Arts installed an Obsession II 1500 Double Processor console, 10 Sensor dimmer racks with a total of 831 dimmers, a custom Unison architectural lighting system and over 400 Source Four and Source Four Zoom spotlights.
Martin Professional's Exterior 600 luminaires are being used to provide colourful illumination on one of England's finest windmills - the Cranbrook Union Windmill in Kent. Built in 1814, the windmill is now owned by Kent County Council. Following the award of a National Lottery grant for refurbishment of the windmill, the Council chose the Exterior 600s after a successful trial in April.
Imagination provided a remarkable lighting display to launch Tate Modern. From dusk on the evening of May 11th, state of the art lamp and laser technology began to pick out architectural features on the north facade. A gradual building of light and lasers culminated in a light show at 10.30pm. Full report June L&SI.
Lee Frankcom has joined the Coe-Tech sales team. Frankcom, one of the rock and roll industry's most colourful characters, originally launched his lighting career at the immortal Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park. Since then he's made his way made through a plethora of top lighting rental and production companies before becoming concert touring guru at Vari-Lite Europe/VLPS. Recent Coe-Tech projects have included the supply of Coemar lighting fixtures, via Lumenation to NMEC Lighting for the Millennium Dome and to top UK rental house Neg Earth Lights for the acclaimed Ben Harper European Tour. Soon to be available in the UK are the much talked about Coemar CF7 HE and WZ spot and wash zoom lighting fixtures.
Australian company LSC Lighting Systems has just announced the release of the iPRO dimmer , following on from the launches of their ePAK, ePRO, and e24 dimmers in recent months. The iPRO features 12 amps per channel, 100% duty cycle rated operation, hard-firing of the dimmer channel and temperature-dependent fan speed. With the same core structure as the ePRO, the iPRO incorporates a unique mounting system which allows the iPRO to be bolted to a solid wall or a 19" rack frame or resting on flat surfaces such as benches, floors or table tops. Utilising the same user interface as other LSC dimmers, the iPRO dimmer provides quick set up of the DMX512 address, individual drive control over any channel, scene storage and a choice of a six fade curves per dimmer channel. Five models are available offering a choice between 12 channels of 12 Amps, 6 channels of 25 Amps and a choice of outpu
ETC Europe held a series of technical training seminars for ETC dealers in early May, covering Unison and Sensor dimmers, and Light Manager and Unison Control products. This was the second in a series of ETC Focus 2000 certification courses allowig dealers to update product and installation knowledge, enabling them to work alongside ETC as the company's services and product range continue to grow. 22 dealers from the UK, denmark, South Africa, Turkey, Iceland, Austria, Portugal, Sweden and Ireland attended the three-day course at Heathrow, which was coordinated by ETC's Liz Cecil.
Chris West has joined Avolites as training manager. The position was created to capitalise on the potential of product training and support, both on-site and at Avolites HQ - in the last two years alone, Avolites has trained over 2,500 people. West will be co-ordinating all training schedules as well as overseeing the demo room in Park Royal, West London. He has just completed a BA Honours degree in Theatre Studies (Stage Management option) at the Welsh College of Music and Drama in Cardiff.
London's Royal Albert Hall is undergoing its first comprehensive building development since it opened in 1871. Scheduled to complete in 2003, the £66.3m programme originally began in 1995. AC Lighting's Special Projects division has completed the upgrade of part of the lighting cabling and control system at the venue. The RAH's deputy technical show manager, Mark Jones, designed and specified the system. AC has upgraded the circle rail with new power and control wiring for the front of house circuits. All existing trunking panels were replaced with customised 2m front panel sections, each containing 12 16Amp sockets for six dimming channels, along with two independent power circuits for moving lights and colour scrollers. 12 DMX connectors, covering two DMX 512 universes, were also installed around the circle rail for additional DMX fixtures. On stage, AC installed three six-way stage b
OmniSistem Lights & Effects has been appointed the exclusive worldwide distributor of LPD laser products. The agreement adds to the company's already extensive line up of products which includes Programmi & Sistem Luce lighting & effects products, COEF intelligent lighting and moving yokes, Amabilia DJ cases and fibre optics. LPD, a pioneer in the development of laser projectors, is the name behind the Q beam laser and for the past five years it has also built components and systems for many laser show companies. Jim Hardaway, formerly national sales manager at LPD, has been recruited by OmniSistem to head its laser division.
Vari-Lite Inc has relocated its Las Vegas office recently after the operation outgrew its former 5,600sq.ft facility on McLeod Drive. The new Las Vegas office, on E Maule Avenue, has tripled the location's warehouse space.
Jimmy 'JR' Chai has been promoted to regional sales manager for High End Systems Singapore. JR will continue to be based out of the Singapore office and be in charge of all sales and marketing activities throughout Asia. He was formerly account manager at High End Systems Singapore for selected Asian regions. In related news, Adrian Oh is leaving his role as general manager of High End Systems Singapore to seek other employment opportunities outside of the lighting industry.
