étienne states: "Confronted with such a challenge, you start with the obvious. The thing is, most performers associate the word microphone with the name Shure. There are quite a number of singers out there that are basically expecting nothing less than an SM58 microphone when they arrive here. This suits me fine because Shure has a great tradition for quality and reliability while being able to stay one step ahead of the pa
As MD Adrian Brooks explained: "The tremendous rise in popularity of line array sound systems within the concert and touring sector of the pro-sound marketplace has created a problem. They need to be flown, and many venues do not have the facility to easily do this. LiteMast provides a convenient, labour-saving and cost-effective solution, hence the interest from this area, with both manufacturers and hire companies enquiring."
The company also launched LiteBarrier, a modular crowd control system with advanced features and superior ergonomics, designed to hold back the pressing hordes. Commenting
The Roadie Compact features a twin block design. Dual, high-output 1.5KW heat exchangers work with a high performance fan to provide long, stage-filling projections. Versatile and capable of casting a variety of effects from a controlled haze to a high-density fog, the Roadie Compact can also be positioned vertically for geyser effects or towers of fog.
On board controls allow for independent smoke possibilities with full functionality capable from a remote control (accessory). Control via DMX is a standard feature. Designed to accept a variety of fluids for different effect options, a large 9.5 litre fluid container and easy remote fluid connection mean fluid refill
LD/set designer Paul Normandale and lighting director Glen Johnson have carried Wholehog 3 consoles on a number of tours the past few years.
Says Johnson: "Its Only Natural (referencing a popular Crowded House song title) that I would choose the Wholehog 3 console again for this tour after my faultless year with it on James Blunt."
UK's Lite Alternative provided the two Wholehog 3 consoles, along with two Playback Wings, a full-size Expansion Wing and 2 DP 2000s. Upstaging is the lighting contractor on the US tour.
"Crowded House have a catalogue of 100-plus songs with over 70 programmed in the console," Johnson explains. "While I am given a set list every night of 20 songs, it is rare for them to keep to the set, an
Two years in the making, VectorWorks 2008 features a new name in addition to new features and enhancements developed with the direct input of VectorWorks users. VectorWorks 2008 offers new technology to optimise workflows, enrich presentations, and facilitate collaboration, says the company.
VectorWorks 2008 offers interface improvements, placing at the user's fingertips the exact controls needed to finish designs with little wasted effort or distraction. A new heads-up Data Display bar brings precision drawing into the user's line of sight, with the ability to switch quickly between mouse and keyboard inputs.
A new View bar consolidates often-used viewing
Novatech provided all the sound, lighting and video production services that were required, including the logistics for touring three states in 72 hours: Vodafone Arena in Melbourne, the Adelaide Entertainment Centre and the Sydney Entertainment Centre.
The concerts presented a huge challenge due to the close proximity of the tour dates and the tyranny of distance which needed to be covered, some 5,600km, with Novatech arranging the logistics, equipment and staff for the shows as well as the actual production.
Lighting control included a combination of six LSC ePAK dimmers and numerous LSC Delta DMX splitters to ensure that the shows ran smoot
After being involved with the Rush in Rio Vapour Trails Tour, Pyrotek Special Effects was consulted to brighten up a number of songs for their present tour. Long time lighting designer, and agent, Howard Ungerleider approached pyrotechnician John Arrowsmith to come up with a number of special effects.
With a focus for a concussion effect to emphasise a specific moment in their newest hit single Far Cry, the requested effect was to synchronise upon the completion of the course. Arrowsmith collaborated with Doug Adams (designer & president of Pyrotek Special Effects) to design an element to the theme which ends with a big punctuation.
During production rehearsals at the Hershey Centre (Mi
"Our strong financial performance during the last three fiscal years has allowed us to team up with one of the largest banks in America," said Frank Gordon, HES CEO. "We intend to use the new facility to further support technology innovation and its global sales effort."
"High End sales revenue continues to grow dramatically in Europe, the Middle East and Asia and we have now strengthened our position to provide customers more financing options and to support dealer sales with more demonstration equipment," said Bill Morris, HES executive vice-president.
Merritt Belisle joined High End Systems as chairman in January. "I was excited by the outstanding team of innovators when I joined High End," Belisle said. "The sea
Lighting designer Vince Foster created a breathtaking centrepiece for the 4,000 revellers - a moving LED chandelier structure featuring 100 PixelArt video battens and 50 PixelLine 1044s. Over 100 Pixeline 1044s highlighted the enormous ground support truss and another 50 provided a chevron video wall on the live acts stage.
Foster enthuses: "PixelLine 1044s are one of my favourite LED fixtures and are constantly specified in my designs. I am very impressed with the new PixelArt video batten, the resolution is outstanding, creating further design flexibility."
To enable the guests to see the trains going in a
Show Technology marked the occasion by holding Robert Juliat showcase events at their Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane offices. Special guest was Lionel Garraud, Robert Juliat's international sales director.
Products on display included the Cyrano followspot, the Quincy architectural profile, the Lutin fresnel and the award-winning Super Korrigan followspot (2006 Live Design International Products of the Year).
Show Technology's managing director Emmanuel Ziino commented, "The market has shown a great acceptance for Robert Juliat and there is pent up demand for the product. We have committed to building up stock and consequently will have showroom stock in all of our b
Bristol-based lighting specialists, Utopium have once again worked with AMG to introduce state-of-the-art facilities to the design of its three-room operation at Carling Academy Oxford.
Richard Maides, Academy Music Group's operations manager says: "We have worked with Utopium on a number of installations at our venues in Newcastle, Bristol, Liverpool, Islington and Glasgow and as a group we invest heavily in both our PA and lighting equipment. We aim high in our production values so that all AMG properties offer the same excellent in-house production facilities for both international touring acts and the very best for upcoming talent looking
The four-day festival hosted an eclectic mix of performances from a 40-piece orchestra to Girls Aloud. LXCO designed and supplied the production lighting for the festival, transforming the lighting set between each of the shows. Among the lights hanging from the truss were 54 PAR cans creating colour washes on stage as well as 14 Martin MAC 500s and 18 MAC 600s. The rig was developed over the four varying gigs, to suit the music and the mood of each event.
Mark Wheatley, LXCO's lighting designer commented: "We wanted to try and give it a different look each night for people coming back to the festival; suiting the style and genre of music. We knew there would be activity and rehearsals on the stage during the day so our te
Not surprisingly, the project to upgrade the park's audio system was also subject to the limitations of historic preservation. "Because of the park's landmark status, any proposed changes have to run through a number of lengthy and complex approval processes," explains Kevin Tucker of Chicago-based Ad
Leading the move into Earls Court 2, which the PLASA Show expanded back in to this year, White Light created more than just a conventional stand: a White Light Zone featuring White Light itself and ELC DMX Tools, LDDE, Look Solutions, LSC, Rainbow, Robert Juliat and Wireless Solutions.
Notable events in the Zone included the launch of the new Robert Juliat Victor 1800W MSR followspot presented by Francois Juliat, and the new Redback dimmer from LSC Lighting presented by LSC's Gary Pritchard. In addition ELC marked the milestone of supplying their 2007th FocusHand/Brain hand-held remote in the year 2007 by presenting the unit to the 2007th customer, Stuart Lodge of Wimbledon High School.
The unit's
Developed with the help of Rick Fisher, co-founder (along with the late Tony Gottelier) of the industry charity which supports lighting designers in difficult times, Light Relief Yellow is a vibrant colour, suitable for raising awareness of the charity.
Since committing to this programme, Rosco has presented Light Relief with an annual donation based on the sales of #313. At PLASA 07, Rosco's president Stan Miller presented Light Relief with a check for $3,172 bringing the total to date over $10,000.
"What has been remarkable about Rosco is the continuing nature of its support for this charity, which is there to provide practical assistance to those in the Lighting Industry wh
"Lantern optics have improved considerably over the years," explains Goboland's exclusive consultant, Wyatt Enever, "but the basic nature of the gobo has remained the same - until now. Goboland is known for the work it does on glass gobos, now we are extending our development to our steel range as well."
Goboland gave some 'M' size black steel gobos to ETC to try out in the ETC So
"The Micro line was extended after seeing the incredible response to the R-512 Micro receiver released in 2006," says Niclas Arvidsson, international sales manager for Wireless Solution. "The unit has all the reliable functionality of the full sized W-DMX BlackBox units, but the compact size was appealing to a large number of end users."
The new Micro series builds upon the considerable successes of the full size BlackBox range. Thanks to advances in circuit miniaturisation, Wireless Solution has managed to fit the complete W-DMX system into a compact package with less than half the volume of the usual casing.
Even with the compact size, the S-1 Micro includes a full battery backup syst
Paolo Dozzo, sales manager for the Vitec Staging Division - Tomcat UK's parent company, commented, "Remo is experienced in sales, marketing, customer support and communications, all of which have built him a lot of respect within the industry. We are pleased to have Remo on the Tomcat team."
(Jim Evans)
In addition, Nexxus Lighting announced that the non-binding letter of intent it entered into with LightWild, LLC in Overland Park, Kansas has expired and will not be extended.
"We are very excited to have closed the merger transaction with ALS. We look forward to integrating ALS as a Nexxus Lighting company and executing our LED product development strategy for both the commercial and entertainment lighting markets," stated Mike Bauer, president & CEO of Nexxus Lighting.
"Our overall strategy for
The LED based video screen has a semi-transparent design with easily connecting panels that allow for area coverage of up to 14m in height and no restrictions in width.
Each panel frame is 1m x 2m with LEDs laid inside an acrylic tube. The pixel pitch of the panel is 40mm which allows for excellent resolution and the design of the panel creates a seamless image, says the company.
(Jim Evans)
"This release includes added functionality, new features, improved reliability and enhanced performance," says Brad Schiller, HES director of control systems development.
Version 2.2.2 contains the following new features: cuelist effect rate control, options for using cue time and/or macros when going backward, improved fixture selection tools and Chinese language help. Several other features and many bug fixes are also included within this release.
Version 2.2.2 marks an important milestone, says HES. Over the last three years, significant portions of the software have been rewritten to improve the system's reliability and performance. Now that most of that work is complete, a focu
In the 19th century, fabric magnate Izrael Poznanski opened a textile factory in Lodz, which grew to become one of the largest in Europe. The factory contained a palace, living quarters, its own power plant, railroad, fire department, school, and more.
Thousands of employees worked and lived in the industrial park until WWI, when production was slowed. In WWII, the German army took over the factory. Slowly, in the post-war era, the factory began shutting down, and finally closed in 1997, leaving behind a cache of historical buildings and landmarks.
The French design firm Apsys Polska began rebuilding the area, preserving most of the original st
"It was important to the lighting design that the installed LED fixtures, DMX controlled as well as video walls, were fully integrated into one system," explained Manuel da Costa of mo2 design who was responsible for the realisation of the lighting and media design concept. "It was also necessary to implement a sophisticated control interface with minimal user interaction. The idea was to create an ambient lighting design and mood management from a mixture of different LED fixtures matching the architectural characteristics."
Multiple moods and looks as well as randomly selected movies
Farm Aid 2007 hosted a unique musical collaboration: Gregg Allman performed a special acoustic set with Willie Nelson and Dave Matthews. Willie Nelson, Neil Young, John Mellencamp, Dave Matthews, Tim Reynolds and The Allman Brothers Band all played full festival sets. Other performers included Counting Crows, Guster and Montgomery Gentry.
The first Farm Aid concert was organised by Willie Nelson, Neil Young and John Mellencamp in 1985. They wanted to increase awareness about the loss of family farms and raise funds to keep family farms in business. Dave Matthews joined the Farm Aid Board of Directors in 2001. Farm Aid has raised more than $30 million dollars to
