Australia - A Robe DigitalSpot 5000 DT, two ColorSpot 575E ATs and 42 Anolis ArcSource LED down-lighting fixtures have been installed at the Mentone Hotel in Melbourne.

The Mentone is a busy venue in close proximity to the beach of the same name, located in one of Melbourne's most desirable suburbs. It's owned by Open Door Pubs, one of Australia's best known pub chains, and lighting, sound and AV was designed and supplied by Adam Dullens of Pulse Audio Visual.

After the initial installation, Dullens was asked to specify a flexible visual solution to liven up the upstairs floor for their popular Wednesday disco evenings, which sees the first floor regularly packed to its 700 capacity.

The Mentone was initially considering an LED screen display for the upstairs to create a banner effect around the walls of the quirkily shaped landing, which forms the main dance floor. However,

Italy - ETC Paris is supplying its OnlyView multimedia control software and Christie HD video projectors to Franco-Italian scenic design specialists Danny Rose for the new production of Giulietta e Romeo (Romeo & Juliet) which is currently touring Italy.

Show director, Sergio Carrubba (also the director of Danny Rose), came to ETC Paris with his concept Maximage Experience, a system based on 'total immersion' that he has developed with associate Paola Ciucci in which the stage, actors and audience are all surrounded by "dynamic giant image projection".

For Giulietta e Romeo, Carrubba has transposed this experience to popular opera by "enriching it with the charm and mystery of three-dimensional projected sets" fusing his passion for the two very different visual art forms of theatre and film.

The two Christie 25K machines are position

USA - Apollo Design Technology has launched new product information resources, including its 2008 product catalogue and a redesigned website. Included in the Volume XIV catalog are over 160 new patterns, the Gel Miser, Gel Wraps, and the MXR.

Apollo's new website includes enriched keywords for easier and more accurate product searches, redesigned product pages with a tab system for easy scanning of more detailed information, and the search result format has been designed to reduce scrolling.

(Jim Evans)

UK - For one of its biggest projects in recent years, PSL sent a 75-man team to the opening ceremony which kicked off Liverpool's year as European City of Culture. From the imposing 40' screens that dominated St George's Plateau to the 15-camera broadcast truck that relayed Liverpool's celebrations around the world, PSL technicians were at the heart of the logistically complex event.

Led by Pod Bluman, the PSL team had to triumph against the twin enemies of time and the elements. PSL's participation in the Liverpool show was confirmed only three weeks ahead of the event, just one week before the Christmas slow-down.

"The concept of the show was to tell the story of Liverpool's history and culture," explains Pod Bluman. "Its location was the open space between the city's great civic buildings, using St George's Hall as the backdrop to the stage, and in some respe

UK - A success during the winter of 2006 and judged Best Event in Northumberland - the Northumberland Lights is an epic lighting project spanning multiple sites across the county. Its winter 2007 run was once again created by the team of creative designer Phil Supple and Jack Thompson of White Light, with all of the lighting equipment supplied by White Light.

White Light's manifest included: seven Vari-Lite VL3000s with Condome protective domes, three High Ground searchlights, five Citycolour2500 exterior floodlights, 200 PAR64s, an assortment of ETC Source Fours, two Robert Juliat Korrigans and two Super Korrigans, as well as 40 sq.m of ColorWeb 250 LED lighting and 48 Encapsulites. Control included three WL Smart 48 dimmer/power racks, two Avo Pearl consoles and two ELC Showstores, plus stands, cables and an assortment of accessories to allow lights to be located just about an

Denmark - Martin Professional has been awarded a technology grant from the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation (H°jteknologifonden) for the development of new LED technologies. The project, called INLED (Intelligent Light Emitting Diodes), is a cooperation between Martin Professional A/S, Denmark's Aalborg University, and the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation.

Martin Professional will receive approximately $3 million in funding from the research foundation, with an additional $2 million to be added by Martin and $1 million from Aalborg University. The three-year, six million USD project will run through the end of 2010.

The goal of INLED is to develop new technologies for LED based fixtures as substitutes for existing more inefficient technologies, including improvements in optical systems, colour mixing, output, control, heat management and energy

USA - The American DJ Group's American DJ line of lighting products was presented with the MMR Dealers Choice Award at the 2008 NAMM Show in Anaheim.

Sponsored by MMR magazine, the Dealers Choice Award is based on national voting by music dealers. American DJ was voted 'Lighting Line of the Year' by dealers for the second year.

"The fact that this award is the result of voting by the dealers who actually sell lighting products makes it especially gratifying," said Scott Davies, general manager of the American DJ Group of Companies. "Dealers are on the front line, dealing with end-users all the time. They gave us this award, because their customers rely on American DJ and are excited about our products, especially our new LED fixtures."

(Jim Evans)

UK - Following a successful 2007, South London-based hire and sales company, Point Source Productions is gearing up for a busy year to come. Point Source Productions has committed to an ongoing programme of investment in new technology which has seen the company increase its hire stock in, amongst others, Martin Professional and Litec products. This investment has proved invaluable in both direct and subhire markets, across corporate and live events and even in films, says the company.

Autumn 2007 saw the filming of Hammer Films Beyond the Rave in South London. This online serial marks the return of the Hammer Horror genre after an absence of over 20 years. Lighting designer Jono Kenyon was responsible for lighting the all-important rave scenes using over 100 ACL lamps and MAC 550s from the Point Source hire stock.

"It was great working with the MAC 550s on a film

Italy - During December's Christmas celebrations, three locations were set up inside the Vatican City, with various products of Italian-based SGM chosen for the lighting rig.

Light contractor Sound D-Light srl performed the three installations. Pat Henry, lighting designer for the event, used a huge number of SGM fixtures including the Genio Mobile, Palco 3, Ribalta, Synthesis Spot 700, Pilot 2000 and Pilot 3000.

Henry, supported by Luca Domenicucci and Paolo Marcuzzi of Sound D-Light srl as lighting operators, stated: "We lit the big Christmas tree inside Aula Paolo VI, the back of the same Hall where the huge bronze statue the Resurrection is and the Christmas crib placed outside in St. Peter's Square. I essentially used Ribalta, Palco 3 and Genio fixtures to create the different white and colour hues - mainly violet and blue - both for the backgrounds and to give value

Germany - Lasershow specialist tarm Showlaser GmbH produced a laser-robot-pyro spectacle to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Abu Dhabi Police. The event - attended by General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and deputy supreme commander of the UAE Armed Forces - was staged in the Zayed Sports City Stadium. The show was a collaboration between Dubai based HQ creative, the Police and His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who played a hands-on role in the event.

Lasting 90 minutes, the show concluded with a high energy laser and firework finale. tarm Showlaser supplied four high-powered green lasers at the back, under the screen and four high-powered full-colour units at the front of the arena. All lasers were air-cooled and based on solid-state-technology.

Two of the full colour lasers fed the two 4m high and 1000kg h

Kuwait - Located in The Avenues Mall, Kuwait's largest mall and the one of the Middle East's premier retail and leisure destinations whose first phase opened in April of 2007, Avenues Cinema is a multi-screen movie complex with a flair for the dramatic, says the company. Large entrance lobby columns as well as back lobby columns are decorated using colour changing LED Stagebar 54 luminaires from Martin Professional.

"Initial plans called for the columns to be covered in coloured paint, but of course if they wanted a change of colour the paint would need to be changed, which wasn't very practical," states Qader Mohiuddin of Martin Professional Middle East. "Mr. Tareq Darwesh (deputy GM) and Mr. Ali Shiri (architect) from the Tamdeen Shopping Center Development Company expressed to us their desire for a dynamic lighting solution instead."

Cinema architect, Va

USA - The introduction of the Vue VI by Chauvet aims to take the pain out of centerpiece effects. The 6-channel DMX fixture features LED illumination, built-in automated programs, individual control of red, green, and blue LEDs for each pod, and a wide beam angle.

Equipped with over 250 LEDs distributed by colour into two pods, the Vue VI produces an extremely bright output that is reminiscent of a fireworks explosion, says the company. It incorporates the best of the Vue series and adds pod rotation. Weighing less than 7lb (3.2 kg), it consumes very little power, produces a beam angle of 110°, and has an additional power output.

With DMX control, the Vue VI becomes even more versatile, allowing control over red, green, blue, rotation speed and direction, and strobing. Where DMX control is not available, built-in sound activated programs provide a show that can be synchron

USA - In the recent West Coast premiere of the musical I Married Wyatt Earp at Cal State University's Young Theatre in Fullerton, California, lighting designer Debra Lockwood chose Martin Professional MAC 2000 Washes. Assistant lighting design was handled by Nick Van Houten. He comments: "The MAC 2000 washes provided excellent backlight on the downstage thrust, as well as powerful tools to shift the action on different parts of the playing space to a different time era. Use of colour and colour temperature allowed a clear distinction between the two time periods which are often on stage at the same time."

Further upstage, MAC 2000 Performances provided extra colour and effects on a translucent drop, creating clouds, sunsets, and 'amethyst mountains'.

Programmed on a Martin Maxxyz lighting console by Matt Schleicher, the lighting fixtures reportedly behaved con

USA - Bandit Lites recently participated in the renovation of UT's Thompson-Boling Arena by donating over $250,000 in equipment as well as playing a key role in the scoreboard and lighting design.

Tennessee athletic officials commissioned the $20 million overhaul in celebration of its 20th Anniversary. The roof-to-floor renovation includes new chairs, 32 new luxury suites, upgraded box seats and a $3 million state-of-the-art scoreboard.

Bandit Lites design and consultation associate, Chris Barbee said he was originally brought in as specialty lighting consultant. After the initial inspection, Barbee decided that the first phase of lighting renovation should not be a new 'look' as previously suggested, but an update to the control system.

Barbee installed a Payne-Sparkman system. With the new system, operators would be able to turn lights on/off in the entire arena from a sin

Norway - Climb aboard Norwegian Cruise Line's vessel Norwegian Gem and you can't help but notice a unique artwork hanging from the atrium's ceiling. Designed and custom made by the Cristallux company of Waldachtal, Germany, and created to emulate a gem stone - a sliced amethyst - this eye-catching ceiling light is the centerpiece of the ship's all important welcoming public space.

The handmade art piece is made of a special synthetic material and is made even more dynamic by ten Martin FiberSource QFX150 fiber optic illuminators. "The Martin FiberSource illuminators suited our needs for this project and we had good experience with this projector on previous projects," states Thomas Schindler of Cristallux of his decision to install the fixtures.

The FiberSource QFX150 is an automated 150 W colour-changing luminaire for illuminating fibre optic cables in permanent ins

USA - grandMAs played a key role in a series of eight sold-out concerts in Kansas City featuring Garth Brooks. The concerts included a simulcast to local cinemas which later aired on cable's Great American Country network as the 90-minute special, Garth: One Artist, One City, One Night, his first televised concert since 2001.

"It was kind of family reunion," reports Don Lockridge, project manager for grandMA supplier Bandit Lites, who was on Brooks' lighting crew back in the '90s. "We had three active grandMAs and a grandMA light all networked together in a typical front-of-house set up with about 14 universes. There were three operators: lighting designer, Dave Butzler who wrote the cues for the key lights and performer-specific back lights, Kyle Russelberg, who controlled the audience rig, and programmer Kevin Lawson. We use a lot of grandMAs at Bandit, a

Russia - Moscow-based installers Light Sound Contractor (LSC) specified Robe moving lights for a project at the Tropicana Restaurant in the Arbat Entertainment Centre (AEC), Moscow which has undergone a complete refurbishment.

The AEC venue contains a club, restaurant and casino and is also used to stage boxing contests and other sporting events. It is located on Arbat Street, one of the best known thoroughfares of the city.

LSC has engaged in many design, supply and installation projects in the casino world, and have also completed several other schemes within Arbat, which is why they won the contract to kit out the restaurant.

In addition to tables, the Tropicana also features a stage for live music and cabaret performances and a dancefloor area for discos, so the new lighting rig needed to have an additional degree of flexibility explains LSC's Andrey Zhukov.

With guest

UK - PRG Europe helped Liverpool celebrate its launch as European Capital of Culture for 2008, with large format projection onto the brand new Arena and Convention Centre (ACC) and the Jury's Inn hotel, in frontof the building.

Deputy technical manager Alan Igbon says: "ACC Liverpool is sponsored by the Liverpool Echo and the Convention Centre by BT, so we arranged for PRG Europe to project the logos onto the side of the buildings.One of the projectors was sited on the top of a multi-storey car park, while the other was on top of a yet-to-be-completed hotel."

On the same weekend, PRG Europe was asked by SLS Group to project a giant Liverpool '08 logo onto the front of the scaffold wrapper covering the hotel.

Project manager for PRG Europe Loz Wilcox says, "We used a Pani BP6 projector to project the Echo Arena logo, and then the larger Pani BP12 project

USA - Crowds have been flocking to California's Pasadena Playhouse to see Ray Charles Live! - the upbeat stage version of the hit movie - before it moves to Broadway in early 2008. The memorable musical numbers are lit by a combined rig of conventional and moving lights, all controlled from ETC's new Eos system.

Lighting Designer Don Holder chose Eos to control the entire rig, in part because it allowed him to have only one lighting system. During technical rehearsals, one Eos was used to programme the conventionals, while a second Eos handled the automated and LED luminaires. Both desks were contributing to a single show file, using new partitioned control software that allows seamless discrete control by multiple programmers.

Eos product manager Anne Valentino says, "Each programmer worked completely independently, and when it came time to put everything on one d

Switzerland - The 2006 Credit Suisse Sports Awards show had the distinction of being the first event ever to use Martin's LC Series of semi-transparent LED panels. And the recently concluded 2007 edition of the Sports Awards show also featured Martin's LED screens.

Held in December 2007 at Bern's Event Hall, Switzerland's best sportsmen and sportswomen were acknowledged in a live TV broadcast on Swiss station SFDRS. Specified by set designer Tomi Bricchi, the LC panels were used as a three and four metre high decorative effect upstage while also providing general lighting to the stage.

"The initial requirement was that the set should be easily changeable," comments Roni Huber, technical planner and media server operator on the show. "Because there were several different acts and scenes it was highly important that the background could be changed fast."

Cu

Australia - Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system was recently employed by Australian PA company, Davidson Audio, for two festival events staged at Sydney's Darling Harbour. Comprising an iDR10 stage rack and iLive-144 control surface, the system managed FOH mixing, complemented by a Martin Audio Wavefront speaker system, for the harbour's Fiesta Latin music festival and New Year's Eve show.

Fiesta is an annual four-day festival featuring over 30 acts, whilst the NYE Show was a free public event including fireworks and performances from international ABBA tribute band, Bjorn Again, and Sydney favourites, the John Fields Band. Fast changeover times between acts were critical, therefore Davidson Audio needed a digital mixer with the capability of recalling sound check settings quickly and accurately.

"Set up, sound checks, performances and changeovers were completely

France - Zero 88 has appointed Axente as its exclusive exclusive French dealer. The appointment follows Zero 88's recent incorporation into Cooper Lighting and a restructuring of their distribution in France for 2008.

Axente combines lighting, sound and structure to supply an integrated solution to the marketplace. "There is a lot of synergy between the two organizations," says Zero 88's Western Europe market manager, Grant Bales-Smith. "Zero 88 and Axente both have a similar operating philosophy which places great emphasis on supporting customers in the marketplace. I am delighted to partner with such a pro-active and forward thinking company in France, and look forward to developing this important market together."

Axente has kicked off the new partnership with an order for over 30 consoles as well as a range of dimming, DMX and visualisation products.

Denmark - An outdoor version of Martin Professional's Cyclo fluorescent colour changing luminaire is now available in the US. Cyclo IP65 provides for dynamic outdoor illumination of facades and structures, with a slim linear design based on RGB and white fluorescent T5 tubes.

Cyclo IP65 can be programmed to generate smooth variations in light and colour, as well as 'daylight' variations in colour temperature from warm white to cool white. Each of the T5 tubes is electronically dimmable from 0-100%.

The Cyclo IP65 US version is available in a 54 W RGB model (Cyclo 03) with DMX interface. The luminaire comes in a UL approved polyester housing with a clear front cover. Luminaires can be surface-mounted or mounted on an adjustable bracket (available as an accessory) that can be tilted through 90°.

Cyclo fittings can be controlled in stand-alone operation or via DMX. For simp

UK - PerformTech, Scotland's recently launched show for sound, light, stage and AV technologies, reports that it has has secured "numerous prestigious exhibitors for its inaugural event" which is a collaboration between Black Light, Northern Light and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

The exhibition, to be held on 28 and 29 May 2008 at the RSAMD in Glasgow, has confirmed Christie Digital, Doughty Engineering, ETC, Hall Stage, Le Maitre, Lift Turn Move, MA Lighting, MGC, Selecon, Strand, Triple E and Zero 88 as exhibitors.

Gavin Stewart, managing director at Black Light, said: "Our plans for PerformTech really are coming on at quite a pace. The majority of industry players will be represented and will enable our visitors to view equipment that provides lighting control and effects, pyrotechnics, audio control and kit, projection, rigging, hoists, pai

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