Upstairs, there was entertainment technology aplenty, with the hall dominated by a number of the country's leading distributors. Impact is one of the major presences, representing brands such as Prolyte, EAW, MA Lighting (reporting continued strong business), Robe Show Lighting, a wide range of LED lighting effects from Pulsar and Color Kinetics, DMX tools from ELC Lighting, the Pandora's Box media server from Coolux, stands and other hardware from Doughty, scrollers from Rainbow and hoists from Verlinde. Nearby, another major presence, CSI, boasted a similar array of leading names: LED screens form Lighthouse, LED effects from Element Labs and OptiLED, the Hippotizer media server from Green Hippo, and lights from Xilver, PR Lighting and, of course, Vari-Lite.
ADB had a strong presence: its Warp fixture is now in full production, including the impressive motorized version, which includes the 'move in silence' feature. This means the motors take full advantage of the time available to move the fixture as slowly - and therefore as quietly - as is possible from one position to the next. Silence is helped by the fanless construction.
On the stand of another leading distributor, ESL, Artistic Licence showed, among other things, the PixiCloth - the backcloth studded with the company's PixiLite LED units and offering a versatile range of effects. Also at ESL, A.C. Lighting's concentration was on the Jands Vista lighting control console, (now available with the final shipping software), and the Chroma-Q Color Block LED fixture (see news, L&SI January 2005). Incidentally, during Siel, over 40 Color Block units were in use nearby in the lighting rig for French superstar crooner, Michel Sardou.Israeli manufacturer Compulite, on the stand of distributor Crystal Equipement, was showing its Vector Green lighting control console - except that in France, it isn't green, but purple. It seems like the colour green is to the French stage world what the word 'Macbeth' is to the English - hence no Vector Green. However, this aside, Compulite's Yehuda Shukrun was in fine spirits and reporting good business for the company's console range.
ETC Europe showed the new control console from its joint development with Avab. The Congo has been designed "to be the most complete theatre and moving light hybrid - without losing the feel of a classic lighting control system," according to Avab software developer Anders Ekvall.
Anycolour is doing some great business in the architectural and retail sectors with its simple but reliable fluorescent-based colour-changing systems. The company showed the latest additions, a wall-mounting memory unit which can store and replay 56 colour cycles, and the Anyscene, which can save and recall 56 scenes of DMX data. Both are controlled via an IR handset.
Apollo Design, the US manufacturer of gels, gobos, scrollers and accessories, was promoting its own growing range of products and also the formation of a new sister company, Blue Pony Digital Inc, which offers custom digital content for live and staged entertainment applications. Sharing stand space with Apollo was Optima Lighting, a company based in Long Island, but with manufacturing in Romania. The company's Matrix 300 moving head is aimed at TV studios, clubs, live production and mobile DJ applications. Features include an 11-colour wheel with UV plus white, 11 fixed gobos, eight rotating gobos (indexable and replaceable), high-precision movement and optical encoder
