Italy - Il Migliore is a quiz show hosted by Mike Bongiorno, which selects its contestants within specific professional categories - teachers, naval officers, engineers, pilots and archaeologists - for a battle to the last question. The program bases itself on the English format coined by Celador, which was broadcast on ITV1, Britain's Brainiest, which received a 33.5% audience share.

Aldo Solbiati, director of photography on the show, says: "At various stages of the quiz, before the commercial breaks and when we return to the studio, the 'bamboo' camera follows along the entire length of the studio in a move that encompasses the stage of the host, the nine contestants' podiums, and the audience gallery. This 'dynamic' situation, repeated many times throughout the show, intensifies its own movements thanks to beams of light which have been studied to combine w

USA / UK - Color Kinetics Inc has announced that Dialight Corporation, the US subsidiary of UK-based Dialight plc (FTSE: DIA.L), will license Color Kinetics' full patent portfolio to support its LED application initiatives in the architectural, entertainment and general illumination markets. The worldwide license applies to sales of Dialight products in all markets covered by Color Kinetics' patent portfolio. The agreement also gives Color Kinetics access to Dialight patents as they may relate to enhancements to Color Kinetics' technology.

Dialight specializes in the application of LED-based lighting technology and enables OEM partners to develop complete LED-based lighting solutions. Dialight says that the agreement with CK will allow it to offer its partners the unique features that are covered by Color Kinetics' patents - complementing Dialight's SpectraMix control system and

USA - The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) began its 71st season at its three-theatre location in Ashland, Oregon operating in true rotating rep, meaning a different show plays each afternoon and evening; 11 plays are currently rotating at the 360-seat Black Box New Theatre, the 600-seat Angus Bowmer Theatre, and the 1200-seat outdoor Elizabethan Theatre.

Michael Maag, master electrician for OSF, orchestrates an impressive routine to light these performances, with around two-and-a-half hours between curtain down on one show and house open on the next. The lighting crew changes colour, gobos, and shutter cuts on the rep lights in each theatre. With such a demanding schedule, there are very specific requirements. They needed fixtures that would operate easily and quietly, while still giving excellent colour. Maag chose the Wybron Nexera CMY colour-changing fixtures for two of the

Finland - Top Finnish metal superstars Nightwish used 28 Robe Show Lighting ColorSpot 1200 AT moving lights and 24 Wash 250 XTs on the final concert of their Once world tour, staged at the Hartwall Arena in Helsinki.

The fixtures were specified by the band's LD Tommi Stolt and supplied by one of the leading Finnish rental companies Akun Tehdas. The Nightwish crew chief Villie Kauhanen asked Akun Tehdas to supply lighting again, after they serviced band's last Finnish tour. The company has a good reputation in terms of equipment and crew on the road in Finland - which now includes a selection of Robe Show Lighting products.

The Robe's where positioned on main rig over the stage and back wall horizontal trusses. They were creating basic effects for the show. Stolt particularly likes Robes for their high output and fast movements. The 1200 ColorSpots also have good gobos.

UK - Lighting designer John Rinaldi of Stage Light Design is one of the first UK customers to take delivery of a Jands Vista S3 lighting console. The company specialises in providing a full lighting design and production service for the exhibition and corporate events market, with major clients in the broadcast, telecommunications and electronics sectors.

Intrigued by the Vista's overall concept and philosophy, Rinaldi had been following its progress with much interest, but was waiting for the launch of a more compact and affordable version which would be a better fit with his budget and regular pattern of work.

He commented: "The majority of our work is exhibitions, which usually means packing all the lighting control equipment into a tiny little cupboard space on client's stands. The S3 is ideal for this as I can use it with a laptop to program shows on the stand, and t

USA - Syncrolite is gearing up for one of its busiest summers. All of Syncrolite's rental equipment is booked up. Tours already scheduled include Depeche Mode, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rolling Stones, David Gilmour, Madonna, Robbie Williams, Dave Mathews, The Eagles, Pearl Jam, Toby Keith, Tom Petty, Roger Waters, The Who, Rascal Flatts, Billy Joel, Mariah Carey, Goo Goo Dolls, Kenny Chesney, Nickelback, and Ligabue.

Syncrolite just finished The Opening Ceremonies for the World Cup. The next manufacturing run of Syncrolite B-5/2's is scheduled to be completed by the end of June with 50 of these highly demanded xenon skylights being produced. Most of these lights have been spoken for months in advance, says the company, and the popularity and demand for Syncrolites has hit an all time high.

Syncrolite's newly renovated website offers information on: products offered, prod

UK - The Hurlingham Club in London provided the perfect setting for those attending PLASA's AGM and Members Lunch on Tuesday 6 June. Over 180 members and special guests were there to enjoy the day, learn more about the Association's achievements over the last 12 months and meet with industry colleagues.

Adrian Brooks, vice-chairman of PLASA, reflected on how PLASA - originally known as BADEM - first found a role delivering a trade show for discotheque equipment manufacturers, and on the remarkable growth of the PLASA Show and the Association since that fledgling start 30 years ago. He went on to reflect how the continued success of the Show had allowed the organisation to focus on initiatives intended to develop the industry further. Ambitious projects such as the National Rigging Certificate and qualifications for the PA/VA sector are central to PLASA's commitment to raise prof

UK - The 10 days from 7 June were busy ones for leading entertainment lighting supplier White Light: as well as their regular work supplying new shows around the country, the company also made a number of 'public appearances', including its own Graduates Open Day, a visit to the Theatre Engineering and Architecture Conference, and its stand at the 2006 ABTT Show.

The Graduates Open Day is now an established annual event, where White Light throws the doors of its Wimbledon base open to anyone contemplating a career in the technical or design sides of the entertainment industry. This year's Open day was attended by 26 students who got to experiment with the latest lighting equipment from a range of manufacturers as well as listening to a careers advice from a panel of established industry figures including David Amos, Kevin Sleep, David Harvey and Mike Le Fevre and then a 'keynote

UK - Metropolis AV boosts its extensive range of LED products with the launch of three new fixtures each designed for cost effective, energy efficient lighting requiring little maintenance - ideal for use in restricted and difficult to access spaces, says the company.

The TC30-75 'Beamer' 75 Watt RGB Projector is a solid state full colour fixture capable of delivering a blistering 75 Watts of LED power, designed specifically for hi-brightness colour changing applications.

The Beamer is perfect for lighting both large interior and exterior expanses and for highlighting specific features, due to an assortment of available beam angles, and comes with standard spreads of 6,15, 25 and 25 x 6 degrees (letterbox). It features a substantial heatsink on the projection head itself, allowing passive non-fan cooling of the LEDs. Another heat-reducing factor is that the driver is located i

Turkey - W-DMX and Stockholm-based Spectra Stage & Event Technologies recently returned to Istanbul, although without the Euro-disco music this time (W-DMX was first used by Spectra in Turkey during the 2004 Eurovision Song Contest.) The team revisited the Turkish capital to flip the switch at the grand opening of the ultra-luxurious Istanbul Kanyon - an urban living complex that contains 168 residential apartments, a 26-floor office building, and a shopping mall with 170 stores. Amazingly, every apartment, office, and store space is already sold out. The Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan opened the mall during the nationally televised 30 May event, which included 6000 VIP guests.

The team used 20 Space Cannon 8kW and 28 Century Colour 2500W supplied by local company Playback. They used all four universes of a Whole Hog II, all operated with W-DMX by Wireless Soluti

UK - i-Pix is a new LED design and manufacturing company, formed by one of the co-founders, and core developers, of the 'Pixel' LED brand. Chris Ewington and Tony Horton are joined by an innovative electronics and software approach from Chris Tolley. Based in Manchester and Worcester, i-Pix has just launched the first in its new range of high powered products - the Satellite.

"I-Pix is definitely different," says Chris Ewington. "We have a huge collective pool of experience, knowledge and enthusiasm, and a host of innovative ideas that we want to bring to the market. We want to build on everything we learned during the four years of developing the Pixel."

i-Pix is focused on good quality products and relevant R 'n' D, and intends to be completely market-led the company says. It has already identified an untapped area of the entertainment sector needing hig

UK / Hong Kong - Artistic Licence continues to expand with the opening of a new UK headquarters building and Hong Kong office. The recent launch and immediate market take up of products such as Pixi-Flex and Pixi-Web has led to an expansion of outsourced assembly, say the company.

Artistic Licence has selected Remploy to expand its manufacturing and assembly capability. Managing director, Wayne Howell comments: "Remploy is a very impressive organisation. They have been very responsive to our requests and have a good understanding of our need for quality and consistency in manufacturing. I am also extremely impressed with the ethos of the organisation and pleased to play our part in expanding the opportunities for disabled people."

Remploy is the UK's leading provider of jobs for disabled people. Last year it supported in work or into work more than 10,000 people with

Japan - March 2006 saw the colorful opening of Cocone Kamifukuoka, a multi-use complex in Fujimino City, Saitama Prefecture, Japan. Located north of Tokyo and situated directly in front of Kamifukuoka train station, Cocone Kamifukuoka offers a variety of services such as rental housing, shopping and medical facilities. Operated by the Urban Renaissance Agency, the complex's convenience and friendly atmosphere is already proving quite popular with locals. A new, dynamic façade illumination has added to the area's appeal.

The shopping center's façade, a five-storey construction housing a large parking garage, features a colour changing illumination from 11 Martin Architectural Exterior 200 Long Barrel colour changing luminaires. The IP65-rated fixtures, mounted with 12° lenses and spaced equally atop the structure, focus a narrow beam of seasonal shades vertically across the

Morocco - 40 years ago, exclusive French tour operator Le club Méditerranée, opened a village in Agadir, Morocco. To celebrate their birthday in style, the resort received a complete refurbishment, which included the addition of eight PixelPar 90s.

Club Med's Entertainment division asked French lighting designer Olivier Legendre to design the scheme. Fortunately, Olivier had used PixelRange fixtures before on many tours with Paris-based company Prévues - so from experience he chose PixelPar 90s as his creative lighting solution.

He says: "This was a great opportunity to introduce LED technology to Le club Méditerranée. The PixelPar 90 is the perfect plug-and-play fixture, creating fabulous effects with low power consumption and no maintenance - which are key points for this kind of international product."

The PixelPars, chosen for

Singapore - Singapore's Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) has announced the creation of a new permanent multimedia night-time spectacular, which will be installed over the sea. The new production, designed and produced by ECA2, is to be launched during the second quarter of 2007, and will be operated two or three times per night for a minimum period of three years.

The new attraction will be created by internationally acclaimed designer Yves Pepin, founder and president of ECA2, a company recognized the world over as one of the most experienced international teams for conception, creation and production of multimedia shows. Pepin, along with film directors Steven Spielberg and Zhang Yimou, and Ric Birch, the talented producer of the Sydney 2000 Ceremonies, have recently been appointed Artistic Advisers in the creative team for the Ceremonies of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games by

Germany - After touring Germany for the past two years, the FIFA Globe has finally come home. The 17.8m tall structure designed by Multimedia Artist André Heller was built using 60 tons of zinc-coated steel (and can be seen on the BBC's World Cup Match of The Day, standing in the background behind Gary Lineker's shoulders).

Before arriving in Frankfurt, the FIFA Globe had been travelling across Germany promoting their hosting of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. Looking like an oversized football by day, the sculpture is transformed into an illuminated globe by night, thanks to 40 Tryka Strip Module Optic IP67 1200mm and six Strip Module Optic IP67 600mm - all driven by Tryka Modulation Drivers and programmed by DMX. Lighting designer Antonius Quodt was responsible for specifying the equipment.

The interior of the imposing FIFA Globe - made connecting 256m of steel pipe t

UK - West London-based Entec Sound and Light is supplying cult US thrash metallers Tool with full lighting and sound production and crew for their current European tour, supporting their newly launched '10,000 Days' album. Entec's ability to offer an integrated sound and lighting package helped them win the competitive bid for the tour - their first with the band - via tour manager Craig Duffy. The tour is being project managed for Entec by Noreen O'Riordan (lighting) and Dick Hayes (sound).

LD Breck Haggerty has worked with Tool since 1998 - initially as lighting crew chief before graduating to the design hot seat. His main lighting consideration for this tour was designing something floor-based and optimised for easy rigging and de-rigging. The concept is that this toured to festivals throughout the summer, enabling them to have as much of their show as possible with a minimum

Belgium - Philips Lumileds Lighting Company announced today that it has established new luminance performance records for solid-state lighting technology at 1 Amp. Among the new benchmarks reported by Philips are:
For white devices, luminance of 38 meganits (Mcd/m2), approximately 50% more luminance than that of an automotive headlamp halogen bulb (~25 meganits) was achieved.
For InGaN blue devices, a radiance of 200mW/mm2sr was realised.
For InGaN green devices, luminance of 37 meganits (Mcd/m2) was achieved.

"These solid-state light sources - that fit on the head of a matchstick - demonstrate light output performance levels well beyond what is possible from today's state-of-the-art LEDs and are indicative of the evolutionary research and development work being done at Philips Lumileds. These achievements will significantly affect the performance and design of

Czech Republic - Robe Show Lighting has introduced the feature-packed ColorSpot 2500E AT - its most powerful moving light fixture to date. Applications will include large venues, concerts and stadiums, outdoor shows, corporate and special events and anywhere a versatile big output lightsource is required, including for searchlight effects, say the company.

The fixture is robustly constructed and features a new handle design. It's designed to withstand both the rigours of the road and the challenges of different weather and operating conditions. The CS 2500E AT uses an MSR Gold 1200 SA/SE FastFit lamp with an 1400W electronic ballast, while its optical system consists of a high luminous efficiency parabolic glass reflector, focus lens and multi-step zoom lens with a 10-30° beam angle. All lenses are anti-reflection coated.

The CMY colour mixing system is ultra-smooth, say t

USA / Europe - Color Kinetics reports that its product lines now comply with the RoHS environmental directive, in accordance with the 1 July, 2006 deadline. RoHS calls for the restriction of certain hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment sold into the European market.

By successfully completing the measures required for compliance, Color Kinetics will also be prepared to meet similar regulations pending worldwide, including RoHS adoption by Australia, Canada, Korea and Taiwan.

"Color Kinetics is increasingly a global business, and since inception we have taken many steps to meet or exceed global standards - whether to gain UL and CE certification for safety, or to comply with IEC standards for product interoperability across international markets," said Bill Sims, President and CEO, Color Kinetics. "The investment made in achieving RoHS comp

UK - The PLASA Show (Earls Court, London, 10-13 September 2006) is now welcoming nominations for the popular PLASA Awards for Innovation, which will once again form a major attraction at the event this year. At last year's show, no less than 68 nominated products covering various product areas within lighting, audio, staging and AV, were displayed on the Innovation Gallery, which is sponsored by Lighting&Sound International magazine and situated right at the entrance to Earls Court's ground floor.

Judged on the grounds of their 'Innovation' alone, the nominated products are closely assessed by a panel of expert industry practitioners, chaired by L&SI magazine's Technical Editor, James Eade. There are nine awards available in total - eight Awards for Innovation of equal standing, plus an Award for Environmental Impact, which

UK - White Light is supplying the lighting equipment to the first West End revival of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's hit musical Evita, which opened at the Adelphi Theatre on 24 June.

Directed by Michael Grandage, designed by Christopher Oram and with choreography by Rob Ashford - the team behind the hit production of Guys and Dolls at the Piccadilly Theatre, Evita is being lit by two-time Olivier Award winner Paule Constable.

Constable's design includes a diverse range of lighting equipment, much of it available from White Light's extensive hire stock - but with one particular light created by White Light specifically for the production. The conventional rig includes ETC Source Fours and Source Four Pars, Strand Alto and Cadenza PCs, Alto Fresnels and Strand and Arri 5kW Fresnels, Par 64s and ADB Svoboda battens, plus 200 Rainbow Pro scrollers in a ra

Qatar - In February of this year, Canadian rock star Bryan Adams brought his Room Service tour to Doha, the capital of Qatar. The concert had been organized as part of a charity campaign, named 'Reach Out to Asia', promoted by the daughter of the Emirate to raise money for the victims of the tsunami. The show at the stadium at Doha, Al Sadd, lasted over 90 minutes and the meeting on the stage between Adams and the young Iraqi star Bilal was particularly striking.

Qatar Vision took care of the supply and installation of all audio-visual equipment, in addition to constructing the stage, which took three full days. The lighting system was composed solely of Clay Paky equipment, with 150 moving head projectors (including numerous Alpha Spot HPE 575s - the effects projector which offers 20 gobos, an animation disk, a colour system with a luminosity unattainable by most 575W pr

USA / UK - High End Systems (HES) of Austin, Texas and Wynne Willson Gottelier (WWG) UK have formed an agreement on the licensing of certain WWG digital lighting technologies patents.

Richard Belliveau, chief technology officer for HES, says: "WWG is a truly innovative source of inventive creativity in the lighting industry. The relationship between WWG and HES has been instrumental in the development of HES digital lighting products. We are pleased to form the licensing agreement with WWG."

Peter Wynne Willson of WWG says: "The hard and soft engineering of the HES digital products is exemplary. Richard Belliveau and his team have made a fabulous job of bringing our Catalyst project to market. WWG has learned much from HES en route to concluding this licensing agreement."

High End Systems is a worldwide automated lighting and control systems manufacturer

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