Germany - Robe once again enjoyed a massively busy and successful Prolight+Sound exhibition at the Messe in Frankfurt ... launching a selection of new innovations and presenting another eye-catching lightshow on the booth in Hall 11, which attracted huge numbers of visitors to the stand and created a buzz which resonated throughout the entire trade show.

Other highlights involved the inventive Robin MiniMe winning the Prolight+Sound International Press Award (PIPA) for 'Lights FX' [sic], and for the second year, the Robe team was joined on the stand for one day by Czech MotoGP rider Karel Abraham and his bike. Robe is one of the sponsors of the 2014 season.

Robe's CEO Josef Valchar says, "The show was fantastic! It is currently the best of its type in Europe for attracting

Stones Cancel - The Rolling Stones have cancelled the first date of their Australian tour after the death of Sir Mick Jagger's girlfriend L'Wren Scott. The celebrated US fashion designer was found dead in her New York flat on Monday, in an apparent suicide. The British band were due to play in Perth on Wednesday. Their promoter said no further information was available. They are scheduled to play five more concerts in Australia. The next is due to take place on 25 March in Sydney.

Monty's Off - The West End version of The Full Monty is to close after five weeks, two-and-a-half months earlier than planned, due to poor ticket sales. The play, which was adapted from the hit 1997 film about hard-up Sheffield steelworkers, opened on 20 February and was due to run until 14 June. But its last performance at the Noel Coward Theatre will now be on 29 March. Producers David

Germany - Presented for the first time at ProLight+Sound, Frankfurt and offering power, speed and flexibility, Shapeshifter is the new, innovative light from High End Systems. Designed by Richard Belliveau and featuring 126 high-powered LEDs with custom lensing, the fixture produces an "incredible beam of light, making this the industry's brightest LED fixture," says High End. Two versions are available: the Shapeshifter C1 (RGB) and the Shapeshifter W1 (White), with the C1 outputting 24,000 RGB lumens and the W1 an incredible 27,000 lumens.

Seven independently controlled modules housed in one moving fixture create a multitude of highly defined beams coming together to form an amazing array of effects from the bold to the subtle.

"All elements of the fixture are lightning fast giving the designer the largest palette of creative options available, all from one fi

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ETC Halcyon Silent

High End Systems Halcyon Silent builds on ETC’s legacy of fanless automated fixtures by incorporating features from the highly sought-after Halcyon family. Halcyon Silent perfectly balances silent operation with brilliant output of 18,400 lumens and high-impact features. 

For more information visit us at www.etcconnect.com

Germany - Philips Strand Lighting has launched what it calls "a new chapter in the evolution of control" in the form of the new NEO expandable control system. The sleek and modern NEO is designed to make a strong statement of Strand Lighting's commitment to creating forward-thinking, powerful consoles catering for the needs of the most demanding lighting design projects, the company says.

"We are incredibly excited about the NEO console, which heralds a new era for Strand Lighting as the company celebrates its 100th anniversary of lighting control," says Pete Borchetta, Philips Entertainment product marketing manager. "NEO offers the ability to seize the light, to grab, move, change, position, colour and motivate your lighting design simply and effectively. NEO is the closest that a designer can get to actually touching the light."

NEO includes an

Europe - ETC is expanding its LED family, with the introduction of two new products: the Source Four LED Series 2, a powerful spotlight with the most expansive colour spectrum possible from an LED luminaire; and the Source Four Mini LED, an ultra-energy-efficient variation of ETC's tiniest fixture. Both were seen for the first time in public at the Prolight+Sound show in Frankfurt.

Since introducing the Source Four LED luminaire in 2012, ETC has experimented with the x7 Color System, mixing together new colour combinations to create brighter light that covers a larger spectrum. "The result is the Source Four LED Series 2 Lustr array," explains ETC fixtures product manager Jim Uphoff. "We've made advances in white light - with the Source Four LED Series 2 being up to twice as bright as the original Source Four LED Lustr+ - and improved certain tints to have up to t

USA - ZFX, Inc, will be among the exhibitors displaying products and services for the performing arts and entertainment industry at the 2014 Annual Conference and Stage Expo in Fort Worth, Texas on 26-29 March. ZFX's performer flying services cover the full spectrum from Broadway to the high school in your neighbourhood, closing in on 7,000 productions to date.

ZFX will be in booth # 809 demonstrating the ease with which you can incorporate the Bert's crowd-pleasing "proscenium walk" into your next production of Mary Poppins. Also, back by colossal demand, the fondly-referred-to "pony rides", wherein ZFX offers random Expo attendees the chance to experience flight.

A leader in performer flying since its inception in 1994, ZFX is a contributing member of The United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT), an organization serving professionals

Europe - Nuage, the flagship integrated system from Yamaha and Steinberg, has brought a new and very welcome approach to audio post-production. Some of Europe's premier post-production studios have invested in it and are enjoying the many benefits that it brings.

"Nuage seamlessly marries dedicated Yamaha control and interface hardware with Steinberg's Nuendo 6 DAW software, delivering unprecedented creativity for professionals in the broadcast, advertising, film and games industries," says the company. "Combining cutting-edge technology from two of the professional sound industry's biggest hitters, Nuage signifies a radical re-defining of what is possible in audio post-production."

Studios which have recently invested in Nuage include The Soundshack in Hamburg, Germany; Stone Post production in Bratislava, Slovakia; Mediaset in Cologno Monzese, Italy; Temp

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Strictly FX Highlights

Strictly FX was founded in 1996 by industry veterans Mark Grega and Ted Maccabee. Our expertise and knowledge of the world’s leading pyrotechnic, laser, and flame manufacturers allows us to curate astonishing live events. With over 500+ shows performed a year, there’s good chance you’ve seen some of our work!

USA - Headquartered in the heart of the nation's capitol, Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) is committed to reducing poverty and inequality in Latin America and Caribbean countries by providing much needed loans, grants, technical assistance and research.

In 2005, when the organization first opened the IDB Conference Centre at 1330 New York Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., its 500-seat Enrique V. Iglesias Auditorium was slated to host films, seminars, lectures, and town hall meetings, so the original PA system was primarily designed to accommodate spoken word and cinema playback.

In 2012, however, the decision was made to better utilise the facility for the presentation of concerts and other cultural events featuring live entertainment by Central and South American artists, musicians, and dancers.

Tasked with transforming an existing auditorium into a place for colorful li

UK - POLARaudio has launched a new website in keeping with its recent expansion. Having secured distribution for more major brands such as Mackie and Ampeg to complement existing giants like beyerdynamic and Biamp, this timely move reflects POLARaudio's determination to move forward on every front with the emphasis on quality, says the company.

With a completely fresh look, the new site offers a full online catalogue for both MI and installation product ranges. The catalogue offers detailed information and pricing and is browsable by product type, brand or application. This intuitive navigation characterises the user-friendliness of a site that possesses a high degree of functionality. Further to this, the site's advanced search facility ensures that every possible angle is covered in ensuring immediate access to specific information.

Fundamental to the core business is a full

UK - This year Richard Martin Lighting (RML) will be celebrating 30 years in the Industry. Part of the key to the company's success has been evolving with changes in the Industry and building relationships with other rental houses and their staff.

"Those relationships have always been something that is very important to us, as is the whole ethos of working together to get the job done well," says the company. "So when we were approached by Wise Productions to assist them in lighting a special anniversary dinner at the British Science Museum, we jumped at the chance.

Pixel Par 90's were used to wash the walls, in fact almost every surface, and, they gave a real depth of colour and richness to the room.

The Pixelrange Pixel Par 90 is a high output solid state lighting projector designed to deliver a symmetrical beam angle. The Pixel Par 90 contains 30 red, green

Germany - Major has introduced its new dedicated website (www.major-lighting.com)

to make finding all details of products and custom-made solutions quick and accessible. For example, the product section has a concise overview of all major product segments (Dimmers, Luminaires, Rigging + Safety Ropes, Power Distribution, Cables + Connectors and Colours + Effects), or in the Navigation header visitors can discover more about the company and its renowned service.

Major puts a main focus on clarity and accessibility. By clicking on the website's multiple links, visitors can drill deeper into a subject and get additional information.

Major is Lightpower's own brand. Major products are built in Germany and have earned themselves a great reputation on multiple international projects over the years. They offer bespoke solutions where no appropriate products are available. "Rega

UK - With the programme for Theatres Trust Conference 14: Community Theatres in place, and a strong line-up of contributors confirmed, including Stephen Williams MP, Peter Stark OBE, Chairman of Voluntary Arts Network, and Sir Peter Bazalgette, Chairman of Arts Council England, momentum is building as delegates take advantage of the generous Early Bird delegate rates.

This year the annual conference is taking place on Monday 28 April 2014 in Leeds, at the famous Grade II* listed City Varieties Music Hall. Early Bird delegate rate runs to Friday 28 March. The community theatres conference is co-locating alongside PLASA Focus: Leeds, the popular regional entertainment technology trade show that runs the following day at the Royal Armouries on Tuesday 29 and Wednesday 30 April.

Mhora Samuel, Director of The Theatres Trust sa

Germany - Elation Professional enjoyed an "outstanding" Prolight+Sound show in Frankfurt with a bustling stand that was on the go from start to finish thanks to a broad line-up of attractive products that included a few surprise world premiere preview products, as well as an exhilarating light show that attracted throngs with every showing.

A range of new products for professional stage applications included the unveiling of four all-new luminaires in Elation's popular Platinum and Satura range of professional moving heads - two discharge lamp-based and two LED-based - the Platinum BX, Platinum SBX, Platinum Profile LED, and Satura Spot CMY Pro.

Both the Platinum BX and Platinum SBX are compact fixtures that combine new lamp technology from a Philips MSD Platinum 17 RA 350W lamp with a new optical system to kick out 20,000 lumens of power. The Platinum BX is a beam l

Germany - TUI Cruises, Europe's leading travel group, began its operations in spring 2009 with the liner Mein Schiff. The second cruiser liner was commissioned in May 2011 and is named Mein Schiff 2.

Further growth is now signalled by the subsequent expansion of the fleet with two new vessels. Mein Schiff 3 will be launched in May 2014, with sister ship Mein Schiff 4 following one year later.

For the cruiser liner MS2 the evacuation system design was carried out by the engineering company Michael Creydt in co-operation with the acoustical design company, Carsten Fromm and installed Lellman.

To assure a high quality speech transmission, the operator decided to install salt-waterproof digital steerable loudspeakers. After testing several different systems the final decision was made for the Pan Beam series of Pan Acoustics, the Pan Beam PB04-SW.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Wireless audio manufacturer RF Venue has released the RF Optix RF to fibre optic conversion system, a powerful new tool for mainstream wireless microphone users that expands the possibilities of antenna distribution and wireless audio design.

"RF Optix brings technology from the world of broadcast and IT into the reach of church, school, and theatre wireless users," says CEO Chris Regan. "Integrators, tour managers, and church technicians are now able to do things with fibre that would have been way out of budget, or downright impossible, with coaxial cable."

The RF Optix system leverages the low cost, lossless characteristics of fibre optic cable over the expensive, fragile, lossy characteristics of coaxial cables. Fibre cable runs thousands of feet long are possible with negligible in-line attenuation, so antennas can be remoted in venues far away f

USA - The Arena PAR Zoom from Elation Professional is an RGBW PAR wash light with motorized zoom that is powerful enough to be used on large stage applications of all types. Featuring a bright and well-defined beam, the Arena PAR Zoom houses 19 x 10W RGBW LEDs for a broad selection of saturated color options including a genuine white.

The Arena PAR Zoom is extremely energy-efficient for such a powerful luminaire. Although the fixture consumes only 220 watts of total power, lumen output from this high-power LED PAR can is comparable to a 1000W fixture.

An efficient 10 - 60° zoom is capable of angling wide or extremely tight for accurate beam angle control and greater design possibilities. The Arena PAR Zoom is capable of smooth dimming from 0-100% with excellent stability throughout the range and also includes a selection of dimming curves.

Other features include strobe a

Switzerland - At the Berner Rathaus (Bern Town Hall) in Switzerland, voice intelligibility has been greatly improved with the installation of two steerable Meyer Sound CAL 64 column array loudspeakers. The system is implemented in the Grossratssaal, the acoustically challenging main legislative chamber of the 15th century Gothic structure. Project design was handled by Daniel Zurwerra of Suhr, Switzerland-based Virtually Audio.

"Voice reinforcement in this space is challenging for several reasons," recounts Zurwerra. "First, the reverberation time is more than two seconds, and even higher at some frequencies. We have high background noise levels, and because of aesthetics and historic preservation requirements, loudspeaker placement and positioning is highly restricted. It was clear that beam-steering columns would offer the best results.

"The sound quality

USA - Backstage Apps has announced the release of its first app in an upcoming series of apps for entertainment professionals. SMBox is a "sleek and sophisticated iOS application" that allows stage managers to create a completely customizable show-timing experience.

SMBox is a feature-rich application that allows users to manage their show timing experience as best suits their show or project. With support for multiple projects, SMBox provides users with the ability to configure timestamps for show start/end times as well as an unlimited number of timers that can each count up, count down or both (to compare elapsed time to target time) and can individually be included/excluded from the total show time. After each recording session, the user's times can be emailed in an editable format.

"The lack of apps for entertainment professionals has been truly disappointi

The Netherlands - Vivitek has introduced three, high brightness, multimedia digital projectors, which are designed for large meeting rooms and other corporate applications. Each projector in the D96x Series delivers high level of image quality, combined with a range of features designed to meet any integration or presentation challenge.

Delivering brightness up to 5500 ANSI lumens (D967), 4800 ANSI Lumens for the D968U and 4200 ANSI Lumens for the D966HD, the models are available in XGA (D967), 1080p (D966HD) and WUXGA (D968U) resolutions. All projectors display an outstanding picture with a 10,000:1 contrast ratio.

"The D96x Series is a great addition to our existing range of projectors for corporate applications," says Holger Graeff, general manager EMEA at Vivitek. "All the models in the range deliver a sharp, bright image whatever the ambient light. This mak

UK - Focusrite Audio Engineering Ltd. has named Damian Hawley director of global marketing and sales. Hawley will manage the merged Marketing and Sales departments for the Focusrite, Novation and RedNet brands worldwide including Focusrite Novation, Inc. (the US based wholly-owned subsidiary).

Both Phil Wagner (president of Focusrite Novation, Inc) and Giles Orford (marketing director) remain in their respective positions and will continue to serve on the Board of Directors while reporting to Damian Hawley.

Dave Froker (Managing Director) comments: "Following a period of strong company performance we have decided to bring Marketing and Sales together as a single organisation to position the business for its next phase of growth."

Damian Hawley, who joined Focusrite in 2004 and became Sales Director in 2009 states: "The Focusrite and Novation brands have seen s

UK - A new version of the Purple Guide, which aims to help organisers deliver successful events safely, has launched this week. The Guide, which was originally published in 1992, is expected by The Events Industry Forum (EIF) to be indispensable to regulators at local authorities, emergency service personnel, and the various contractors and sub-contractors who help make events happen. Like its predecessor, it is also expected to help keep Britain's expertise at events at the forefront on the world stage.

"The original Purple Guide, published by the HSE in the 1990s, had a huge impact in helping to bring a safer and more cohesive approach to event management," says Jim Winship, Secretary of the EIF and who has been co-ordinating the project. "It also helped to put the UK events industry on the map worldwide as the standards set in the Guide rapidly became adopted a

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