UK - HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew for Lily Allen's just completed UK theatre tour, featuring her largest production to date. Lighting for the popular and feisty British singer/songwriter, renowned for her hugely energetic live performances is designed by Neil Trenell. HSL supplied 32 of its new Robe Series 700 fixtures to the sold-out tour plus a 10x10m MainLight Industries Soft-LED back cloth and an Avolites Diamond 4 console among other elements.

HSL's Mike Oates project managed, and comments, "Neil is always a pleasure to work with. He is one of a new, enthusiastic and inventive generation of LDs, and it is also good to be working with an artist surrounded by a real buzz like Lily Allen."

Trenell's basic design was based around two straight 40ft trusses - front and back - which in the ideal circumstances and sized venues, were trimmed at over 30ft to g

Germany Rosco Europe has announced the arrival of Katrin Schlüter who joins as development manager. Working from Rosco's German office, she will be responsible for the development and management of Rosco's business in Scandinavia, Benelux, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.

Schlüter brings nearly 10 years experience in the lighting and entertainment industry to Rosco. Most recently, she worked for Lightpower (Rosco's German dealership) and MA Lighting / Rainbow International as the international key account manager.

"I really enjoyed my long-term work with the team of Lightpower and MA Lighting, but now look forward to a new step in this exciting industry. Rosco represents a whole new challenge to me. When the opportunity came up to join them and become a part of their team, I had to go for it. Rosco is on the move and cl

UK - Stuart Myles, technical manager of the Coade Hall theatre - part of Bryanston School in Dorset - has declared himself "blown away" by their new ETC Congo desk, recently purchased through dealer Stage Electrics.

Myles explains: "We looked at several desks within our price range and Congo was the one that fitted our needs and requirements. It offers us the ability to run generic lights for theatrical shows in a traditional way, while also enabling us to bolt on the moving lights when we do rock concerts. We also really like the fact that the software updates, which ETC brings out on a regular basis, are free of charge, so as a growing school theatre, we are confident that Congo will grow with us.

"ETC's Jeremy Roberts came to demonstrate the desk to us, and it was not long after we first took delivery that our 15 to 18 year old stage crew were flying aro

Australia / Germany - This year's ProLight&Sound exhibition in Frankfurt promises to be LSC's biggest and best, the company says. What they have in store for the show is "top secret", with the only clues a teaser advertisement campaign in the run-up to the show.

All they'll say about the new product release is: "It has legs, it's powerful, it's built well, and more importantly it's want you've been asking for."

Alongside the new product release will be the full LSC catalogue including: the maXim control consoles with built in Capture Visualisation Software allowing the user to fully integrate with their programming, and the complete range of dimming and power distribution products.

(Lee Baldock)

UK - The stage version of JRR Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings which played to great acclaim in Toronto last year, winning its design team numerous awards, is transferring to London. It will play to its first audience on 9 May, with its opening night set for 18 June 18.

To supply lighting designer Paul Pyant's epic rig for this epic show, London-based White Light has teamed up with Q1 Production Technologies in Canada, who provided equipment for the original production. Together they are supplying a rig that includes over 300 ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, seventy conventional Par Cans, Arri 2.5K HMI fresnels and almost 150 Wybron scrollers.

The moving light rig includes 13 DHA Digital Light Curtains, 34 ETC Source Four Revolutions, 13 Vari-Lite VL3500Q Framing Spotlights, 77 VL3000Q Spotlights, 34 Clay Paky Alpha Wash Halos as well as 24 Martin Atomic Strobes an

USA - Blues System's North American debut at USITT, Phoenix was a great success, according to the company. The product range, manufactured in the UK by Global Design Solutions and specifically designed for backstage lighting applications in the working theatre, won the PLASA 2006 Innovations Award at its European launch last year and Blues System has already been installed at various venues in Europe.

TMB has been appointed the exclusive distributor for Blues System in the Americas, Asia and the Middle East. Said Chris Curran, TMB's architectural sales director: "Blues System is truly one of those 'why didn't I think of that?' new products. It solves many backstage lighting problems as well as offering options that were previously impractical. We were almost overwhelmed by the positive response at USITT and also by the various possible new applications that arose during con

USA - Shortly after Sharon Osbourne made the announcement that this year's Ozzfest is free, organisers turned to sponsors to provide added support for the festival's new incarnation as a FREEfest. In stepped Jägermeister, offering its own state-of- the art mobile stage as a secondary stage for the summer's biggest heavy metal festival. And it enlisted Chauvet as a lighting sponsor.

Dubbed "revolutionary" by Osbourne, the Jägermeister stage is a 34ft long, fully self-contained stage complete with a full audio sound system provided by JVC Mobile. The entire PA system, provided by Peavey Electronics and Schecter Guitars, will be hung for optimum sound. Lighting consists mostly of LED-fitted fixtures (COLORpalette and LEDrain 56 washes, LED white Technostrobes) and 10mW Scorpion lasers. All lights are controlled via Chauvet ShowXpress software.

"We are incr

Germany - ProLight + Sound will see a comprehensive range of Rosco products on its distributor Lightpower's stand and with partner CAST (C.Adolph & RST Distribution). The two companies will be showing different product lines with Lightpower focusing on Rosco's range of filters and CAST concentrating on projection.

Lightpower will show a selection of products including Permacolor, ChromaSleeve and E-Colour as well as the newly re-certified B1 for Supergel - still the most widely used colour filter.

Permacolor dichroic glass filters are specifically designed not to fade or shift colour. Rosco's manufacturing process also allows for precise batch to batch colour consistency. Permacolor filters are available in 24 colours and five standard sizes on durable borafloat glass 1.1mm, 1.75mm or 3.3mm thick. They can be custom cut in any size up to 342.9mm in diameter.

ChromaSleeve is

UK - TMC has announced the appointment of Jezz Hellens to the newly created position of Head of Lighting. Prior to joining TMC, Hellens spent several years with White Light North, based in Halifax.

Speaking of his appointment, Hellens said: ''Having broad experience in the field of lighting as well as audio, I hope to build and grow the installations and projects side of the business so that TMC can offer unrivalled turnkey packages to customers and suppliers alike.''

Established in 1987 as 'The Music Company', TMC has built a reputation for designing and installing tailor made 'Performance Sound' solutions for all kinds of venues and live music events, large and small.

(Jim Evans)

Sweden - The 2007 W-DMX product catalogue is now available for download at the Wireless Solution website www.wirelessdmx.com. The company will also have full colour print editions at Prolight & Sound in Frankfurt.

The new catalogue features the entire W-DMX Generation 3 line, the newest feature-packed product range for Wireless DMX. Generation 3 includes new and improved features such as easy overview of signal strength and battery power, plus full implementation of DMX over Ethernet.

(Jim Evans)

Switzerland - Over 100 Robe Show Lighting ColorSpot 2500E AT fixtures were specified by lighting designer Fabrice Delmontel for the massive Peugeot stand at the 2007 Geneva Motor Show. These were purchased specially for the event by Impact Evenement from Longjumeau, France, which supplied all lighting, sound and AV for the impressive 4000 sq.m stand at Palexpo in Geneva.

Fabrice Delmontel worked closely with Peugeot's team of stand and car designers on the project, and also with Stephane Fleury, Impact Evenement's technical manager. He explains that the car and stand design teams both have very different agendas in terms of aesthetics, but all of them are working to the ultimate goal of having the best presented stand in the hall.

Peugeot's theme this year centred around the environment and keeping the process of manufacturing and running a car as green and environmentally-fri

Canada - The Heaven and Hell tour kicked off with High End Systems DL.2s in its design. Heaven and Hell is a highly-anticipated tour among heavy metal fans, as this new band features veterans Ronnie James Dio, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler and Vinny Appice.

LD Paul Dexter of Masterworks Lighting has specified 3 DL.2s from CWP in Los Angeles to project images onto the set design's three arch screens. CWP is also supplying a Hog iPC for control of the DL.2s, with a D-Tek video switcher. Joseph Denham is the CWP tech/programmer/operator supporting the CWP gear. PRG is supplying a Wholehog 3 console for the main lighting rig. Dexter is using both custom content and stock libraries in the DL.2s.

"The DL.2s are so versatile that for a nearly two-hour show, new images and stock footage continues to alter the look of the three centrally dedicated arch projection windows and all encom

USA - Bandit Lites has appointed John Lucksinger as production manager and Nicole Nota as production coordinator.

In his new role, Lucksinger will plan, direct and coordinate activities of designated projects. He was most recently lighting designer/director for country music superstar Martina McBride.Previously a production manager for the company, Nota will now serve as the liaison between lighting designer Jason Robinson and Bandit for all his projects and needs.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - MA Lighting has expanded its grandMA range with a new member - the grandMA pico. The new console is specifically designed for the use in theatres and is similar to the grandMA micro. The hardware of the new console however has been optimised for the needs of theatres.

Similar to the bigger consoles of the grandMA range, a number-pad, a Go-plus, a Go-minus and a pause key are all present. One colour touch screen display, five manual faders, five physical playback buttons (on 128 pages), 1,024 DMX channels and free visualisation software make the grandMA pico the perfect introductory console, says the company.

Additionally it is also possible to connect one remote and up to four grandMA video stations. The console utilises the same syntax, windows and menus as the larger consoles. The new desk will be on show at ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - Visual Productions, the makers of VisualDMX and Matrix Mania! will be presenting the Canvix dedicated Matrix Server at ProLight + Sound.

Visual Productions has "decided to allow their future generation of lighting control software to be led by the current market developments in lighting: namely LED technology". Canvix has been designed for the exclusive use with LED matrixes.

Working with the established hardware available from Visual Productions, Canvix tackles the control of matrixes with "a unique concept": instead of controlling the LEDs individually, Canvix bundles together all fixtures to form one whole canvas; a 2-dimensional area on which effects and graphics can be applied. This powerful approach allows for sophisticated video-alike visuals, as well as fast pixel painting for the easy creation of graphics, says the company.

By reusing c

Germany - The German contemporary restaurant franchise Café 7 has opened its latest franchise featuring fully integrated lighting control from Zero 88. Style and branding are core to Café 7's philosophy and part of their franchise agreements is to maintain their distinctive ambience and style. During the day they operate as cosy café's but as evening approaches Café 7's evolve into relaxed bars offering a range of international wines and cuisines.

For its fourth franchise, which opened in Münster during February 2007, Cafe 7 chose Zero 88 for the lighting control. The management of the café needed a simple way for staff to seamlessly integrate ambient house lighting, colour changing LED and disco lighting effects. The combination of Chilli dimmers, remote panels and Frog-Box replay unit were chosen for their ease of installation, ease of use a

UK - PRG has bought a 30-way Kinesys automation system which has gone straight out on the Lionel Richie tour, for which PRG is the lighting contractor.

The Kinesys system was specified for the lengthy UK and European leg of the tour by show designer and LD Chris Medvitz. PRG's account handler Carol Croft says, "We had been looking at buying a system for some time, and then this came up - so the time was absolutely right."

On the Richie tour, the Kinesys system's Elevation 1+ motor drives are working in conjunction with 28 tonne Lodestar JJ vari-speed motors, being controlled by Kinesys Vector software, operated by Blaine Dracup.

The Motors are suspending nine lighting pods, eight of them each contain six Vari*Lites, and the ninth has ten 5K Skypan fixtures. All are hung over the stage, with the Skypan pod right above the piano riser.

The pods are static for most

Germany - Sunlite is showing a broad spread of its products at ProLight + Sound and reports that all the company's software products are 100% compatible with the new Microsoft operating system, Windows VISTA. All software have been successfully tested and work perfectly on this system, says Sunlite.

"As it is expected, all of our software will take advantage of the new Windows VISTA features in the future. Our engineers are already working on new releases that use these features, which will be launched throughout the year," adds the company.

(Jim Evans)

Denmark - In 2006, Martin Professional successfully maintained the positive developments in the company's operations that began in the second half of 2005. Substantial improvement produced a DKK 18 million profit before tax in 2006 (approx. $3.2 million), an increase of DKK 83 million over 2005 figures (approx. $14.7 million).

Revenue was up from DKK 955 million in 2005 (approx. $171 million) to a record level of DKK 1,027 million in 2006 (approx. $183 million), the highest ever as Martin generated new sales records in a number of geographical markets, among them France, Germany and Scandinavia. The year to year improvement in EBT was also the largest in company history and operating cash flow reached DKK 113 million (approx. $20.2 million), the highest level ever.

The improvement was attributable to a more focused sales effort, combined with the successful launch of new produ

UK - Nitelites, the North East provider of sound, lighting and staging, has re-confirmed its commitment to JBL Professional's range of products by investing in eight Vertec VT4880A subwoofers. The units, which were supplied by Harman Pro UK, are being powered by four new Crown IT8000 amplifiers to provide 32kW of sub-bass for Nitelite's existing VT4889 rigs.

Founded in 1984 by current director Jim Moore, Nitelites was born out of a touring system from the halcyon days of 'Rock n Roll.' After years of on the road with Lindisfarne, the system and the company evolved to encompass Moore's experience in the sound reinforcement industry, which over the years has seen him work with artists including Frank Zappa, Journey, Def Leppard, Chris Rea, Dr Hook, Van Halen and Led Zeppelin.

Nitelites has been stocking JBL Professional's Vertec series for six years and was one of the first tour

Germany - High End Systems chose ProLight + Sound in Frankfurt to launch the newest member of the Wholehog family: the Road Hog, billed as a new breed of lighting console designed for speed and affordability.

Brad Schiller, HES Director of control systems development, says, "The Road Hog console has been developed as a lower cost alternative, allowing a wide range of users to experience the benefits of the Wholehog operating software. Its compact size and fast operating speed provide a sleek package that will fit nicely into various markets including corporate events, houses of worship, smaller touring shows and rental applications. We are pleased to strengthen the Wholehog family with another superb lighting console."

The Road Hog console provides 2048 DMX channels of control, offering fast performance speed. Two internal touch screens display data and allow quick a

USA - Color Kinetics Incorporated and Element Labs have announced a global cross-licensing agreement, fostering ongoing product development in the entertainment-focused market for intelligent LED lighting. Element Labs will acquire access to Color Kinetics' complete patent portfolio, enabling the development and sale of certain LED-based product lines worldwide.

Element Labs is a prominent manufacturer of LED systems that merge lighting and video in a wide range of theatrical, touring, television and other entertainment applications. Its systems have been used in many high-profile projects around the world, including three of the last four Super Bowl halftime shows, the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, and the concert tours of Madonna, the Dixie Chicks, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Tom Petty and Coldplay, among many others.

Several of Element Labs' intelligent LED product lines apply Colo

USA/Japan - Konica Minolta Holdings, Konica Minolta Technology Center (collectively KM) and the General Electric Company have signed a strategic alliance agreement to accelerate the development and commercialisation of OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) devices for lighting applications. The goal is to bring OLED lighting to market within the next three years.

Masatoshi Matsuzaki, president, Konica Minolta Technology Center, said, "Having such unprecedented attractive features as flexible, thin, light weight, and sheet form, OLED lighting is considered one of the most promising new business opportunities for us in the future. We are delighted to collaborate with GE to accelerate the development and launching of this revolutionary new lighting technology."

Michael Idelchik, vice president, advanced technology programmes, GE Global Research, said, "The alliance o

Greece - Lighthouse Technologies made its first appearance in Greece at one of the country's most important electronics exhibitions, Electronika and Digitec, a show that spans a number of markets including professional sound and lighting, held in Athens at the beginning of March.

Lighthouse showed a 5-panel x 3-panel (5.08m x 2.8m) configuration of its best selling R6-III, 6mm pixel pitch display on the stand of Athens-based sales and distribution company, Spectratech. The R6-III incorporates Lighthouse's Uniformity Control, developed to guarantee that the colour balance of every pixel and the brightness of every LED is identical, thus "ensuring screen uniformity to an exceptional level".

The cooperation with Spectratech heralds an agreement between the two companies for Spectratech to promote Lighthouse products within the Greek market. "We have chosen t

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