UK - Martin Professional heads to Leeds on 17 April for PLASA Focus 2012 where a new breed of moving head - the MAC Viper Profile - and much more will be on display at Martin stand S-E16.

Join Martin April 17-18 at the Royal Armouries Museum for an up close look at the MAC Viper along with a host of other new products like the all-new VC series of creative LED video solutions, a new portable lighting controller in the M-Series, and a new compact hazer in Martin's Jem family.

The Martin MAC Viper Profile is a new breed of high-performance profile luminaire with the qualities of a better industry workhorse. It features intense light output from advanced lamp technology and innovative feature set. Its highly efficient optical system outperforms market-leading profiles in the 1200-watt range and with over 25000 lumens of power from a 1000-watt HID source is convincingly brighter t

USA Electronic musician Avicii took his DJ-run show on a Texas tour with High End Systems products lighting and controlling the way. Insomniac Events produced the shows.

LD Justin Jenkins, owner of Creative Production & Design in Austin, TX, designed and supplied gear for four of the five cities. The rig featured eight trackspot Bolt moving mirror fixtures, four intellaspot and eight Technospot automated luminaires, and two Studio Spot 250s as keylights on the DJ. A Road Hog Full Boar console with Road Hog Playback Wing was in control.

The combination of the trackspot Bolt, intellaspots and Technospots was "a great balance of lighting," Jenkins said. "The dynamic output and mix of all three just made the show.

"Trackspot Bolt is phenomenal," Jenkins adds. "The speed of the moving mirror and the intensity is great for Avicii's music. I love the I

UK - Sky TV lighting director Malcolm Reed lit the studio show covering this year's Academy Awards red carpet arrivals and main awards ceremony broadcast to the British nation. Included in the large Martin rig supplied by Richard Martin Lighting was the MAC Aura, a key fixture choice for the show.

Reed used six Aura fixtures as part of the set and placed them in pigeon holes shooting straight out towards the camera. He comments, "I chose the Auras because of their unique dual light source which creates some amazing eye-candy effects. The silent nature of the fixture is great for TV studios and the smooth pan and tilt allows for nice dynamic movement effects."

Reed had other movers from Martin's LED range at his disposal as well. Located behind the set were four MAC 350 Entours. "The MAC 350 is a wonderful light, not only for its power output but also its optical

UK - The A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) stand (S-E1) at PLASA Focus will feature a selection of leading brands for which AC-ET is the exclusive UK wholesaler for, including Chroma-Q, Jands Vista, GLP, PixelRange, High End Systems, Green Hippo and CM Entertainment Lodestars.

The AC-ET stand will provide the first UK tradeshow unveiling of the new Jands Vista L5 flagship media and lighting control console. The design includes a 21" HD Wacom pen tablet display, which makes it easy to manage today's lighting rigs of moving lights, media servers and LEDs. To celebrate the launch, enter the competition to WIN* a MacBook Pro running the Vista v2 software and find out more about the L5 at www.jandsvista.com/L5.

Also showing is the Chroma-Q range of LED lighting solutions. Latest additions include the new Studio Force D (6,100K CCT daylight) and V (3,000K - 6,100K CCT var

USA - More than 60 Chauvet Professional fixtures make their big-screen debut in Tyler Perry's new romantic drama, Good Deeds.

Southeast Staging set up the runway and brought in lighting for the design team's 'Club Riot' scene. To light the scene, Bob Daniel, president and chief executive officer of Southeast Staging recommended COLORado Tour fixtures because of their on-camera capability as well as their efficiency, powerful output and precise colour temperature settings.

"We chose the COLORado Tour series because they are the brightest and most versatile lights in their class," Daniel said. "We dialled in the exact temperature needed for film and they performed flawlessly on camera. Each light did everything it said it would do."

To light the translucent 40ft runway, Daniel and his team placed 12 COLORado 1 Tour and 18 COLORado 1 VW Tour wash ligh

South Africa - Cape Town-based SMD Technical purchased Robe Robin 300s at the end of last year, which have gone out on almost every job since, including Johnny Clegg, Locnville and Radio Kalahari Orkes.

"I think that the regular lighting, staging and sound aspects of the Cape Town market is saturated with highly competitive businesses, and tend to operate with a more rock 'n roll approach, whilst the specially engineered/ bespoke side is unsaturated and far more complex in its requirements," said David Harris from SMD. "We find that our clients are leaning towards more design-orientated technical equipment, i.e. smaller, less visual, more powerful speakers, and more creative, intelligent and decadent decor lighting."

With this in mind, SMD purchased six Robin 300s at the end of last year. "We felt that the Robin 300s were better suited for our events d

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) has announced the appointment of four new members of staff, as well as a number of role changes within the company, in order to service the needs of its growing customer base.

These changes are part of the AC-ET's philosophy of continuing to reinvest in, and further develop its business, to ensure that customers and suppliers continue to receive the highest levels of service and support, says the company.

James Bawn has taken on the joint role of technical sales manager and Chroma-Q global brand manager.

Having served as AC-ET's Northern technical sales manager for the last five years, Bawn will now provide support for both the Leeds and High Wycombe offices. He will oversee the technical sales department.

As Chroma-Q global brand manager, he will oversee the introduction of new Chroma-Q product launches to the international mar

UK - UK professional lighting sales company Lightfactor will again exhibit at PLASA Focus at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds this week.

A selection of products from top brands will be featured, including new moving lights and LED luminaires from Italian manufacturer DTS for which Lightfactor is the exclusive UK distributor.

Architectural LED products 'made in the UK' from Cogent will also be on display, together with theatrical luminaires and spot lights from another popular Italian brand, LDR.

The DTS section of the Lightfactor stand will show the new Nick NRG 1201 Wash moving light. This features 30 high powered RGBW LEDs and has an 8 - 50 degree motorised zoom with sophisticated optics that enable it to be used for many different styles of lighting - from a wide wash to a PC beam - with smooth, silent pan/tilt.

DTS's Jack Spot with also be highlighted - a compact li

Belgium - Robe Robin 300 LEDWash moving lights have been purchased by Belgian national broadcaster VRT (Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep) and installed at their studio complex in Brussels

The initial batch of 42 fixtures were delivered by Robe's Benelux distributor Controllux, in a package co-ordinated by Belgian sales manager Bram de Clerck, and specified for the TV station by their head of technical Johan Bosmans.

He had been impressed after seeing LEDWash 300s in action on shows, and they also came highly recommended by a number of others, including leading Belgian TV lighting designer Michiel Milbou, who specified them on his current design for popular prime-time entertainment industry chat show, Vrienden van de Veire.

(Jim Evans)

USA - This year marks a milestone for High End Systems. As of February 2012, High End Systems has been selling digital lighting products for 10 years.

The industry's largest portfolio of digital lighting currently includes the DL.3, DL.3F, DML-1200 w/Axon, Axon Media Server, Arena View System and the all new DLV. In celebration of the decade, High End Systems is offering special promotions on all digital lighting products.

High End Systems continues to grow as a leader in the digital lighting market with the release of the DLV Digital Light in early 2012. This new, small unit retains most of thec apabilities of the full sized DL.3, yet at a smaller size and reduced cost.

"As an innovative company, we are pleased to be the leader in digital lighting," said Richard Belliveau, High End Systems CTO. "The ability to manipulate light without mechanical devices is ve

UK - Philips Selecon and Strand Lighting distributor, Architainment has completed an installation project for ITN at the new, remote controlled Channel 5 news room in London Bridge.

"ITN recently won the Channel 5 News contract back from Sky. To accommodate the contract it needed to refurbish its news rooms," explains key account manager at Architainment, Bryan Kelly. "As part of the refurbishment project the lighting team was keen to improve presenter lighting. The Channel 5 news room is now entirely lit with Philips Selecon and ColorKinetics LED luminaires including Selecon PL1s, ColorKinetics ColorBlastTRXs and ColorKinetics iW Blast units."

One of the biggest challenges is that the news room has a very low ceiling so there is little space for dimmers. Architainment's solution has been to specify distributive eS21 bars into the trussing system with built

UK - The 2012 Olivier Awards, representing the best of London theatre over the last 12 months, were presented in a glittering ceremony at London's Royal Opera House this Sunday,15 April.

White Light, which supplied the lighting equipment to the ceremony and many of the nominated shows, as well as sponsoring the Lighting Design Award, would like to congratulate all of this year's winners.

In the lighting category, the award went to Bruno Poet for his work on Frankenstein at the National's Olivier Theatre. A central part of his design was a dramatic wedge-shaped light bulb ceiling made up of 3100 assorted light bulbs driven from just over 1000 dimmers allowing the creation of spectacular waves of light over the heads of the audience. White Light was proud to be involved with creating this effect (with a number of the exposed filament lightbulbs supplied by

UK - At PLASA Focus Leeds this morning, UK-wide distributor Impact announced an exclusive UK distribution deal with loudspeaker manufacturer Ohm, in tandem with the launch of a new speaker range developed jointly by both companies.

JET by Ohm is a range of British-made speakers at affordable prices, which can be seen at PLASA Focus on the Ohm/Impact stand RA-A17. To celebrate the partnership, Impact is running a competition throughout the show to win five pairs of Ohm BR-5 loudspeakers, requiring visitors to answer a simple question correctly to enter.

Impact, which has just announced the opening of six new branches across the UK, can arrange auditions for trade customers anywhere in the country, and will be happy to arrange demos of the entire Ohm range.

"We had been looking for a very special distributor to spearhead our UK sales activities for some time," says O

UK - British rock/hardcore band Enter Shikari have been lighting up Hammersmith Apollo on the latest date of their current tour, before they embark upon a summer of festivals across the UK and Europe.

They have been lit by lighting designer Steven Bewley of Box Fresh Lighting, ably assisted by MA's grandMA2 desk, and a host of Clay Paky Sharpys.

A long time user of MA consoles, Bewley explains his reason for his desk choice. "I've progressed through the ranks of MA consoles, and the grandMA2 is easy to use, and allows you to programme a spectacular show quickly. It just works, and it does it seamlessly alongside the other kit we use on the show - for video and for sound. It's powerful, and the size of the desk makes it adaptable to smaller venues as well. It's a console I'm falling in love with as it's so configurable."

Bewley specified 40 Sharpys for the lighting

Germany - One of the big hits at this year's Frankfurt Prolight+Sound exhibition was the new XLED 336 fast moving head from PR Lighting.

It stood out among a large suite of innovative LED based products on the stand of the Chinese manufacturer, where visitors praised its brightness, its speed of execution and the sleek design of the housing.

XLED 336 is a 36-LED fast moving, compact and economically priced head, with 18.15° dispersion angle. It generates its power and RGB colour mix from 36 x 3W Osram Oslon LED's (12 red, 12 green, 12 blue). With a power consumption of just 140W it outputs close to 250W.

The spot has a beam angle of dispersion of 18.15° and lens angle of 8°. Head movement includes 540° pan and 270° tilt, with auto position correction, pan and tilt swap and invert function. It also offers 12 DMX control channels (16 channels in extended mo

Australia - NIDA - Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art - is a centre of excellence in training for theatre, film and television. NIDA's primary role is to select and train exceptionally gifted young people at a tertiary level, preparing them for careers in theatre, film and television.

When it came to choosing moving lights for the students to train with, Philips Vari*Lite was the fixture of choice.

"We wanted to give the students experience of moving lights but they had to be good ones," commented Marcus Kelson, technical manager at NIDA. "Consequently we purchased four Vari*Lite VLX Wash Luminaires. These are used for student productions and also as a training tool within the lighting classroom. Plus, as they are a popular fixture we can also hire them out to users of our venues and thus generate an income.

"The VLX is very punchy, easily con

UK - Blackburn-based lighting and visuals rental company HSL supplied lighting equipment to the latest Katherine Jenkins UK tour, which was designed by Tim Routledge.

HSL's project manager was Mike Oates who says, "It was great to work with Tim and production manager Neil McDonald on this, especially as it was a bit different. It both contrasted and complimented all the other music tours in which we are currently involved with a classy design that looked great and was completely appropriate."

The show was smaller in scale than Jenkins' last outing which played arenas. This was a deliberate move to return to playing more intimate spaces like theatres and concert halls, with the focus totally on Jenkins' vocal performance, rather than lots of additional razzmatazz.

She was accompanied by the 32- piece National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anthony Inglis, and the t

UK - White Light and Coemar are teaming up to offer the prize of six LEDko units for those needing to retrofit their outdated lighting package. The competition, in which you can submit a video or storyboard of your current lighting package was launched at PLASA Focus in Leeds this week.

The entry that is deemed most in need of, or having faced the biggest issues in their lighting, will be awarded the prize at the PLASA Show in September.

Entrants are encouraged to explain how the Coemar products will benefit them in their day to day use. The lighting package on offer includes Coemar's Reflection LEDko Full Spectrum, Reflection LEDko VariWhite 3000/7000 K and Reflection LEDko White3200 K with an option of one the following optics: Reflection Soft profile12/30° F Lens, Reflection Soft profile 12/30° PC Lens, Profile zoom 18/40° HDLens.

Submission deadline is 17Augu

USA - Brit Floyd's current North American tour features production by technology consultants FIX8Group (Stockport, Cheshire, UK) and includes a spectacular light show designed by FIX8's Neil Trenell.

At the centrepiece of this visual display are 38 Platinum Beam 5R moving head beam fixtures from Elation Professional. The Platinum Beams occupy a central position in the defining structures on the Brit Floyd set: a 16.5ft vertical circle of truss, flanked by a gigantic 84ft truss arch. Sixteen Platinum Beam 5R units are mounted on the truss circle, while anadditional 22 units hang from the arch. With this positioning, the Platinum Beams can shoot white or coloured beams in all directions, project gobo images, multiply their effects with the prism, or even wash the stage with the application of Frost. A dozen units of another Elation fixture, the Design Spot 1200C compact moving hea

France - L'Autre Monde, the new show from Gilbert Gruss' Cirque Arlette Gruss, is currently touring France with four DMX-controlled Robert Juliat 1800W MSR FLO followspots to highlight its dazzling, fast moving acts.

Arlette Gruss promises its audiences a spectacle like no other with a top of the range show that encompasses trapeze artists, clowns, magicians, motorbikes and animals. With a six-month tour that takes in the towns of Bordeaux, La Rochelle, Rouen, Arras, Lille, Boulogne, Dunkerque, Valenciennes, Thionville, Mulhouse, Strasbourg, Colmar, Reims and Troyes, lighting designer Arthur Oudin needed a followspot that was small and tough enough to tour and versatile enough to be controlled with pin-point accuracy, as well as deliver top notch performance.

"The ideal unit proved to be the Robert Juliat FLO with a DMX controlled dimmer, shutter," says Oudin.

UK - This year's Let's Dance television programme, raised over £1m for Sport Relief from calls and texts throughout the series. The show features a mix of celebrities performing famous dance routines to raise money for the charity.

The lighting rig featured 24 PixelSmarts and 10 SmartLine4s which were used to design five different themes over the five week series. The flexibility of the SmartLine4 luminaires created both wash and effects - and the PixelSmarts were mainly used for graphics and rotating icons.

Lighting designer Tim Routledge states, "The SmartLines were a fantastic addition to the previous year's use of the PixelSmarts. The integration of the cold white in the units gave us some fantastic sparkle on camera which we use by randomly chasing the cells within the units.

"We were able to create unlimited chases and looks with the units and we

Italy - Panariello non esiste (Panariello does not exist) is a typical modern TV programme that freely mixes different genres and forges them into a show which is enthralling for both the guests in the studio and the viewers at home.

The director of photography Massimo Pascucci reports, "The concept of the lighting design stems from the need to strike a fair balance between the purely theatrical setting of the sets designed by Gaetano Castelli and the need to transform them into a sort of concert stage, in order to achieve spectacular effects during dances, acrobatic exhibitions and conjuring tricks."

The lighting consists almost entirely of Clay Paky units. In detail, 70 Alpha Profile 1500s are used for the orchestra, backstage and audience backlighting. Fifty Sharpys have been positioned vertically in mid-air on eight tubular structures behind the orchestra,

The Netherlands - De Effenaar is a busy live music and multi-purpose venue in central Eindhoven. Its two very flexible spaces offer capacity for 1300 people (standing) and 400 (standing) respectively, and a cafe restaurant area can cater for up to 100 people for functions and special events.

The venue has an eclectic programme of arts and entertainment including live music of all genres, dance shows, corporate events and parties and is both a producing and a receiving house. The average performance rate is about six shows a week throughout the year.

The venue recently made a large investment in Robe moving lights at the instigation of technical manager Charles Konings. The Robes were supplied by the Dutch office of Benelux distributor Controllux, which has had a healthy and happy working relationship with De Effenaar for some time.

The first delivery of Robes into the venue

USA - It was a dream date for Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures and Alpha Profile 700 automated spotlights when they accompanied American pop star Katy Perry on her California Dreams tour in support of her new Teenage Dreamalbum.

Lighting designer Baz Halpin added 30 Sharpys tothe US leg of the tour after having used them for Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum shows.

"Katy's tour was very theatrical. It was set in a 'Candyfornia' world that was very colourful and thematically-inspired, very much like Katy herself," he explains. "The show was divided into five acts with different colour schemes for each, ranging from pastel to dark to monochromatic."

Halpin found that he needed "very small but punchy" fixtures on the floor upstage and along the perimeter of the stage. "Since we didn't have rehearsals, I wanted a light I already knew abou

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