UK - PRG has announced the opening of a new office in the heart of London's Covent Garden.

Serving clients in the theatre, television, concert touring, corporate and special event markets, this new location provides space for meetings, pre-production and even WYSIWYG, within a stone's throw from many of London's studios, theatres and venues.

The new office is open from this week and located at Sussex House, 143 Long Acre, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9AD.

(Jim Evans)

USA - PLASA Focus: Nashville 2012 has launched with a new website and free online registration. The event will take place 11-12 July 2012 at the Municipal Auditorium, in Nashville, TN.

Nashville is the latest event to be launched under the PLASA Focus banner, and follows the hugely successful PLASA Focus: Austin, held in February of this year. The current series of North American regional events are modelled after PLASA Focus: Leeds (UK), which, in its third year, topped 2500 attendees.

PLASA Focus: Nashville 2012 will bring regional entertainment technology communities together to do business and network in a relaxed and friendly setting. While regional exhibitors and visitors are set to benefit from the new event, PLASA Focus: Nashville will also give those involved the opportunity to mix with a wider audience than has ever been possible before as PLASA Focus: Nashville will

USA - W-DMX by Wireless Solution Sweden played a key role at Super Bowl XLVI, where Indianapolis transformed the heart of downtown into Super Bowl Village, a ten-day, three-block interactive festival of football. The Village entertained hundreds of thousands of visitors with live concerts, food and beverages, an ESPN Broadcast Studio, and even ziplines running down the main street.

Dodd Technologies of Pendleton, Indiana created a dazzling lighting design for the Village, using W-DMX by Wireless Solution to send a flawless signal to 134 Elation Platinum Beams with W-DMX cards built in. Nine W-DMX Pro Box F2500 sent signals with directional antennas.

Ninety-six of the Platinum Beams were spread out across three city blocks. At the beginning and end of each block there was a W-DMX transmitter, six in total. Each transmitter broadcast to half a block worth of lights and was fed w

The Netherlands - Dutch supply, hire and installation company Lichtpunt Theatertechniek recently completed an impressive installation with Visual Productions' CueCore at the Drents Museum in North East of Netherlands. For a number of years Lichtpunt have provided lighting to the museum, so when Drents Museum approached them for a new project that would evolve around the world famous Yde Girl they were delighted with the opportunity.

Yde Girl died between 54 BC and 128 AD at an approximate age of 16 years and her body was remarkably well preserved in the peat bogs near Yde in the Netherlands. Drents Museum's new Yde Girl drama is an interactive exhibit with sound, lights & projections used to illustrate the story of this girls life all those years ago. The museum needed the installation to run automatically and be low maintenance and energy efficient. The Project Manager from Lic

Bahrain - With Path of Pearls, a musical production that wove Bahrain's heritage with its modern underpinnings Manama, Capital of Arab Culture 2012 was officially launched.

The event was held at the sea front of the Bahrain National Museum. Lighting designer Luc Peumans from Painting with Light, Belgium, specified one grandMA2 full-size, one grandMA2 light along with two MA NPU (Network Processing Unit) for the show.

For the musical, a large orchestra, 100 dancers plus nine aerial artists performed on a multilevel stage. The show used the largest low-res LED screen (300sqm) ever used in the region.

Eclipse Staging Services from Dubai supplied all the lighting and video equipment.

(Jim Evans)

USA - Upstaging, Inc has purchased six Robert Juliat Victor followspots for its rental equipment inventory, which supplies some of the biggest names in entertainment coast to coast. The Sycamore, Illinois-based company has been known for theatrical lighting and equipment trucking since 1972; its additional capabilities include production services, mobile marketing and event coordination. Five Lakes Marketing, which represents architectural and theatrical lighting manufacturers from its base in White Lake, Michigan, closed the deal with Upstaging.

"We've been looking for an excuse to buy Victors for a couple of years," says Chuck Spector, Upstaging's purchasing and rentals manager. "We had some experience with them on Batman Live in Europe, and our crew chiefs have had positive experiences. Victors were specified for Reba McEntire's tour, and that gave us th

Germany - Wladimir Klitschko retained his world heavyweight titles and celebrated the 50th knockout of his professional career. In his 60th professional bout, the 35-year old defended his WBA, WBO, IBO, and IBF titles against Jean-Marc Mormeck, who he knocked out in the fourth round.

Prior to the bout, the 50,000 spectators in Düsseldorf's Esprit-Arena, along with the around 12m television viewers, experienced an awe-inspiring staging of music, light, and laser effects.

Eight, full-colour, RYGCB-laser systems from tarm, each putting out 25 Watts, for projecting the laser presentations, plus another laser system for projecting the specially designed 'tunnel' accompanying the champion's and contender's entrances, were installed in the arena.

Full-colour laser graphics, adapted to suit the television broadcast produced by RTL, were projected onto a 144-sq.m. gauze screen.

(J

UK - A.C. Entertainment Technologies (AC-ET) enjoyed a busy turnout to its recent Video and Lighting Convergence UK open days, which showcased the latest products and innovations available from Green Hippo and PixelRange.

Staged at both AC-ET's southern HQ in High Wycombe and northern office in Leeds, a good mix of people from many different industry sectors took up the opportunity to visit - including schools and educational establishments, theatres, venues, individuals working in broadcast and a cross-section of freelancers.

In a fast-moving industry constantly demanding quicker and more flexible control of multiple video sources and playback surfaces, the events emphasised the on-going creative and technical fusion between lighting, LED sources, 'pixels' and video technologies as a complete visual environment.

Attendees were able to delve deeper into the award-winn

Germany - Just four weeks after the first MA onPC command wings have arrived at worldwide MA Lighting distributors for presentation purposes, MA Lighting reports the start of shipping its new product to the market.

The MA onPC command wing paves the way for mobile use of the highly flexible and powerful grandMA2 control system, says the company. In combination with the free-of-charge grandMA2 onPC software, the MA onPC command wing is a portable 2,048 parameter control solution that can be used in virtually any location - all at an affordable price.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - High End Systems will be hosting a new competition at Prolight +Sound next week. The first ever Battle of the Hogs competition will take place daily on the High End Systems stand.

The Battle of the Hogs competition showcases the showmanship, timing and talent of Wholehog programmers and operators. Each participant will have 90 seconds to perform on the main console in the performance section of the High End Systems / Arcus booth. Utilizing state of the art lighting equipment such as Technospot, TechnoArc, trackspot Bolt and DLV Digital Lights, the contestants will demonstrate their individual playback abilities on a Road Hog Full Boar lighting console. Each round will feature various tracks of music to ensure the battles are energetic and fierce.

The competition will take place daily from 21-23 March at the following times: 11am, 12pm, 1pm, 3pm, 4pm and

World - Clay Paky Sharpy fixtures are making their mark on the Evanescence Tour, the world tour by American rock band Evanescence in support of their eponymous third album. After a successful start to the tour in the US last year, the band, with frontwoman Amy Lee, is currently playing to packed houses in Japan, Hong Kong, Indonesia and Australia.

Lighting designer Dan Hardiman of UK-based THC Design is using more than a dozen Sharpys as part of the upstage floor lights. He positions them in pairs on draped cases and utilizes them for aerial lighting effects and to back light the band.

"Amy Lee is very creative; it's great to work with an artist who wants to be involved in all the creative aspects of a live show," says Hardiman. "The music has strong contrasting elements: Amy's soaring angelic vocals, the crunchy guitars, the haunting piano sections, the etherea

UK - London- based Entec was asked by show producers Magic Sound to supply lighting and all associated rigging equipment plus crew for a show at Hammersmith Apollo, London by Malaysian Chinese Mandarin pop superstar Fish Leong.

This was part of her Love Page world tour and coincided with celebrations for the Chinese New Year. Leong, known as the 'Queen of Love Songs' is famous for her love themed ballads, many of which have become popular karaoke hits.

Lighting designer Mr Wu (also known as Bevan) sent a plot to Entec and flew in to London from Hong Kong on the Friday night for Sunday evening's gig, which was totally sold out and eagerly anticipated by the local Chinese community.

Entec's project manager Peter Schofield ensured that all Bevan's technical and creative requests were met. He worked with lighting technicians Tom Crosbie, Leo Tierney and Yuko Sano. They lo

USA - Robe Robin 600 LEDWash and 300 Plasma Spot moving lights have been installed to illuminate a 20ft high triple helix glass sculpture created by artist Lyle London, which is suspended in the new Rotunda entrance of the Joyce Eichhorn Ames School of Art in Bloomingdale, Illinois, USA.

The sculpture - an intricate work of extreme elegance inspired by nature's recurring spiral forms - was commissioned by the Illinois Wesleyan University (IWU). It is part of a series of Helix artworks conceived by London that are intended for public atriums. His Tempe, Arizona based company Art In Metal has been established for 25 years, and he has been using glass in most works since 2000.

London has used Robe products in the past, most notably to illuminate another Helix series work in 2007 for the Tahoe Tower lobby at the Renown Healthcare campus in Reno, Nevada. When given the go-ahead on

Germany - LED screen manufacturer Pixled will show its new Pixled F-10 i/o multi-purpose product on Booth E17, Hall 9 of the Prolight+Sound exhibition in Frankfurt.

This latest innovation from Pixled is a truly 'all-round' 10.4 mm pitch screen surface populated with three in one SMD chips that can be used indoors, outdoors or be rigged horizontally - and covered - to become a dynamic dancefloor and under-floor or stage effect.

The standard F-10 i/o tile is fully Indoor use ready. It is a mesh surface and therefore transparent, and excellent for creative indoor work including scenic elements - and also for IMAG displays. The tile dimensions are 50 x 50 cm each of which is super lightweight at only 7 Kg! (28 Kg/sqm)

For outdoor use, Pixled offers optional 'clickable outdoor shaders' which are quickly fitted onto the mesh tiles and include blank panels to 'close' the modules an

UK - Specialist manufacturer Robolights, has recently relocated to new premises in the South West. Robolights' Julian Baycock explained to LSI the reasons for the move: "An ideal premises for our company became available in Exeter allowing us to bring our manufacturing, fabrication, warehousing and administration all under one roof. The well equipped building will enable us to increase our capacity and range of services whilst continuing to serve our ever growing UK and overseas customer base."

Although Robolights is well known throughout the industry for its Smart Socket and other award winning products, a large part of the company's business is the manufacture and assembly of specialist facility panels, power distribution, system control panels and other bespoke items.

Over the years Robolights has manufactured numerous production lighting and audio / AV boxes that

South Africa - The Avolites Titan Training Course, comprising of two two-day sessions in Johannesburg (DWR Distribution Offices), and a one two-day session in Cape Town (The Arena Crew Lounge at the GrandWest Casino), was well attended by delegates fromacross South Africa and Namibia.

The course, presented by Avolites' Emma Thompson and assisted by DWR's Nick Britz, was fully booked with an estimated 20 enthusiastic delegates per day who brought along their own consoles and laptops for visualisers.

"It was really good," said Emma Thompson, who was visiting South Africa for the first time. "At times it was difficult having two different levels of students, some complete beginners to lighting, and some really advanced programmers, but I found I could show even the more experienced users some new tricks. Because I love the software it's great to train on, and it's

UK - Respected UK lighting designer Johanna Town used Philips Selecon PL1 LED luminaires to great effect on Wiki play, Man in the Middle by Ron Elisha.

Staged at Theatre 503 in London, the play is a fast paced journey through the key events of Julian Assange's turbulent life. Each Wiki style scene moves dynamically to the next to arrive at a totally different time or place in his life. From boardrooms to bedrooms, offices to torture chambers, and student flats to hotel rooms, no scene is set for very long.

This presents Town with a tough job - to set a convincing environment for each scene, and to ensure they flow seamlessly from one to the next.

A back and front-lit rear projection screen is the key vehicle by which the time, mood and atmosphere of each busy scene was set. Everything else on the stage - the scenery, the props and even the actors - generally had more

UK - Internationally respected lighting designer Richard Pilbrow has called the annual Knight of Illumination Awards "the most valuable gift to the entire lighting profession".

British-born Pilbrow, who now lives in America, is joint founder of the Association of British Theatre Technicians, Society of Theatre Consultants, The Society of British Theatre Designers, and the Association of Lighting Designers.

He has won countless awards, including the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award in Lighting Design from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Association of British Theatre Technicians Technician of the Year (2000), Lighting Designer of the Year by Lighting Dimensions Magazine (2005), The Wally Russell Foundation Wally Russell Lifetime Achievement Award (2008), and was honoured at last year's Knight of Illumination Awards with a Lifetime Achieveme

USA / Denmark - Phish lighting designer Chris Kuroda (Aerosmith, The Black Crowes, R. Kelly) has a couple of associations to Denmark. One is that he happened to be in Copenhagen on that June day in 1992 when Denmark won the UEFA European Football Championship.

Another is the fact that he is an admirer of Martin Professional lighting gear and has used Martin's 1500-watt MAC III Profile on Phish shows since 2009 - the second Phish tour using the fixture having wrapped up in December.

"It's the perfect fixture for Phish," says Kuroda, who has been with the band for so long - 24 years - that he is considered the fifth member of the group. "Upstaging pointed us to the MAC III Profile and it was a good decision. Brad Haynes at Martin has also been incredibly helpful."

Kuroda has 45 MAC III Profiles placed liberally across the set and uses them for different pur

UK - Newly launched entertainment technology installation company Push the Button Ltd has installed a new ETC dimming and control system into London's famous Royal Court Theatre, with no disruption to the venues busy programme of shows and events.

Push the Button - or PTB - came onto the scene in January 2012 with a mission to provide "an intelligent and sympathetic technical approach to all of its projects and clients". With an inaugural job at what the New York Times calls 'the most important theatre in Europe', PTBs managing director Nick Ewins and his team certainly didn't waste any time making their mark.

Matt Drury, head of lighting for The Royal Court concurs: "The Royal Court receives and considers an extraordinary quantity of new work and each year presents an ambitious programme across its two venues. It's therefore of paramount importance to us that o

Germany - Aside from its range of lighting equipment for theatre, opera and corporate event markets, Robert Juliat will be previewing two new profile ranges at Prolight + Sound 2012 in readiness for their launch later in the year.

On the stand will be the Lancelot 4000W HTI stadium effects projector, the successful 1800W MSR Victor followspot and, just to show that LED has not completely replaced tungsten, the Cink 325LF 2000W tungsten Fresnel which adds the 'traditional touch' to any lighting design. And, one year after the first occasion, the Robert Juliat stand will be lit using the low power, high output, award-winning Aledin fixtures.

After successfully introducing the first framing spotlight with integrated LED light engine in 2010, Robert Juliat is now previewing two innovative ranges of profile spots that combine excellent dimming with homogenous projection quality.

Germany - In the new ilumo range of LED Spotlights the way in which the colour engine handles colour palettes has solved the old problem of intermediate colour being outputted by the LED Fixture during the fade when changing between colours, says Lumonic.

Lumonic, based in Manchester UK, believe they may well be the first company to offer the professional lighting engineer a virtually 'seamless fade' when moving from colour to colour.

This technological breakthrough affords a new level of control and creativity, says the company.

The ilumo ZOOM LED Spot is now in production and will be featured at ProLight+Sound on the Sonoss Stand F45, Hall 9.

(Jim Evans)

Germany - ArKaos will bring two new innovations at this year's Prolight+Sound - the ArKaos Hub, an intelligent network monitor software for media servers running MediaMaster Pro and a new revolutionary Video Mapping Software making its first public appearance at the show.

ArKaos Hub is an application specifically designed to monitor the state of multiple servers running MediaMaster in Fixture Mode. It can also send configurable commands to any video switchers connected to Ethernet using a TCP/IP address.

However, ArKaos Hub's key function is as a real-time backup system that gives instantaneous protection against server failure.

Currently, a backup system requires two servers running ArKaos MediaMaster simultaneously with the same set of visuals and receiving the same DMX commands to produce the same video stream. Any failure of a server necessitates a physical rewiring of t

Sweden - LumenRadio reports that all Robe's Robin 1200 LEDWash product will come with the award-winning CRMX technology as standard.

Robe's track record as a constant innovator also influenced their choice of a wireless technology partner. Not only did they demand the most reliable and best performing wireless system, but their R&D team also wanted to the stretch the envelope by finding a partner that was at the forefront of developing such emerging technologies as RDM (Remote Device Management), RDM over Art-Net and Streaming ACN. An exclusive development program with LumenRadio based on a customized version of the CRMX technology platform became the obvious choice.

"We have collaborated with Robe for over two years and the partnership was a natural step for both companies. The Robin fixtures have truly established themselves as market leading products in their category.

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