UK - Over 300 guests and sponsors were entertained to a spectacular gala dinner at Birmingham's Hippodrome Theatre on Saturday 14 May 2011. The event raised £40,000 towards the one million pound refurbishment cost to improve the weight loading capacity of the Hippodrome's stage, which will enable the theatre to host bigger and heavier touring productions.

The event brought together the well established working partnership of prolific UK lighting designer Adrian Barnes and Matt Clutterham of specialist lighting and event service provider MattLX. All under the careful control of the Hippodrome's technical manager and former MattLX project manager, Barry Hope.

The Theatre was turned on its head with the audience seated on the stage immersed in the performance technology, whilst the spectacular evening's entertainment performed over and around them. Hosted by the glittering

USA - Subaru of America launched its all-new fourth-generation 2012 Impreza models in 3D using 3D R4 LED Display as the medium.

The glitz and glamour were centred in the middle of Manhattan at the Jacob Javits Center from 22 April 2011 to 1 May at New York Auto Show, the last car show of the season.

This is the first time that 3D LED Display technology has been customised for automotive events, in this case specifically for the company's media conference. During the show, members of the international automotive media went along for the ride with 3D glasses, to watch a video presentation demonstrating the diverse, active lifestyles of Subaru owners, who are heralded as the most active consumers in the automobile market.

Earlier this year, Creative Technology introduced 3D R4 LED Display to their clients, with impressive results.

Subaru of America Inc. agreed to create a 3D

UK - Lighting designer Rob Mills used a grandMA2 light as his control platform for a recent production of Verdi's Aida at the Epsom Playhouse in Surrey. The week-long production by Riverside Opera was directed by James Hurley who is a regular client of Mills, a busy theatre and opera LD, who also lights corporate and live events.

It was the first time that the opportunity had arisen for him to specify and use a grandMA2 on one of his shows, a chance he had been waiting for since working on the Floating Finale section of the Lord Mayor of London's show, on the River Thames last year. It was here he saw a grandMA 'series 1' properly in action being programmed by David Miller.

"Once I'd mastered the fundamentals, I found it incredibly fast to move on to more advanced programming," states Mills. "Whilst it needs a bit of time at the beginning to set up and le

Recycling Sets - Theatre companies can now advertise and recycle old sets and costumes on a new Freecycle-style website specifically designed for the sector. With the tag line "giving your unwanted set a new home", Set-exchange.co.uk has been launched with the aim of encouraging production companies to share unwanted sets, costumes and props with other theatre organisations across the UK for free. Companies including the Royal Court, Glyndebourne and the Lyric Hammersmith have already pledged their support to the website.

Set-exchange was set up by lighting designer and production electrician Peter Harrison. He told The Stage, "The idea came from me working with some of the small companies as well as the big companies and seeing waste in one and scrimping and saving from the other, so it came out of trying to share resources."

Set-exchange is structu

World - PLASA has released a draft voluntary code of practice on Artificial Optical Radiation (AOR) for comments or observations from the global professional lighting industry.

The background to the document lies in the introduction of new EU Directive and national legislation regarding AOR, and the subsequent agreement, by manufacturers attending a presentation that PLASA's Ron Bonner and the Health Protection Agency gave at the PLASA 2010, that guidance should be created.

In short, the new legislation requires employers to assess the exposure to the workforce of AOR and if the exposure is believed to be above permitted levels, the employer will need to measure the levels and take action to reduce the exposure. Manufacturers will also have a duty to supply relevant safety information. In the UK this is enshrined in health and safety law, but will also be part of the conformit

Denmark - Martin Professional's headquarter building in Aarhus has taken on a life of its own thanks to a new media facade made up of Martin LED display panels with graphical content from Danish design office Kollision.

The 180m2 facade, mounted on the inside front of the building, is made up of Martin Professional LC Plus Series LED display panels and presents a wide variety of dynamic graphical content that reacts to visitor interaction in the form of activities and movement in and outside the building.

The dynamic graphics do more than mesmerize and entertain; the media facade can be affected by motion sensors and user input for a truly unique, personal experience. The media facade allows a static building to come alive through an ever-changing lighting design, a constantly evolving expression that engages visitors and passers-by.

Rune Nielsen of Kollision stated, "A

Africa - For the 4th consecutive season, Blond Productions were commissioned to cater for the sound, lighting and AV requirements of Big Brother Africa.

When their client, Endemol South Africa, wanted a new set for Big Brother Africa Amplified, aired on DSTV, Blond approached Sean Hoey of Dream Sets. Together they came up with fresh ideas that have "pleasantly surprised the client".

Lighting designer Peter Rieck (Blond) and Sean Hoey (Dream Sets) put their heads together from the inset with the assistance of Vector Works. Their aim was to create a set that would bring out as many technical and visual aspects as possible. "Robe fixtures added mood, beams of light and eye candy, while the real 'show stealer' were the graphics on screens and plasmas, all running via a grandMA Media Server," say Blond.

Christian Ballot, MD from Blond comments: "Five to t

Greece - Robe lighting was invited by the Czech Consulate in Athens to create a special lighting scheme for the official launch of La Grace, a replica of the 17th century corsair (pirate) ship captained by Czech seafarer Augustin He?man, which took place in the exclusive and picturesque harbour at Flisvos Marina, Athens.

The vessel has been recreated by a group of Czech enthusiasts in a shipyard in Suez, Egypt, which still uses historic and traditional building methods. The pre-planning and research for the project took three years and the actual construction process another two years. The new La Grace will serve a multi-functional international role as a sea cadet training facility and as a tourist attraction worldwide.

A team of enthusiastic individuals from Robe, all with an eye for design and aesthetics - Josef Valchar (MD) Petr Kolmaka (Anolis sales manager)

UK - Following in the footsteps of the PixelRange PixelPar, PixelRange has announced the launch of QPar, a fully-programmable, plug and play, high powered colour-mixing LED wash fixture.

QPar features 12 high-intensity, QUAD colour, RGBW CREE LED's. The unit offers "outstanding longevity (Lumen maintenance: 50,000 hours L70 at 50°C (full output)) with very low consumption (8W at standby, 112W at full intensity)".

QPar features a 10° beam angle as standard via a toughened glass front lens though further light-shaping diffusing lenses are available to provide variation. A choice of dimming curves include tungsten, television and fine - all controlled via DMX. External control requires DMX512 digital signal via 5-pin XLR.

IP20-rated, QPar can be floor or truss mounted using dual yokes - making it suitable for lighting stages, backdrops, sets, cycloramas, struc

UK - Tinie Tempah lighting director Dave Cohen recently made a big impact using Martin Professional's EC-20 LED panels as a backdrop video wall on Brit Award winner Tinie Tempah's latest UK tour. "A video screen doesn't need to be any more complicated than lighting fixtures. Yet time and time again I find other systems insanely complex, says Cohen. "The plug and play style of the EC system makes it so easy."

Cohen, who works as a freelance show designer for various acts and heads his own design company, SauceDesign, was looking for a transparent, uncomplicated video wall for the tour and found what he was looking for in the EC.

"Being a lighting engineer by trade, I was looking for a system that was more up to date as well as user friendly," he states.

On the Tinie Tempah tour, Cohen ran cinematic style content on a 16 x 9 format upstage EC screen th

UK - Fibre Optic Systems (FOS) will be exhibiting at this year's ABTT Show (15-16 June, 2011). Joining Rope & Rigging, FOS will be showcasing products from their range of fibre optic carpets, curtains, lightsources and chandeliers, to the theatre market.

Rope and Rigging will be demonstrating products from the company's specialist inventory of suspension steels and safety bonds. MD Jacqui Hilton, commented, "Theatre is a staple element of our market and we like to reconnect to our customers and all visitors at ABTT."

FOS is also using the show as a platform from which to launch the company's new rental division, FOS Rentals. Customers will now be able to rent lengths of fibre optic carpet and drapes, as well as stunning chandeliers and all fibre optic accessories, for short periods and specific events.

FOS is well-established as a manufacturer and supplier of a vas

Macau - Opened in May 2011, Galaxy Macau was billed as Macau's first integrated leisure and entertainment resort, designed to help the region achieve its aim of becoming a diversified 'Global Centre of Tourism and Recreation'. LED screen manufacturer Lighthouse Technologies had successfully acquired the contract for the provision to the resort with a series of visual elements.

Lighthouse's first involvement with owner Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG) was at the beginning of 2008, when it supplied two LED screens to GEG's flagship StarWorld Hotel and Casino in Macau Peninsula.

Lighthouse provided the 550,000sq.m Galaxy Macau, the newest integrated destination resort in the Special Administrative Region's Cotai entertainment area, with six LED screens.

Two Pi10-ER 10mm screens are situated at the entrance to resort, each measuring 12.8m (w) x 9.6m (h) (10 x 10 panels), display

Australia - Footscray Community Arts Centre is widely acknowledged as one of Australia's leading centres for contemporary arts and community engagement. October last year saw the opening of a new 250-seat performance space plus a new gallery, computer lab, and other multi-use spaces for meeting, seeing, creating and talking about art.

With the new venue came some new gear including four 53 cm ETC Selador Vivid-R LED fixtures and an ETC Element console.

"The Seladors perform really well, deliver strong saturated colours and have great optics," remarked Darren Gee, venue & operations manager. "We don't have a lot of power in the building so the more LED fixtures we can put in the roof, the better. It also means we don't have to get up and down all the time to change colour as that can now be done from the console.

"I looked at some of the other LED fixtures

Israel - Wireless Solution Sweden AB was a key participant in the grand opening of Ariel Sharon Park on 18 May in Tel Aviv. The opening is the first in a series of phases that once complete, will result in a landmark area larger than Central Park in New York.

The park is on the site of Israel's biggest garbage dump, the Hiriya Landfill, a mountain of garbage that was used from 1952 until 1998. The government has now transformed the site and the area around it into one of the largest parks in the country, named after Israel's ex-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

The ongoing restoration project will transform Hiriya from a waste landfill into a flourishing, green park which will attract thousands of visitors each year, providing recreational opportunities, walking paths, a 50,000-seat amphitheater and a large recycling facility, designed to symbolise the potential of recycling. The p

UK - Entertainment lighting specialist White Light will play host to a London stop of Engineered for the Eye a travelling roadshow organised by Martin Professional to give lighting professionals the opportunity to get hands-on experience with the company's latest products.

The tour will visit White Light's base in Wimbledon, south-west London, on Thursday 30 June. Martin's aim is to let those working in every area of lighting, including the live-entertainment, commercial and architectural sectors, see Martin's gear in action, receive hands-on training, and talk to Martin's staff about the products and their many possible applications.

In addition, visitors will be able to see the facilities and comprehensive range of equipment offered by White Light. The company's rental stock includes a wide range of Martin equipment. The stock has recently been expanded with the addit

Chile - ChileVision TV continues to invest in Robe moving lights for their HQ in Santiago, which has seven studios. The commercial channel is owned by Turner Media and broadcasts nationwide, primarily specialising in producing light entertainment programmes which need exciting eye-catching lighting and scenic elements.

Robe was first introduced to ChileVision by the station's chief lighting technician Mario Navarrete and chief engineer Luis Silva. They made their first Robe purchase in 2007 and currently have over 60 Robe fixtures, including ColorSpot and ColorWash 575 and 1200E AT moving lights, Scan 1200 XTs and LEDBlinders.

They chose Robe because of its "reliability, quality, good prices and also because of the excellent after-sales service offered by Robe's Chilean distributor explains Navarrete.

The purchase coincided with the opening of a new studio at the comple

USA - TED is a global set of conferences formed to disseminate "ideas worth spreading". Held in Long Beach and Palm Springs, California, the four-day US programme featured TED's famous 18-minute talks by headline-makers and creatives on a wide range of topics within the research and practice of science and culture.

"TED is an unbelievable event where the best of the world's minds in art, science, philosophy, politics and business gather to share ideas with talks and presentations ranging from poetry to music to amazing medical advances," says Bob Bonniol, principal creative director of Seattle's MODE Studios, a grandMA2 user who was asked to provide video design for the main sessions and several social spaces. "I know that MA has put a lot of time into this console. What I hear from everyone, and what I experienced myself at TED, is that the grandMA2 is

The Netherlands / Sweden - Visual Productions has announced the appointment of Svensk Ljussupport as its new Swedish distributor.

At the recent LLB show in Stockholm, Ljussupport launched the Cuelux software lighting controller with the aid of Visual Productions' Maarten Donath.

Sales director Hakan Bergh says of his choice to represent Visual Productions, "With new brands and products we don't like to take them on if we don't believe in them. Visual Productions have a truly great range and we did not have to think twice when we saw the potential."

Zoe Castle, sales manager for Visual Productions states, "The enthusiastic response, technical support and fast reaction to our products leads us to believe that this partnership with Ljussupport will prove to be fun and productive for business on the Swedish market."

(Jim Evans)

New Zealand - Philips Selecon head Jeremy Collins has announced he will be leaving Philips Selecon at the end of June.

Collins, who bought the company in 1985 (with colleague Andrew Nichols) and has been instrumental in building the Selecon brand over the past quarter of a century, says he is moving on "to a new stage' in his life".

Since Philips acquired Selecon in April 2009, Collins has been a driving force in ensuring a smooth transition and further development of the Philips Selecon products.

"For 25 years Selecon has been a major part of my life,' says Collins. "To my Selecon New Zealand colleagues and those around the world, a very special thank you - we successfully worked together and created a successful global business, which led our niche in many markets around the world. A fantastic achievement, which I hope you all take pride in, as I do.

UK - The CometFlame, distributed by Le Maitre, is "a spectacular new machine which produces incredible flames up to 6mhigh and is designed for both outdoor and indoor use". It fires for five seconds at a time and can be set to fire in high frequency or at preselected intervals. Further, the flame can set at five different firing angles - 45, 22, 0, 22 and 45 degrees - to create different effects.

A feature of the system is that unlike other models, the flames can be produced in multiple colours, with six colour fluids in the range: red, green, yellow, blue, purple and orange.

The CometFlame doesn't need any gas, which means there is no need for any external pressure vessels containing gas or CO2. The absence of gas makes the system much safer and enables it to be used in environments where gas systems may not be used. No special license is required to operate the sys

UK - PR Lighting has announced the release of its new XS 1200 Spot - a versatile, bright moving head, with rapid beam movement. Its power is due to the use of a 1200W short arc discharge lamp, which is optimised by the super-efficient optical system, says the company.

The XS 1200 is fully featured, with smooth CYM colour mixing system with macro function, six dichroic colour filters (plus white) and linear CTO, as well as five indexable rotating gobos and seven fixed gobos plus white (all easily interchangeable). There is a motorised 12°-22° linear zoom, extended to fixed 26° (16-bit adjustment).

Other features include: DMX controlled, linearly adjustable focus (8- or 16-bit); 0-100% linearly adjustable dimmer and 5-100% adjustable iris; 1 linear lens, two frosts and one prism (bi-directionally, rotatable, indexable); effect wheel with one CTC, one CTO, one bi-colo

UK - Adele is in the midst of a world tour that sees the soul/R&B singer visiting Europe and North America in support of her second studio album, 21.

Handling production design for the tour is Rob Sinclair who has created a minimalistic, elegant design that reflects the feel and emotion of the singer herself.

The set is dominated by a series of warm lampshades with Martin Professional MAC 101 washes used as backdrop lighting and Martin MAC 700 Profiles rigged overhead.

Sinclair, who uses the lighting more for mood and performer lighting than effect, says the MAC 101s have performed and held up "really well" and that he chose the compact moving heads for their small size and bright output in an affordable package.

Lighting supply for the spring European leg of the Adele 21 tour was by UK company Neg Earth while Upstaging is handling the North America

Sweden - The recent LLB fair in Stockholm, the Nordic region's largest trade fair for sound, light and multimedia technology, was a triumph for German optical fibre specialists Optocore.

Swedish distributors Arva Trading AB welcomed many visitors to their stand at the Stockholm Exhibition and Congress Centre and Optocore was well represented right across its product range.

"Optocore is well known in Sweden among pro audio users and has an extremely good reputation," stated Peter Beckman, the company's PA/Live and installation specialist. "We have been representing the brand for a year and this was our first opportunity to really test the market at a trade fair."

Arva Trading received an unexpected boost when theatrical sound engineer, Aaron Beck, assistant head of sound for the latest Cirque du Soleil production in Las Vegas, Viva ELVIS, presented

Attendance Figures - Star performers, including Keira Knightley, helped ensure that the proportion of West End theatregoers watching plays in 2010 rose again. The share of attendances for plays last year was 26.2% - up 0.7% from 2009, the Society of London Theatre (SOLT) said. It was already up 4.3% from 2008. The share for musicals was 59.5% - down 1.2% from 2009. It fell 4.4% from 2008 to 2009. Total attendances topped 14m. Figures refuted "claims that musicals are taking over", the SOLT said. Plays also achieved a record attendance total of 3,702,031, while the musicals attendance total was down 3% to 8,423,430.

In its box office data report, the SOLT states that "the big driver" behind business in 2010 was major name actors in plays. They included Knightley and Damian Lewis in The Misanthrope, as well as Sex and the City actress Kim Cattrall and Matthew M

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