UK - The launch of Automation in the Entertainment Industry - A User's Guide, the newest title from ET Press, which took place after the ABTT Theatre Show awards on 10th June, was a casual gathering in a private room of a pub near the Apollo theatre, and around 60 industry personalities made an extra effort to attend even though the tube strikes were affecting transport in central London.

At the launch, Mark Ager said a few words to thank all the contributors and those who had helped to make the book a reality: "This book has been part of a focus to help educate the market about automation and its uses and possibilities. Although John [Hastie] and I are credited as the authors, this book has been a collaborative effort by a whole host of people, both inside and outside Stage Technologies. So much of the knowledge contained within is the distilled wisdom of colleagues

UK - Lighting Designer Liz Berry is using a grandMA full-size to control lighting on the current Sisters of Mercy European tour. The maverick UK alternative rockers are back on the road again, continuing an impressive live performance career spanning nearly 30 years, with lead singer Andrew Eldritch and drum machine Doktor Avalanche being the constants in the line up.

"I'd seen the console more and more on shows and festivals," Berry comments, "And thought this would be an ideal opportunity to learn it, specially knowing that we'd be dealing with a wide selection of different moving lights every night, so I knew that the fixture cloning and exchange facilities would be a great asset."

The lightshow is a moody, heavily back-positioned mix of colour, beams and movement, with plenty of subtleties that require meticulous programming and execution, a task that

Belgium - AED Sales has announced that it will take over distribution of the entire GLP lighting product range - including the impression LED moving heads - in Belgium, Netherlands and Luxemburg. Operating from a new extended HQ in Willebroek, Belgium, AED Sales says the new arrangement will become effective from 1 July, 2009.

According to GLP director, Kasper Gissel, the appointment of AED is in recognition of its expertise in the lighting industry, together with a strong association with AED Rent - one of the largest rental support houses in Europe, with rental/production clients right across the globe. "AED Sales has the infrastructure and logistics to ensure that all sales of GLP products are backed by a high level of service and support in order to provide added customer value."

Hans Vanderheijden, managing director, AED Sales, states: "We are very proud to

UK - Marl is extending its reach into the street and flood lighting markets with the launch of what it believes is one of the world's brightest and most efficient LEDs from Citizen.

Available in the UK from Marl,the new Citizen CL-L233 delivers an intense 1335 lumens of white light from 13W at a colour temperature of 5000K. CL-L233 delivers this light over a narrow 120 degree beam, eliminating the well known light pollution caused by most street lighting technologies which emit light over 360 degrees.

According to Marl, this powerful new solution extends the potential of LED technology in applications such as spotlights for stadiums and concerts, security and perimeter lighting, and street and industrial site illumination. Marl's LED specialists will be developing LED assemblies based on the Citizen LED to address these market opportunities, providing a solution that delivers

Belgium - Glass and metal gobo specialist, Goboland has released its full catalogue as a free App for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch. Named Black Steel Gobo Catalogue 1.0, the App is available with immediate effect and can be downloaded, without charge, through iTunes.

Users can browse the full Goboland catalogue of over 1200 designs from Goboland's Black Steel Collection, Premiere and Designer Collections. Each design can also be viewed as an enlarged single image for greater clarity.

Internet access is not necessary to view the collections and the application negates the need for cumbersome brochures and catalogues.

"The Apple iPhone is an incredibly popular and useful tool with which so many in our industry are already familiar," explains Goboland managing director, Ivo Dielen. "We feel it is the ideal format in which to present our gobo designs to

The Netherlands - Visual Productions' VisualDMX software lighting controller was selected by Dutch LED manufacturer TDE, when they were asked to supply and install the lighting and control system for a new large sauna complex. The Devarana in Den Bosch compromises of an approximate 50 room network of saunas, swimming pools, restrooms and treatment rooms, with Asian inspired, East meets West themes running throughout.

TDE selected VisualDMX software lighting control from Visual Productions to control the sauna's lighting as they required a system that could be programmed with numerous lighting effects yet provide a simple and safe means of customer control. They installed LED lighting within the venue including 2500 pieces of their LED strips from about 33cm each.

These, coupled with other mood lighting - including a fibre optic system for ceiling stars - were divided out acros

UK - Entertainment technology providers and industry professionals from the UK event and music production industry have pledged their generous support in raising money for Cancer Research. By sponsoring Vibes for the Vines '09 - a one-day, music festival - with state of the art equipment and their own valuable time, they will ensure a memorable event for all.

On August 8th in a field in Horam, East Sussex, Gary Moore will top the bill, supported by Mo Foster and local legend Ray Russell. There will also be a special guest appearance by Geno Washington of The Ram Jam Band fame and Chris Difford from Squeeze.

Vibes from the Vines '09 follows the first hugely successful festival in 2006, when organizers raised an impressive £32,000 for Cancer Research UK. This year, with a much bigger show and substantially improved production facilities organizers will be loo

USA - Sir Elton John and Billy Joel have reunited for an extensive Face 2 Face tour. John and Joel are touring the US together in a show that sees the musicians play a series of duets on twin pianos, perform separately for an hour each, and then conclude the performance together on stage. The show includes some of their greatest hits along with a selection of rock 'n' roll classics.

Steven Cohen Productions, in conjunction with Epic Production Technologies and Syncrolite supplied a large lighting package that includes Martin MAC III Profiles, MAC 700 Profiles and MAC 2000 Washes with lighting control from a Martin Maxxyz and Maxxyz Modules. Video control for low resolution LED screens is from a Martin Maxedia Broadcast.

Production designer for the show is Steve Cohen. Lighting design is by Cohen and Mark Foffano. Foffano programmed for both artists and served as the ove

UK - In addition to the changes with PRG's UK operation, PRG has announced that Martin Lubach has been appointed as the new managing director of Essential Lighting with immediate effect. Lubach, previously Essential's technical director, has been with the company for more than 12 years.

Part of Production Resource Group (PRG) since October 2008, Essential Lighting works within the corporate, exhibition, live event and hospitality sectors, providing lighting and Scenic LED equipment, digital media and visualisation services. The company has three divisions serving the production industry and lighting designers as well as other lighting companies through a dedicated dry hire team.

As part of the restructuring of PRG UK's management earlier this year, Martin Locket moved from his role as managing director of Essential to become group CEO. He commented: "Martin Lubach has bee

Singapore - Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay has added to its stock of Robert Juliat zoom profile lanterns with the recent acquisition of 16 x RJ 711 SX2 2500W tungsten fixtures. The latest consignment was supplied to the Esplanade by Robert Juliat's distributor, Total Solution Marketing Pte Ltd.

"The popularity of the Esplanade Concert Hall and the broad diversity of events presented here, make providing the venue's performance lighting an exciting challenge," says Esplanade's head of lighting, Milton Arnold. "We find that the demands on our capabilities are ever-increasing, so we turned to lighting manufacturer Robert Juliat, and local supplier Total Solution, to provide the followspots and front of house profiles which would ensure our premier venue keeps pace."

He says the RJ 711SX2 zoom profiles were chosen for the Concert Hall's front-of-house lighting

UK - Production Resource Group UK (PRG) has announced that David March will take on the role of Director of PRG Distribution from 1 July. David has substantial experience in the entertainment lighting industry, starting with a 12 year period with Vari?Lite, up to 1999. He has also worked for High End Systems and most recently as managing director of digital and LED lighting sales company, Projected Image Digital.

Production Resource Group UK's CEO, Martin Locket, added: "David brings considerable skills and experience to lead the team at PRG Distribution. He will be developing and expanding the opportunities for the business as we build on the success of the brands we sell".

PRG Distribution is the European master distributor for Vari*Lite automated lighting fixtures, and also distributes products from Lycian, Pathway and Seachanger, amongst other brands.

March wil

Belgium - Barco has revealed the world's first transformable LED screen for U2's latest world tour. With its 360° shape, the LED screen surrounds the band while performing and can change shape in all directions during the concert, For the third time this millennium, the Barco - U2 cooperation resulted in a revolutionary approach to video, this time totalling more than 500,000 pixels of video, making it the biggest LED screen ever used in concert touring. U2's worldwide tour kicked off 30 June in a sold out Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona, Spain.

The stage and show were created by long-time U2 designers Willie Williams and Mark Fisher. With the help of Chuck Hoberman and Barco their vision of a 360° moving video screen was turned into reality. Barco provided more than half a million transformable LED pixels (FLX), which are integrated into a transformable structure designed

UK - The latest Maximo Park tour was the first in the UK to feature one of MA Lighting's new grandMA2 consoles - a grandMA2 light - which was specified and programmed by Glen Johnson to run the lighting rig which was designed by the band's LD, Stevie Marr. The console ran the new grandMA2 software - the first touring show to do so.

Johnson operated the show for the first part of the tour while Marr completed his work commitments with Die Toten Hosen, after which he took over running the Maximo tour. All lighting equipment including the grandMA2 light was supplied by Blackburn-based Lite Alternative, having just invested in two of the new grandMA2 consoles.

Johnson says, "As soon as I touched the grandMA2 I liked the feel of it. It's neat and compact and the faders are just fantastic. They far surpass any previous motorised faders and in fact, you don't even notice that th

UK - Artistic Licence has introduced Art-Switch PoE4 - developed in response to customer feedback, it can be used to connect together up to four Art-Net nodes, such as Art-Lynx, providing both data and power for the unit and eliminating the need for external power supplies for each node, the company says.

As the number of Art-Net nodes being used in control systems increases, so too does the requirement to power each node. Art-Switch PoE4 uses a more efficient method than powering each node with an individual power supply, by feeding the voltage needed down the same cable as the data from the Ethernet Switch. This method is known as Power-over-Ethernet (PoE). Since Art-Net installations already require an Ethernet switch to carry data, why not include the power in the same unit?

Art-Switch PoE4 provides five 10/100BaseT Ethernet ports, four of which support Power-over-Ethernet

Spain - FC Barcelona is the first football club in Spain to attain the coveted treble: National League Cup, Kings Cup and UEFA Champions League Cup.

Martin Professional was chosen to share in a special Three Cups celebration for FC Barcelona at Nou Camp Stadium in Barcelona before nearly 100,000 spectators.

Supplier Serveis de l'Espectacle Focus, S.A. provided a Martin package that included MAC 2000 series moving heads, Stagebar 54 LED battens, Jem ZR33 Hi-Mass fog machines and AF-1 fans, together with a large number of followspots, lasers and other special effects for the event. All Martin lighting gear was supplied through Martin's Spanish distributor Ecler. Lighting designer for the event was by Xavier Costas.

(Jim Evans)

UK - MilTec (UK) again joined forces with the South West Group to supply PR Lighting automated fixtures and LED effects for this year's Park and BBC Introducing stages at Glastonbury.

SWG have been involved in the evolution of the Park Stage since its launch three years ago and as a result of their co-operation with MilTec (UK) have been able to keep up to date with the developing catalogue of products from the Chinese lighting manufacturers.

Said SWG operations manager, Mark Bott, "Last year the PR Lighting moving heads were really bright and functional, but the true test for a hire company is how those lights bear up in a live situation. These endured a raft of conditions and we didn't have a single fault, so we were more than happy with them and were pleased to be using them again."

This year the presentation was beefed up for acts which headlined Animal Collect

UK - Blackburn- based HSL supplied lighting equipment and crew to the recent Lemar UK theatre tour. It was HSL's first tour with producers Production North, on which project manager Mike Oates comments: "It was great pleasure to work with Steve Levitt, Iain Whitehead and their team and on the road with production manager Sarah Hollis. Production values on all their tours, whatever size, are always at the top of the agenda."

Lighting, set and production design was created by Dave Lee, working to an initial brief from Lemar's management who requested a dark and moody ambience for the performance.

Lee also wanted to ensure continuity in that it fitted in to all the venues on the itinerary, so he based the rig on three straight trusses and a serious amount of floor kit, which is "always good for more subtle visual effects like silhouetting and back lighting".

Spain - SGM has announced the opening of a new sales office in Spain and the appointment of Rafael Gonzalez to the SGM team.

Rafael Gonzalez is a professional with specific experience in the lighting industry and has been appointed sales manager for Spain.

Thanks to this new set-up, the SGM sales organization will be able to strengthen its relationships with current clients, increase the presence of its products in the region and dynamically develop new corporate strategies, says the company.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Elation Professional's new lightweight, transparent IP65-rated LED video panels have been designed for creating vibrant video screens, curtains and backdrops. The panels are available in three versions: medium-resolution SMD Tri-Color, EVLED 1024SMD (20mm pixel pitch); medium-resolution RGB Discrete LED, EVLED 1024 (18.75mm pixel pitch); and low-resolution RGB Discrete LED, EVLED 256 (37.5 mm pixel pitch).

Suitable for concerts, stages, touring productions and special events, the EVLED panels feature an integrated rigging/hanging system that allows users to easily assemble any size LED video screen, large or small. Up to 16 pieces can be linked on one AC circuit, and as many as 1,000 pieces can be run from one Ethernet video output using Elation's ELED VSC driver (sold separately), which can run two outputs to two screens simultaneously.

With brightness up to 5,500 nits,

UK - The Greenwich + Docklands International Festival returned during the weekend with a spectacular water-themed programme for 2009. The four-day free event featured performances by UK and international artists using water-based interpretations to reflect the identity of Greenwich and East London.

On Saturday evening, the historic Royal Arsenal in Woolwich on the banks of the Thames was transformed by Dutch company Close Act as they performed their Pi-Leau. Pi-Leau was set in a fictional Woolwich submerged by water, following rising sea levels. Part fairytale and part apocalyptic vision, giant structures and stilt performers combined with pyrotechnics to create an experience in which Waterworld collided with The Little Mermaid.

Stage Electrics provided City Colours outdoor architectural floodlights, six towers of 12 PAR cans which lit the main performance area,

USA - Element Labs' Stealth LED technology is playing a prominent role on the current Britney Spears tour.

The Stealth displays, supplied by Solotech, are used in two separate circular screens: one screen above centre stage and a smaller circular screen around the elevator. The main circular Stealth screen totals 1,300 panels with a height of 4m and a circumference of 58m. The rigging for the impressive screens was custom-made by Tait.

The Stealth screen is used to show custom-made content developed by Franco Dragone's team under the guidance of Dirk Decloedt. The screen shows animated and stylized images created specifically for each song, which add brightly colourful content enhancing the Circus experience that themes the tour.

Barbara Nelson of Element Labs says: "Stealth has proven itself to be an absolutely fantastic LED product for the concert touring industry. I

Germany - The new Mamba 2.0 laser show software has been released. Mamba 2.0 has been "drastically changed in the internal code, but stays the same in the user interface, for full downwards compatibility". Many code segments have been rewritten and replaced by new and fast code. Many new powerful features have been added, including an entirely new look to the multiple user interface skins. The user has the ability to chose from more than 50 predefined skins, while the basic layout of Mamba stays the same.

The new DMX features allows the user to place unlimited events on the timeline. Each event controls up to 16 DMX channels at the same time, each timeline holds maximum of 512 channels, and can be routed to any MediaLas USB interface that is connected to the computer. This means 512 channels PER interface.

DRC will check your show for any inconsistancy, collisions of

Belgium - The ADB Svoboda Batten, best known for its role in theatre, opera and live music productions, has had a major role in the production of a new psychological thriller from film director Anthony Waller.

Nine Miles Down, set for release next year, is set in an experimental deep-crust drilling station in a remote and sandstorm-blown region of the Sahara Desert, the movie opens with Thomas 'Jack' Jackman (Adrian Paul), a security patrolman, battling through the storm to discover why all contact with the station has been lost.

A disused champagne factory in Budapest provided a suitably atmospheric location for filming, but wasn't without its challenges, as director of photography Roger Simonsz explains: "We were going to shoot all the interiors in studios in Hungary, but there were a lot of other shoots going on there at the same time, so we settled for the fact

UK - The prestigious V&A Museum in London has been chosen to host the launch of the first edition of the International Festival of Scenic Arts, an international event celebrating contemporary stage, set and costume design. The world's largest museum of design and decorative arts will play host to a series of talks and presentations by world-class design practitioners of stage design, costume design, video design and 3D animation, scenography and lighting design.

The world's largest museum of design and decorative arts plays host to a series of talks and presentations by world-class design practitioners the calibre of William Dudley, British stage designer, costume designer, video designer and 3D animator, who has most recently designed the sets and costumes for the Broadway musical The Woman in White, produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber. He is joined by lighting designer Rick

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