UK - One of the latest innovations from Gary Crawford of CITC, the US-based manufacturer of special effects devices including snow, fog and water effects, has made the headlines in the US. The innovation may be used to control nuisance birds at farms and airports.

Crawford has modified a haze machine and come up with a grape concentrate-based solution that irritates birds without permanently harming them. When birds breathe in the substance, they cough and feel irritated, and keep away from the area. However, the solution does not affect other animals or people, says Crawford, who famously worked on effects for Steven Spielberg's E.T.

The Guardian Birdhaze machine emits a transparent, nearly invisible, haze that lingers in the air for up to four hours in an enclosed area. Outside, it spreads out over an area quickly, but remains effective. Tests in places where birds or

High End Systems silenced those who thought they had seen the last true moving light come out of Austin, by launching the Studio Command. This moving head version of High End's Color Command colour changer fixture has an electronic ballast and uses 14 DMX512 channels.

Also being shown on the High End booth was a preview of version four of the media server benchmark - Catalyst. Although High End says that Catalyst has always been capable of running HD content, it has never been something that it has ever shouted particularly loudly about. We can expect that to change in the coming months as Catalyst V4 is rolled out. Also new for Catalyst was a preview and content management interface.

UK - Four winners of ETC's new Source Four Enhanced Definition Lens Tube (EDLT) were presented with their prizes at ETC's Christmas Party in the crypt of St Martin in the Fields Church off London's Trafalgar Square earlier in December. The winners entered a competition on ETC's stand at PLASA 2005, and were drawn at random from the hundreds who entered.

Chris Hook, of StageRats Ltd, Ron Hill of Sutton Theatres and Becky Daley at Rose Bruford College were all presented with Source Four 19º luminaires with the new enhanced-definition lens tubes, by ETC's sales manager for UK and Ireland, Mark White. Nathaniel Keiller of Theatre Royal Windsor was unable to attend and his prize was shipped to him.

The party offered one of the first demonstrations of the EDLT, projecting ETC logos onto the wall behind the presentation stage. The standard Source Four was placed side by side with a

UK - PRG Europe has been busy working on the lighting for The Night of the Iguana at London's Lyric Theatre. Written by Tennessee Williams and produced by Bill Kenwright, the play follows a group of American tourists in the Mexican jungle.

"The main backbone of the rig," says Peter Marshall, project director at PRG Europe, "are VL5Bs and the new VL3000Q spots, chosen specifically because the lights had to be silent." In addition to this was an array of over 100 conventional fixtures including ETC Source Fours and Par 64s, all programmed from a Strand 520i desk by Stuart Cross.

"We used the VL5s with the colour changing system to achieve a range of light conditions, from bright sunshine, through sunset and moonlight," explains lighting director Mark Henderson. "We even used the strobe facility on a couple of VL3000s to recreate lightnin

UK - Hawthorn were contracted by Worcestershire-based DRP to supply all technical requirements for a 14-day event for 2000 delegates in Antalya Turkey for Thomas Cook. Thomas Cook is celebrating its 150th year in overseas travel, so this event had to be memorable. With trucking taking over 12 days and the venue being on the third floor with limited lift space, the project provided a real logistical challenge for Hawthorn's technical manager and LD Matt Oscroft.

Hawthorn's brief was to provide four different stage looks for all the events that all had to be held in the same one room, ranging from a theatre show, conference and gala dinner through to their very own tribute to ITV's The X Factor called the TC Factor, which was the brain child of Dale Parmenter, MD of DRP.

To allow Oscroft to re-create similar lighting effects to those used in the TV show, Hawthorn shipped

UK - Following an extremely busy year, freelance lighting designer Tim Routledge is beginning 2006 with the purchase of a GrandMA Light lighting console, which offers the full power of the full-size desk in a smaller, compact size. Routledge explains: "I have used the GrandMA console range pretty much exclusively for the past two years and there is no other desk on the market that has the power and flexibility of this system." He added: "Any purchase of this size for an independent LD is a massive investment and I had to be satisfied that it was the right choice, the last 12 months have proved to me I have made the right decision."

Routledge's work in 2005 included a range of shows from live music at Hammersmith Apollo, to timecoded musicals on board cruise liners. He finished off the year designing and programming Hot Stuff - The Christmas Edition at

USA - PRG faced the challenge of installing a lighting system in Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall that could produce sophisticated effects and be easily reconfigured and controlled.

Everything in Zankel Hall is adaptable. The floor is divided into nine sections that can be raised and lowered to create a variety of room configurations. The nearly 650 audience seats can be arranged easily to suit the different room setups (most of them rest on stepped wagons built on air casters). And for lighting, 21 self-climbing truss units cover most of the ceiling. Each can be raised to any height for performances and lowered to stage level for rigging and maintenance.

Working with consultants Auerbach Pollock Friedlander, and rigging contractor Pook Diemont & Ohl, PRG coordinated the lighting installation, including developing a custom solution to manage the system's intricate cabling.

Each t

UK - Liverpool welcomed 2006 with a spectacular 20-minute multimedia son et lumière event organised by The Liverpool Culture Company, designed to appeal to a mass audience. The show, staged on the steps of St Georges Hall with the iconic building's impressive neoclassical architecture as a backdrop, featured dancing water fountains, a water screen, lighting, sound, lasers, giant flame effects and fireworks. It was enjoyed free by over 8,000 people.

The show was devised by Kirstie Blakeman (also the event manager) from Liverpool Culture Company and Steve Boothman from Fantastic Fireworks. They created a soundtrack encompassing an array of music styles - kicking off with Leftfield's 'Phat Planet' and ending on the Can-Can.

They wanted to focus attention on the building rather than the sky, and integrate the City's '2005 Year of the Sea' theme with its 2006 one - 'Year of Perfor

UK - Lighting designer Dan Hardiman upped the creative ante on the UK arena section of UB40's current ongoing world tour by also taking on the role of video director, directing and mixing a full manned-camera IMAG system and a substantial lighting rig ..... all via the lighting desk.

The piece of kit that enabled him to do this was D-Tek Industries' ingenious D-Mix Pro - a small 1U 'black box' device offering huge flexibility, plug-and-play simplicity and easy setup and operation.

The D-Mix Pro opens up new opportunities for small-to-medium sized tours to incorporate video very cost-effectively into their show, with no extra crew required. The operator can programme and sequence video mixes via any DMX user-interface, just as they would a moving light or other intelligent device. D-Mix Pro offers a truly integrated show control option, for one creative director to produce seam

USA - Flying Pig Systems' Hog iPC made its Broadway debut with the recent opening of The Color Purple - The Musical. It's got another Broadway-bound show waiting in the wings - the Elton John/Bernie Taupin musical, Lestat, currently playing in San Francisco but moving to Broadway in March.

Both shows were programmed by David Arch, who coincidentally programmed the first Wholehog 2 console on Broadway in 1997 for the stage show, The Life (an honour he shares with Christian Choi). He says: "I choose Hog iPC for a few reasons. The shows were over four universes but under eight which meant no slow down in iPC processing speed. Because the Hog iPC is a new product, it's fully supported. Its compact size is great for small Broadway control booths. Plus, when it comes to viewing a lot of information quickly and easily the Hog contents screen is still one of th

USA - Jeff Pelzl, VP of Worldwide Service for Texas-based lighting manufacturer High End Systems Inc, has been promoted to assume responsibility for worldwide sales, along with his current service role. Pelzl takes on the position held by Bill Morris, who will leave HES in late January. For the past 16 years, Pelzl has been supporting High End's customer base and is a familiar face and name to the entire industry.

HES CEO Frank Gordon commented, "Jeff is a natural for this job. He knows our technology, he knows the industry, but most importantly he knows our customers. For years, he has been an advocate for the customer and runs a very tight organization in terms of customer responsiveness."

Richard Belliveau, HES co-founder and CTO, added: "Jeff brings a great deal to this sales role in terms of understanding the core of the customer business. He also understan

UK - PRG Europe once again worked with lighting designer Durham Marenghi to produce a spectacular light show on the London Eye on New Year's Eve. They put 100 VL5 Arcs on a pontoon at the base of the eye, shining them onto the giant wheel. The main lighting contractor for the event was Stage Electrics.

"Before midnight, the lighting on the Eye was set to the five colours of the Olympic rings, to show support for London winning the games in 2012," explains Marenghi. "Then, on each of the 12 chimes from Big Ben, three brilliant white Lightning Strikes fired a strobe-like effect on the wheel, following which a 10-minute fireworks display entertained the massive crowd. The lights were set to be coloured in sympathy with the display, which was kept low in the night sky so that TV cameras could see the wheel and surrounding architecture as well as the fireworks themselv

UK - A new £3.5m development project in Aberdeen has been equipped with a multizone Martin Audio/QSC sound reinforcement package, specified by contractors Absolute Audio Systems, as well as a dynamic automated lighting system supplied by Difuzion - the lighting arm of Fuzion plc, UK distributors for the Futurelight range.

The exclusive club, bar and restaurant is housed in a three-storey 19th century granite building, which has been sensitively converted by Edinburgh-based architects/designers Kerr Blyth Associates (KBA). The result is 'The Albyn', which provides Aberdeen-based owners, European Development Company (EDC), with the jewel in their leisure crown.

Working with architectural technicians Canale Associates, KBA designed a two-storey extension to the rear of the property to incorporate the bar, restaurant and entertainment area, featuring a grand piano, acoustica

UK - Dom Smith chose an Avolites Diamond 4 console to control the lightshow for Embrace's recent arena tour. The show was designed by Bryan Leitch, the tour's artistic director, who worked closely with Smith as lighting programmer and on-the-road lighting director.

It was Smith's first full production tour with Embrace following some DVD work in the preceding months, and the equipment was supplied by leading UK rental company, Siyan. Leitch completed the design after consulting with the band's lead singer Danny McNamara.

Specification of the control gear was left to Smith who chose his favourite console - the Avolites Diamond 4. Smith, one of the UK's leading young LD's, was one of the first to take Avo's most powerful console on the road - initially with the Stone Temple Pilots in 2003. Since then, he's not used another console.

Lighting wise, the stage started bare and dar

UK - Lighting Technology Projects (LTP) has specified and supplied 19 Color Kinetics ColorBlast 12 wall washing LED fixtures and 128 pieces of CK wide angle iColor Cove NXT for the main reception of the new 'Patient Hotel' at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.

To help create an environment that is stimulating, fun and friendly for patients, parents and visitors, a large colourful feature lighting scheme was proposed for the Hotel's pre-reception entranceway by Ove Arup. The lighting scheme was designed by Arup Lighting's design team. They then asked LTP's Terry Reeves to specify the equipment for achieving the overall effect. LTP has worked on previous projects with Arup including the award winning Plantation Lane 'Moonwall' at Plantation Place, in the City of London.

The six square metre tiled frosted glass floor runs the entire width of the entrance floor, and continues

USA - Production Resource Group and Lightning Strikes have announced that PRG will be the exclusive distributor for Lightning Strikes' lighting products.

Lightning Strikes' technology provides the highest single-source output available worldwide (up to 500,000 watts from a single lamp) with near-perfect replication of sunlight, instant-on capability, and dimming to 3% of maximum power with consistent colour-temperature and colour quality. Its SoftSun continuous lights and Lightning Strikes intermittent lights have been used in the production of thousands of feature films, television series, and commercials, as well as concerts, theatre, sports, and other live events.

Jere Harris, Founder and CEO of PRG said, "We have had great success with the Lightning Strikes products on recent projects like the Coldplay and U2 tours. We're pleased to have formalized our relationship wi

UK - Lumidrives, the UK based LED technology provider has seen turnover for 2005 rise 25% to £3.5m, following the launch of successful new products and strong export sales growth.

Founded in 2001, Lumidrives was one of the first companies to realise the potential of high powered LED technology in illumination applications. It specialises in the development of components to enable applications in solid state lighting, including power drivers, LED arrays and optics. The company also offers design services for LED based illumination systems.

Lumidrives' 2005 growth follows on the back of a doubling of turnover in 2004. Exports now account for 40% of sales with new customers located in Japan, Canada, Turkey, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic.

The company's technology is used in a wide cross section of applications ranging from high profile exterior and interi

The Netherlands - Lumileds Lighting and Future Electronics re-set industry expectations for the price and value of high-power LEDs, releasing new manufacturer suggested retail pricing (MSRP) for Luxeon III and Luxeon I LEDs in advance of the release of its new Luxeon K2 LEDs.

Lumileds' new pricing positions the industry's most widely used high-power LEDs as the clear value leaders and demonstrates Lumileds commitment to rapidly growing the market for solid-state lighting technology, says the company. The new pricing is in effect immediately, worldwide, and is available on the companies' web sites as well as for online orders.

"As the market's only high volume producer of power LEDs, Lumileds is delivering the technology that will help to grow the market for solid-state lighting," said Mark Swoboda, executive vp of sales and marketing for Lumileds. "With Luxeon I

UK - By January 1st, lighting supplier White Light had already supplied its first new touring show of 2006: the musical Footloose, which began its UK tour at the Millennium Centre in Cardiff.

Produced by Mark Goucher, Michael Rose and Tristan Baker, Footloose is directed by Karen Bruce, designed by Morgan Large with lighting by James Whiteside. White Light have supplied a rig that includes Martin Mac500 and Mac2000 profiles, Mac600 washlights and Clay Paky Alpha Halo washlights, as well as ETC Source Fours, Rainbow colour scrollers, Par Cans, 5kW fresnels, L&E battens, Coda-4 floods, Unique haze machines, and White Light's fully-rated LOLER lighting ladders.

The rig is fed from Avo touring dimmer racks, controlled by a Strand 520i console programmed by Rob Halliday. The show's production electrician is Jeremy Duncan, with Simon Gooding the production manager.

T

USA - City Theatrical's new VL500/1000 floor stand is a sleek, low profile, moving light mounting base specifically designed for Vari-Lite's new VL500 Wash Luminaires. It features a broad, stable, low profile base measuring 17" x 13" x 1" tall (43.2cm x 33cm x 2.5cm) with stylish rounded corners. Fabricated from strong but lightweight aluminum, the VL500/1000 floor stand is stackable for ease of storage.

The mounting plate of the VL500/1000 Floor Stand contains ½" diameter (12.7mm) mounting holes on 8" (20.3cm) centers suitable for either VL500 or VL1000, as well as a centre hole to enable the mounting of any conventional lighting fixture.

City Theatrical specializes in inventing, manufacturing and customizing unique lighting accessories, and has been an innovator in the field since it began manufacturing in 1994.

(Chris Henry)

Japan - The Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Association held their 39th Tokyo Motor Show - Passenger Cars & Motorcycles - at the Makuhari Messe complex in Makuhari, Chiba City from 21 October to 6 November 2005.

The theme of this year's show was "Driving Tomorrow! - from Tokyo" with over 1.5m visitors taking in the sights and sounds of the industry's most advanced technologies and designs.

Motor shows mean prodigious amounts of lighting, and the Tokyo Motor Show, with its 40,000sq.m of space, was no exception. Countless numbers of lighting fixtures were incorporated into exhibits from more than 200 companies, including 264 Martin products for exhibits by Toyota, Mazda, Mitsubishi Motors, Volkswagen, and others.

At the Toyota exhibit MAC 2000 Performances were painted silver-white to match the ceiling, truss, and walls while Alien O2 color changers were pai

USA - After conducting 200 extensive surveys during PLASA and LDI, Wybron and Acromatics now begin the second phase of market development research on the performance lighting industry. The ongoing research program will consist of monthly online questionnaires, with access to surveys being as close as the nearest computer. The monthly surveys will cover a variety of subjects including industry hot topics and product usage habits, with results to be shared with the industry.

The first phase of research, sponsored by Wybron, was accomplished at PLASA2005 in London and ETS-LDI in Orlando. Executed by New York-based Acromatics, it involved a combination of one-on-one interviews and computer questionnaires. "The idea of the monthly online surveys was a result of the overwhelming response we got from the respondents in London and Orlando," says marketing guru Stuart Agres, wh

UK - Lighting designer Ian Turner and his company, Southampton-based GLS supplied 24 Robe ColorSpot 1200 AT fixtures for Irish folk punksters The Pogues' recent UK arena tour. Turner has designed lighting for the band since their reformation in 2001. The hugely popular 2005 Christmas shows saw a re-release of their massive hit, "Fairytale of New York", with all royalties split between homeless charities and the Justice For Kirsty Campaign.

He chose the Robe fixtures for this tour - the first time he's used them on a full tour - as his main moving lights initially because of their "incredible brightness". He needed a moving light that would hold its own amidst the 200 Par cans and 24 Molefays on the rig, which was designed as a contemporary take on that classic rock 'n' roll pub-band-on-a-big-stage look. The 24 fixtures were distributed all across the three-tr

UK - Two Gloucester DJ's, Jason Ayers and Steve Blake, have got their hands on a landmark Stroud venue, and lovingly restored it from near dilapidation over an 18-month period. Having secured Stroud's first late night licence back in 1969 the venue became The Marshall Rooms (hosting bands like U2 among others). But its recent history has been chequered and it eventually closed down.

When they were ready to convert it into the 425-capacity Riga, they contacted Contract Audio Visual (CAV) for their technology infrastructure. CAV's sales manager, Howard Williams, says: "They loved the power of the NEXO Alpha Touring System, in particular the heavy bass, and opted for that on a contract rental basis."

But power comes at a price, and being in a residential area the operators needed one hundred tonnes of concrete to provide the necessary sound reinforcement after CAV had c

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