Every January, Tour Tech East in Halifax, Nova Scotia hosts a mini trade show and maxi charity event and party benefiting AIDS research. If you've never been then you owe it to yourself to make a point of going. It's a great way to get some quality time with different people in the industry and to help support a worthy cause at the same time.

When LD Lee Rose of Design Partners first lit Dick Clark's New Years Rockin' Eve, Ronald Reagan was in the White House and Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show. For 2010, the NYRE show featured The Black Eyed Peas, pictured above, plus Colbie Caillat, Robin Thicke, Keri Hilson, Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber - and, once again, Lee Rose as LD.

Paramore's popularity in the U.K. has grown since the film Twilight featured "Decode" on the soundtrack. That left LD Chad Peters with a dual challenge: find fixtures bright enough for arena-sized venues, yet still meet the band's strong "green" preference.

Blackpool's city council was looking to encourage people to linger in the downtown area and take advantage of the area's many restaurants, bars, cafes, clubs and performance venues. They commissioned £3.5 million for a public art projection, Brilliance, which consists of six aluminum-clad arches traversing Birley Street.

PLSN marks its 10th Anniversary with the Feb. 2010 issue. In that time, production companies have morphed, but the crew lists and gear lists haven't changed as much. The most significant changes, in terms of technology, is the integration of video, LEDs, media services and networking in live event production. But one thing that hasn't changed, despite a half-dozen redesigns to its graphic look, is the magazine's commitment to service and innovation , personified by the founder and publisher, Terry Lowe.

How has the live event production industry changed over the last ten years?

 

For starters, it now has PLSN.

 

Ten years ago this month, PLSN launched its very first issue of its now familiar 11-inch-by-17-inch tabloid-formatted industry news magazine.

And now a word from Terry Lowe, the publisher of what you're reading - and how it did not exist 10 years and one month ago. "Many of our competitors tried to spin it that we were just a flash in the pan, but 10 years later we're still cranking out the magazine and continuing to be important to those in the lighting and staging industry."

LD Mamo Pozzoli used Martin's LC Series panels in a cylindrical configuration for Gianna Nannini's 15-date GiannaDream tour. The LED structure is positioned at center stage and serves as the visual centerpiece of the set.

Video control solutions specialist SNP Productions supplied video rental house Creative Technology with two Catalyst v4 PRO media servers with 250 Gb hard drives for the Pet Shop Boys' Pandemonium world tour, for which CT was the video contractor.

LOS ANGELES - A few years ago, Paul O'Neil's Trans Siberian Orchestra (TSO) did shows in small theatres, two or three times a week. Now, the dual touring productions do two arena-sized shows a day on both the East and West coast, a challenge even to Chaos Visual Productions, which is used to handling video for large shows.

Large-scale projections designed by Ross Ashton helped bring the year-long celebration for Cambridge University's 800th year to a close. Called Transforming Tomorrow, the light shows were projected onto Cambridge's Senate House and adjacent Old School, and also part of Kings College Chapel and the nearby Gibbs Building.

Lighting Co.
See Factor Industry

Venue
T5
New York, N.Y.

Lighting Co.
PRG/Los Angeles; BP Productions

Venue
Bayside Church
Roseville, Calif.

 

Lighting Co.
Deep South Productions

Venue
Ford Park Amphitheater
Beaumont, Texas

Lighting Co.
Electronic Sales & Production

Venue
EXDO Event Center
Denver, Colo.

Lighting Co.
House rig

Venue
Resorts Hotel and Casino
Atlantic City, N.J.

Lighting Co.
One Step Productions

Venue
Mayo Civic Center
Rochester, Minn.

With so many Broadway shows becoming glossier and more high tech, it can be difficult for smaller shows to compete with bigger production values. The solution? Bring in people who work on those larger shows, which is what The Happy Embalmer director Kelly Devine did when she mounted her catchy, off-the-wall musical at the New York Musical Theater Festival last fall.

U2 has never been afraid to explore new avenues in production technology. Their 1997-98 PopMart tour broke new technological ground by using an LED video display screen rather than video projectors. Their Vertigo tour in 2005-06 introduced the concept of spherical LED pixels in a beaded curtain look.

When the company that paved the road for the era of automated lighting and drove down the highway of that technology on cruise control for more than 25 years suddenly takes a left turn at the intersection of LED Boulevard and Automated Lighting Way, it's bound to turn some heads.

To download a PDF of the Feb. 2010 PLSN Buyers Guide, CLICK HERE.

 

Technology is rapidly changing theatre. Just a few years ago it was almost unheard of to use automated lighting in the theatre, but now it's commonplace. Soon afterwards, projection started transforming scenic design. Now automation is spreading through the theatres around the world from middle schools to Broadway.  

It's not unusual for manufacturers to promote their products as "innovative." It is, however, unusual for the products to actually be innovative. But the new Lightlock, developed by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and manufactured by Total Structures, actually is a very innovative idea with a very practical purpose - it dampens the centrifugal force of rotation produced by moving lights as they pan on flown structures.

For want of a better phrase, call it the sports-bar syndrome. Yep, every monitor on the wall looks a bit different, yet they're all showing the same game. The football gridiron's too yellow over there, and too red over here. And why is Terry Bradshaw so green?

"Nice house. Would you like to see it with Ionic instead of Doric columns? No problem. Click." That conversation is not uncommon when architects or real estate developers and clients are working with scale models or 3-D animation. But imagine what it would be like when the scale was 1:1, no matter how big the building.

Automated lighting consoles have several innovative functions to help the programmer, many of which have become commonplace. One of these is called "fan" or "align." In the simplest terms, this is a tool that mathematically spreads parameter values in even proportions.

Over the holidays I reread The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. The last chapter is entitled "Sharpening the Saw," which is a reference to a story about a woodsman who is busy sawing down a tree. He's been at it for hours, and he's exhausted. Someone happens upon him and asks why he doesn't stop and sharpen his saw. "I don't have time to sharpen the saw," he says, "I'm too busy sawing!"

I think the majority of us in the lighting business are not too sorry to see 2009 end. We all seemed to work a bit less last year. I ran into my buddy, John Featherstone, at a convention center last month and we spoke about the workload last year. "The thing that was key for me was that our company is so diversified in the types of projects we obtain," he said.

Rose Brand is offering tips on installation techniques and design options for Neoflex on the company's blog at http://blog.RoseBrand.com .

American DJ's P64 LED Plus updates the company's P64 LED par can with master/slave capabilities. Now, all it takes is a 3-pin XLR cable to link multiple units of the fixture together, and they will all follow a "master" program making it easier for users to produce a synchronized light show.

Vaddio's UXHD CrossPoint, a dual input, dual output video format converter and scaler for HD-SDI and analog video signals, was originally designed as a companion piece for the ProductionVIEW HD-SDI console. It's designed to fill the continuing need to support analog video equipment such as projectors, monitors, computers and video-playback devices that don't support SDI.

Two updated training guides are now available for users of Vectorworks software. The guides, 3D Modeling in Vectorworks, Second Edition and Vectorworks Landmark Tutorial Manual, Second Edition, were both written by Vectorworks user and author Jonathan Pickup.

Stage Research's SoftPlot 9.2 is now compatible with Windows 7 and Windows Vista. A new HTML Help viewer displays SoftPlot Help documents on Vista and later operating systems.

GDS (Global Design Solutions) is adding to its LiteWare range with LiteWare HO (High Output). LiteWare HO is an 80-watt version of its LiteWare wireless RGB uplighter introduced last year. It is compatible with the existing LiteWare range, shares the same footprint, and is calibrated to deliver color-matched output. It has an operational run time of 12 hours and will be available in late March.

ETC's Fire and Ice are color-spectrum-specific LED fixtures added to the company's Selador Vivid line. Fire features a warm wash of saturated reds, oranges and ambers. Ice provides, in one fixture, a palette of deep indigo, blue, cyan, green (and a touch of red).

LED specialist i-Pix has developed a new 4 and 6 lamp Power Bar, to which its new BB1 LED fixtures can be fitted. The product is designed as a portable lighting solution for film and TV shoots, live concerts and performances on small stages, site-specific theatre, exhibitions and conferences, etc.

Multiform is targeting small bands, dance groups, mobile DJs and others with its MultiBar LED lighting system. The MultiBar system includes four MultiSpot Eco RGB fixtures, mounted on a 1-meter extruded aluminum cross bar housing the 16 Channel DMX-controlled power supply. With a mains input of 90-250 V at 50/60 Hz, the MultiBar is geared for international use.

Johnson Systems Inc. (JSI) recently introduced the JSI CD-3000 retrofit control system for Strand CD80 and Strand C21 Series dimmer racks. An expanded version of the "system-on-a-chip" technology used in the company's JS-ICON Series dimmer/relay racks, the company says its new CD-3000 retrofit control system has been tested with six months of field installation.

Cast Software's Vivien 2010 Virtual Event Designer is available for download (to members only). Vivien is a 3D event design and sales software designed and built by Cast Software (makers of Wysiwyg).

Enttec Pty of Melbourne, Australia has entered the LED engine market with the introduction of the Aleph 1 series of LED linear strips. Available in warm white, cool white and RGB, the powered strips are available in 300mm, 600mm and 900mm lengths.

The Legend 1200E Spot and Wash fixtures from Chauvet feature a 1,200-watt FastFit lamp and CMY color mixing. The Spot includes two indexed, rotating gobo wheels, both fitted with six glass slot-n-lock gobos.

Elation's new Opti 30 UV, a blacklight powered by 12 1-watt UV LEDs, runs on 20 watts from 100V to 240V, 47-63 Hz. It can be operated manually or with two channels of DMX.

FocusTrack, the lighting software for manual documentation of focuses and of cue-by-cue focus summaries, has added QuickFocus for documenting and viewing the use of each moving light in every cue.

Gerriets has expanded its Formtex line with the new Formtex Basic. Formtex is a scenic product that combines the appearance of textile with the formable characteristics of aluminum sheeting.

Guard Dog Low Profile top-loading cable protectors are available in 1-, 2-, 3-, or 5-channel models. They are 1.25" high with a .75" channel height and feature Dog-Bone connectors for modular interconnectivity and storage.

The JBLED A4 from JB Lighting is a compact LED moving head fixture designed for use on smaller stages, clubs and other smaller venues. The A4 contains 60 Luxeon LEDs and features the same 8°-28° optical zoom system found in the JBLED A7.

SnowMasters Special Effects Studios' Zig Oscillator allows special effects equipment to be mounted and oscillated up to 90 degrees, including snow, bubbles, smoke, scent and more.

Synthe FX has announced Luminair 2.0 wireless multi-touch DMX control software for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It uses Art-Net protocol to control compatible lighting and media server equipment using the internal Wi-Fi hardware.

Analog Way's Orchestra Remote Controller is designed to independently or simultaneously manage several switchers such as Di-VentiX II as well as the new Opus system, either as stand-alone boxes or as any combination, including soft-edge blending.

Arena Electrol from Da-Lite Screen Company is a motorized projection screen available in widths over 39 feet for large venues. It is designed with a built-in balancing system and steel cable guides for smooth, even screen retraction and a flat viewing surface.

PowerPix from EldoLED are strings of RGBW LED pixels for general illumination or graphics applications. The DMX-compatible units have "power scaling" technology for a continuous 5W output.

GefenTV is now shipping its Wireless for HDMI 60 GHz extender. This sender/receiver system is the fourth product from Gefen offering wireless video connectivity.

StarTech.com has launched three new products in its Converge A/V "UTPE series" family of VGA over Cat 5 Extender devices, designed to extend and split VGA video using Cat 5 cable between the transmitting and display points.